Light-induced gauge fields for ultracold atoms

Understand

Gauge fields are central in our modern understanding of physics at all scales.

• At the highest energy scales known, the microscopic universe is governed by particles interacting with each other through the exchange of gauge bosons.
• At the largest length scales, our universe is ruled by gravity, whose gauge structure suggests the existence of a particle - the graviton - that mediates the gravitational force.
• At the mesoscopic scale, solid-state systems are subjected to gauge fields of different nature: materials can be immersed in external electromagnetic fields, but they can also feature emerging gauge fields in their low-energy description.