Laser-induced Kondo effect in ultracold alkaline-earth fermions

Abstract: We demonstrate that laser excitations can coherently induce a novel Kondo effect in ultracold atoms in optical lattices. Using a model of alkaline-earth fermions with two orbitals, it is shown that the optically coupled two internal states are dynamically entangled to form the Kondo-singlet state, overcoming the heating effect due to the irradiation. Furthermore, a lack of SU($N$) symmetry in the optical coupling provides a peculiar feature in the Kondo effect, which results in spin-selective renormalization of effective masses. We also discuss effects of interorbital exchange interactions, and reveal that they induce novel crossover or reentrant behavior of the Kondo effect owing to control of the coupling anisotropy. The laser-induced Kondo effect is highly controllable by tuning the laser strength and the frequency, and thus offers a versatile platform to study the Kondo physics using ultracold atoms.