Superfluid-insulator transition in a moving system of interacting bosons

Abstract

We analyze stability of superfluid currents in a system of strongly interacting ultra-cold atoms in an optical lattice. We show that such a system undergoes a dynamic, irreversible phase transition at a critical phase gradient that depends on the interaction strength between atoms. At commensurate filling, the phase boundary continuously interpolates between the classical modulation instability of a weakly interacting condensate and the equilibrium quantum phase transition into a Mott insulator state at which the critical current vanishes. We argue that quantum fluctuations smear the transition boundary in low dimensional systems. Finally we discuss the implications to realistic experiments.

updated refernces and introduction, minor corrections

References in corpus (2)

• Non-equilibrium Gross-Pitaevskii dynamics of boson lattice models
• Effect of quantum fluctuations on the dipolar motion of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Interaction-controlled transport of an ultracold Fermi gas
• Slow Mass Transport and Statistical Evolution of An Atomic Gas Across the Superfluid-Mott Insulator Transition
• Dynamical instability of the XY spiral state of ferromagnetic condensates
• Dynamical instabilities of Bose-Einstein condensates at the band-edge in one-dimensional optical lattices
• Collective modes and superflow instabilities of strongly correlated Fermi superfluids
• Stability of Superflow for Ultracold Fermions in Optical Lattices
• Dipole oscillations of confined lattice bosons in one dimension
• Emergence of superfluid transport in a dynamical system of ultracold atoms
• Coarse-Grained Finite-Temperature Theory for the Condensate in Optical Lattices
• Nonclassical dynamics of Bose condensates in an optical lattice in the superfluid regime