Wang, BinZheng, ZhenPu, HanZou, XuboGuo, Guangcan2017-05-032017-05-032016Wang, Bin, Zheng, Zhen, Pu, Han, et al.. "Effective p-wave interaction and topological superfluids in s-wave quantum gases." <i>Physical Review A,</i> 93, no. 3 (2016) American Physical Society: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.031602.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/94128p-wave interaction in cold atoms may give rise to exotic topological superfluids. However, the realization of p-wave interaction in a cold atom system is experimentally challenging. Here we propose a simple scheme to synthesize effective p-wave interaction in conventional s-wave interacting quantum gases. The key idea is to load atoms into a spin-dependent optical lattice potential. Using two concrete examples involving spin-1/2 fermions, we show how the original system can be mapped into a model describing spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor p-wave interaction, whose ground state can be a topological superfluid that supports Majorana fermions under proper conditions. Our proposal has the advantage that it does not require spin-orbit coupling or loading atoms onto higher orbitals, which is the key in earlier proposals to synthesize effective p-wave interaction in s-wave quantum gases, and may provide a completely new route for realizing p-wave topological superfluids.engArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.Journal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.031602