Probing correlated phases of bosons in optical lattices via trap squeezing

Abstract

We theoretically analyze the response properties of ultracold bosons in optical lattices to the static variation of the trapping potential. We show that, upon an increase of such potential (trap squeezing), the density variations in a central region, with linear size of >~ 10 wavelengths, reflect that of the bulk system upon changing the chemical potential: hence measuring the density variations gives direct access to the bulk compressibility. When combined with standard time-of-flight measurements, this approach has the potential of unambiguously detecting the appearence of the most fundamental phases realized by bosons in optical lattices, with or without further external potentials: superfluid, Mott insulator, band insulator and Bose glass.

4 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Scaling of the gap, fidelity susceptibility, and Bloch oscillations across the superfluid to Mott insulator transition in the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model
• State diagrams for harmonically trapped bosons in optical lattices
• Direct mapping of the finite temperature phase diagram of strongly correlated quantum models
• Breakdown of adiabaticity when loading ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices
• Localization of phonons in ion traps with controlled quantum disorder
• Trap modulation spectroscopy of the Mott-insulator transition in optical lattices
• Correlation function of weakly interacting bosons in a disordered lattice
• Superfluid phases induced by the dipolar interactions
• Enhanced compressibility due to repulsive interaction in the Harper model
• Recent progress on quantum simulations of non-standard Bose-Hubbard models
• Finding the phase diagram of strongly-correlated disordered bosons using quantum quenches
• Exploring the grand-canonical phase diagram of interacting bosons in optical lattices by trap squeezing
• Boson Core Compressibility
• Correlated bosons in a one-dimensional optical lattice: Effects of the trapping potential and of quasiperiodic disorder
• Extracting the Mott gap from energy measurements in trapped atomic gases
• Disorder in low dimensions: localisation effects in spin glass wires and cold atoms