Optical spin conductivity in ultracold quantum gases

Sekino, Yuta*; Tajima, Hiroyuki*; Uchino, Shun   

We show that the optical spin conductivity being a small AC response of a bulk spin current and elusive in condensed matter systems can be measured in ultracold atoms. We demonstrate that this conductivity contains rich information on quantum states by analyzing experimentally achievable systems. The obtained conductivity spectra being absent in the Drude conductivity reflect quasiparticle excitations and non-Fermi liquid properties. Unlike its mass transport counterpart, the spin conductivity serves as a probe applicable to clean atomic gases without disorder and lattice potentials. Our formalism can be generalized to various systems such as spin-orbit coupled and nonequilibrium systems.