Influence of the trap shape on the superfluid-Mott transition in ultracold atomic gases

Abstract

The coexistence of superfluid and Mott insulator, due to the quadratic confinement potential in current optical lattice experiments, makes the accurate detection of the superfluid-Mott transition difficult. Studying alternative trapping potentials which are experimentally realizable and have a flatter center, we find that the transition can be better resolved, but at the cost of a more difficult tuning of the particle filling. When mapping out the phase diagram using local probes and the local density approximation we find that the smoother gradient of the parabolic trap is advantageous.

5 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Observation of antiferromagnetic correlations in the Hubbard model with ultracold atoms
• Enlarging and cooling the Néel state in an optical lattice
• Information measures for a local quantum phase transition: Lattice fermions in a one-dimensional harmonic trap
• Interaction-driven Lifshitz transition with dipolar fermions in optical lattices
• Studying the low-entropy Mott transition of bosons in a three-dimensional optical lattice by measuring the full momentum-space density
• Density redistribution effects in fermionic optical lattices