Quantum distillation: dynamical generation of low-entropy states of strongly correlated fermions in an optical lattice

Abstract

Correlations between particles can lead to subtle and sometimes counterintuitive phenomena. We analyze one such case, occurring during the sudden expansion of fermions in a lattice when the initial state has a strong admixture of double occupancies. We promote the notion of quantum distillation: during the expansion, and in the presence of strongly repulsive interactions, doublons group together, forming a nearly ideal band insulator, which is metastable with a low entropy. We propose that this effect could be used for cooling purposes in experiments with two-component Fermi gases.

Final version as published, minor revisions, more discussion on the cooling proposal, includes auxiliary material (EPAPS), 7 pages Revtex 4, 12 eps figures

References in corpus (13)

• Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases
• Real time evolution using the density matrix renormalization group
• Non-equilibrium coherence dynamics in one-dimensional Bose gases
• Exact coherent states of a harmonically confined Tonks-Girardeau gas
• The quasi-periodic Bose-Hubbard model and localization in one-dimensional cold atomic gases
• Fermionization in an expanding 1D gas of hard-core bosons
• Metastable superfluidity of repulsive fermionic atoms in optical lattices
• Emergence of quasi-condensates of hard-core bosons at finite momentum
• Quantum Monte Carlo study of confined fermions in one-dimensional optical lattices
• Time evolution of one-dimensional Quantum Many Body Systems
• Free expansion of impenetrable bosons on one-dimensional optical lattices
• Ground-state reference systems for expanding correlated fermions in one dimension
• Numerical simulations of strongly correlated fermions confined in 1D optical lattices