arXiv:1107.1803 · Physical Review Letters
Precision Measurements on a Tunable Mott Insulator of Ultracold Atoms
Manfred J. Mark, Elmar Haller, Katharina Lauber, Johann Georg Danzl, Andrew J. Daley, Hanns‐Christoph Nägerl
Abstract
We perform precision measurements on a Mott-insulator quantum state of ultracold atoms with tunable interactions. We probe the dependence of the superfluid-to-Mott-insulator transition on the interaction strength and explore the limits of the standard Bose-Hubbard model description. By tuning the on-site interaction energies to values comparable to the interband separation, we are able to quantitatively measure number-dependent shifts in the excitation spectrum caused by effective multibody interactions.