Observation of Magnetic Polarons in a Triangular Hubbard Model with Kinetic Frustration

Itinerant spin polarons - bound quasiparticle states of magnons and charge dopants - have been predicted to emerge in two-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard models with frustration. These polarons are expected to be robust even at high temperatures since their binding energy is on the tunneling rather than the superexchange energy scale. I present results from the Princeton group's atomic triangular Fermi-Hubbard quantum simulator, which incorporates a bilayer imaging technique that allows us to access arbitrary n-point spin and charge correlation functions. Over a wide range of interactions, we observe the enhancement of antiferromagnetic ordering in the local environment of a hole dopant. Around a charge dopant, we witness enhanced ferromagnetic correlations, constituting a direct observation of Nagaoka polarons in an extended system. Additionally, higher order 4-point correlations allow us to directly compare the strengths of kinetic and superexchange magnetism in our system. Our results pave the path to studying more complex multi-particle bound states that can lead to hole pairing at high temperatures in frustrated systems.