Intrinsic spin angular-momentum coupling of an electron has a relativistic quantum origin with the coupling arising from charged orbits, which does not carry over to charge-neutral atoms. Here, we propose a mechanism of spontaneous generation of spin angular-momentum coupling with spinor atomic bosons loaded into $p$-orbital bands of a two-dimensional optical lattice. This spin angular-momentum coupling originates from many-body correlations and spontaneous symmetry breaking in a superfluid, with the key ingredients attributed to spin-channel quantum fluctuations and an approximate rotation symmetry. The resultant spin angular-momentum intertwined superfluid has Dirac excitations. In the presence of a chemical potential difference for adjacent sites, it provides a bosonic analogue of a symmetry-protected-topological insulator. Through a dynamical mean-field calculation, this novel superfluid is found to be a generic low-temperature phase, and it gives way to Mott localization only at strong interactions and even-integer fillings. We show the temperature to reach this order is accessible with present experiments.

• Received 24 March 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.093401