Effective three-body interactions in triangular optical lattices

We demonstrate that a triangular optical lattice of two atomic species, bosonic or fermionic, can be employed to generate a variety of spin-1/2 Hamiltonians. These include effective three-spin interactions resulting from the possibility of atoms tunneling along two different paths. Such interactions can be employed to simulate particular one- or two-dimensional physical systems with ground states that possess a rich structure and undergo a variety of quantum phase transitions. In addition, tunneling can be activated by employing Raman transitions, thus creating an effective Hamiltonian that does not preserve the number of atoms of each species. In the presence of external electromagnetic fields, resulting in complex tunneling couplings, we obtain effective Hamiltonians that break chiral symmetry. The ground states of these Hamiltonians can be used for the physical implementation of geometrical or topological objects.