Confinement: a real-time visualization (1111.0275v2)

Abstract: Due to the mechanism of confinement, as known from quantum chromodynamics, it is difficult to observe individual particles carrying fractional quantum number (e.g. quark with fractional electric charge). A condensed matter example of fractionalized particles is spinons in quasi-one-dimensional spin systems, which are domain walls in the background of Neel configurations carrying spin-1/2. Using the time-evolving block decimation algorithm, we visualize the nontrivial domain wall dynamics induced by the confine mechanism in a two-leg spin-1/2 ladder. It can be illustrated by a simple single-particle picture of Bloch oscillation, not only qualitatively but also quantitatively. We propose the experimental realization and the real time detection of the domain wall dynamics in the ultra-cold boson systems of $^{87}$Rb.