Quantum magnetism of spinor bosons in optical lattices with synthetic non-Abelian gauge fields

We study quantum magnetism of interacting spinor bosons at integer fillings hopping in a square lattice in the presence of non-Abelian gauge fields. In the strong-coupling limit, this leads to the rotated ferromagnetic Heisenberg model, which is a new class of quantum spin model. We introduce Wilson loops to characterize frustrations and gauge equivalent classes. For a special equivalent class, we identify a spin-orbital entangled commensurate ground state. It supports not only commensurate magnons, but also a gapped elementary excitation: incommensurate magnons with two gap minima continuously tuned by the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) strength. At low temperatures, these magnons lead to dramatic effects in many physical quantities such as density of states, specific heat, magnetization, uniform susceptibility, staggered susceptibility, and various spin-correlation functions. The commensurate magnons lead to a pinned central peak in the angle-resolved light or atom Bragg spectroscopy. However, the incommensurate magnons split it into two located at their two gap minima. At high temperatures, the transverse spin-structure factors depend on the SOC strength explicitly. The whole set of Wilson loops can be mapped out by measuring the specific heat at the corresponding orders in the high-temperature expansion. We argue that one gauge may be realized in current experiments and other gauges may also be realized in future experiments. The results achieved along the exact solvable line sets up the stage to investigate dramatic effects when tuning away from it by various means. We sketch the crucial roles to be played by these magnons at other equivalent classes, with spin anisotropic interactions and in the presence of finite magnetic fields. Various experimental detections of these phenomena are discussed.