Probing ferromagnetic order in few-fermion correlated spin-flip dynamics

Abstract

We unravel the dynamical stability of a fully polarized one-dimensional ultracold few-fermion spin-1/2 gas subjected to inhomogeneous driving of the itinerant spins. Despite the unstable character of the total spin-polarization the existence of an interaction regime is demonstrated where the spin-correlations lead to almost maximally aligned spins throughout the dynamics. The resulting ferromagnetic order emerges from the build up of superpositions of states of maximal total spin. They comprise a decaying spin-polarization and a dynamical evolution towards an almost completely unpolarized NOON-like state. Via single-shot simulations we demonstrate that our theoretical predictions can be detected in state-of-the-art ultracold experiments.

Keywords

• ultracold fermions
• quantum gases
• quantum magnetism
• ferromagnetism
• out-of-equillibrium dynamics
• few-body systems