Cold-atom quantum simulation of U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs model

We discuss the possible methods to construct a quantum simulator of the U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs model using cold atoms in an optical lattice. These methods require no severe fine tunings of parameters of atomic-interactions in contrast with the other previous literature. We propose some realistic experimental setups to realize the atomic quantum simulator of the U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs model in a two-dimensional optical lattice. Our target gauge-Higgs model has a nontrivial phase structure, i.e., existence of the phase boundary between confinement and Higgs phases, and this phase boundary is to be observed by cold-atom experiments. As a reference to such experiments, we make numerical simulations of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation and observe the real-time dynamics of the atomic simulators. Clarification of the dynamics of this gauge-Higgs model sheds some lights upon various unsolved problems including the inflation process of the early universe.