title: Spontaneous Increase of Magnetic Flux and Chiral-Current Reversal in Bosonic Ladders: Swimming against the Tide.
abstract: The interplay between spontaneous symmetry breaking in many-body systems, the wavelike nature of quantum particles and lattice effects produces an extraordinary behavior of the chiral current of bosonic particles in the presence of a uniform magnetic flux defined on a two-leg ladder. While noninteracting as well as strongly interacting particles, stirred by the magnetic field, circulate along the system's boundary in the counterclockwise direction in the ground state, interactions stabilize vortex lattices. These states break translational symmetry, which can lead to a reversal of the circulation direction. Our predictions could readily be accessed in quantum gas experiments with existing setups or in arrays of Josephson junctions.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, 30167 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Greschner
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80333 München, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Piraud
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80333 München, Germany.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Heidrich-Meisner
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: I P
authors.initials: IP
authors.lastname: McCulloch
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80333 München, Germany.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Schollwöck
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, 30167 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vekua