



01632nas a2200157   4500008004100000245007100041210006900112260001500181300001600196490000800212520114600220100002501366700002601391700002001417856003701437       2013                        eng d00aKitaev honeycomb and other exotic spin models with polar molecules0 aKitaev honeycomb and other exotic spin models with polar molecul  c2013/01/01  a1908 - 19160 v1113 a  We show that ultracold polar molecules pinned in an optical lattice can be
used to access a variety of exotic spin models, including the Kitaev honeycomb
model. Treating each molecule as a rigid rotor, we use DC electric and
microwave fields to define superpositions of rotational levels as effective
spin degrees of freedom, while dipole-dipole interactions give rise to
interactions between the spins. In particular, we show that, with sufficient
microwave control, the interaction between two spins can be written as a sum of
five independently controllable Hamiltonian terms proportional to the five
rank-2 spherical harmonics Y_{2,q}(theta,phi), where (theta,phi) are the
spherical coordinates of the vector connecting the two molecules. To
demonstrate the potential of this approach beyond the simplest examples studied
in [S. R. Manmana et al., arXiv:1210.5518v2], we focus on the realization of
the Kitaev honeycomb model, which can support exotic non-Abelian anyonic
excitations. We also discuss the possibility of generating spin Hamiltonians
with arbitrary spin S, including those exhibiting SU(N=2S+1) symmetry.
1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V.1 aHazzard, Kaden, R. A.1 aRey, Ana, Maria  uhttp://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5636v1