arXiv:0802.1618 · Physical Review A
Coupling of electronic and motional dynamics in a cold-atom optical lattice
Hashem Zoubi, Helmut Ritsch
Abstract
We study the coupling of resonant electronic excitations to vibrational center-of-mass motion of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice, when ground- and excited-state optical potentials differ. On-site excitation-vibration coupling can be approximately treated by renormalizing the effective transition energy, which appears, e.g., in lattice clock setups. In addition the dipole-dipole coupling between neighboring sites mediates emission and absorption of vibrational quanta in conjunction with optical transitions. This mechanism for excitation of vibrations can lead to significant heating of the lattice atoms motion during resonant light interaction. We calculate estimates of the corresponding parameters for a gas in the Mott-insulator state from a perturbation expansion in small atomic displacements.