Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1301.2803 · Physical Review A

Heating dynamics of bosonic atoms in a noisy optical lattice

Hannes Pichler, Johannes Schachenmayer, Andrew J. Daley, P. Zoller

Published Mar 5, 2013• 49 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We analyze the heating of interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to intensity fluctuations of the lasers forming the lattice. We focus in particular on fluctuations at low frequencies below the band-gap frequency, such that the dynamics is restricted to the lowest band. We derive stochastic equations of motion, and analyze the effects on different many-body states, characterizing heating processes in both strongly and weakly interacting regimes. In the limit where the noise spectrum is flat at low frequencies, we can derive an effective master equation describing the dynamics. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions both in the perturbation theory limit and using a full time-dependent calculation of the stochastic many-body dynamics in one dimension based on time-dependent density-matrix--renormalization-group methods.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.87.033606

Related papers

Nonequilibrium dynamics of bosonic atoms in optical lattices: Decoherence of many-body states due to spontaneous emission

Hannes Pichler, Andrew J. Daley, P. Zoller

We analyze in detail the heating of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to incoherent scattering of light from the lasers forming the lattice. Because atoms scattered into higher bands do not thermalize on the time scale of typical experiments, this process cannot be described by the total energy increase in the system alone (which is determined by single-particle effects). The heating instead involves an important interplay between the atomic physics of the heating process and the many-body physics of the state. We characterize the effects on many-body states for various system parameters, where we observe important differences in the heating for strongly and weakly interacting regimes, as well as a strong dependence on the sign of the laser detuning from the excited atomic state. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions based on both perturbation-theory calculations and a time-dependent calculation of the dissipative many-body dynamics. The latter is made possible for one-dimensional systems by combining time-dependent density-matrix-renormalization-group methods with quantum trajectory techniques.

arXiv:1009.0194•Physical Review A•Dec 6, 2010•186 citations

Spontaneous emission and thermalization of cold bosons in optical lattices

Johannes Schachenmayer, Lode Pollet, Matthias Troyer +1 more

We study the thermalization of excitations generated by spontaneous emission events for cold bosons in an optical lattice. Computing the dynamics described by the many-body master equation, we characterize equilibration time scales in different parameter regimes. For simple observables, we find regimes in which the system relaxes rapidly to values in agreement with a thermal distribution, and others where thermalization does not occur on typical experimental time scales. Because spontaneous emissions lead effectively to a local quantum quench, this behavior is strongly dependent on the low-energy spectrum of the Hamiltonian, and undergoes a qualitative change at the Mott insulator--superfluid transition point. These results have important implications for the understanding of thermalization after localized quenches in isolated quantum gases, as well as the characterization of heating in experiments.

arXiv:1305.1301•Physical Review A•Jan 10, 2014•39 citations

Heating rates for an atom in a far-detuned optical lattice

Fabrice Gerbier, Yvan Castin

We calculate single-atom heating rates in a far-detuned optical lattice, in connection with recent experiments. We first derive a master equation, which includes a realistic atomic internal structure and a quantum treatment of the atomic motion in the lattice. The experimental feature that optical lattices are obtained by superimposing laser standing waves of different frequencies is also included, which leads to a micromotional correction to the light shift that we evaluate. We then calculate, and compare to experimental results, two heating rates, the total heating rate (which corresponds to the increase of the total mechanical energy of the atom in the lattice), and the ground-band heating rate (which corresponds to the increase of energy within the ground energy band of the lattice). The total heating rate remarkably is independent of the atomic state and of the sign of the laser detuning. In contrast, the ground-band heating rate in the deep lattice limit is strongly suppressed for blue-detuned lattices with respect to red-detuned lattices.

arXiv:1002.5018•Physical Review A•Jul 13, 2010•78 citations

Light scattering and dissipative dynamics of many fermionic atoms in an optical lattice

Saubhik Sarkar, S. Langer, Johannes Schachenmayer +1 more

We investigate the many-body dissipative dynamics of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice in the presence of incoherent light scattering. Deriving and solving a master equation to describe this process microscopically for many particles, we observe contrasting behavior in terms of the robustness against this type of heating for different many-body states. In particular, we find that the magnetic correlations exhibited by a two-component gas in the Mott insulating phase should be particularly robust against decoherence from light scattering, because the decoherence in the lowest band is suppressed by a larger factor than the time scales for effective superexchange interactions that drive coherent dynamics. Furthermore, the derived formalism naturally generalizes to analogous states with $\text{SU}(N)$ symmetry. In contrast, for typical atomic and laser parameters, two-particle correlation functions describing bound dimers for strong attractive interactions exhibit superradiant effects due to the indistinguishability of off-resonant photons scattered by atoms in different internal states. This leads to rapid decay of correlations describing off-diagonal long-range order for these states. Our predictions should be directly measurable in ongoing experiments, providing a basis for characterizing and controlling heating processes in quantum simulation with fermions.

arXiv:1405.7336•Physical Review A•Aug 13, 2014•39 citations

Structural Dynamics and Strong Correlations in Dynamical Quantum Optical Lattices

Adrián U. Ramírez-Barajas, Santiago F. Caballero-Benítez

When placing an ultracold atomic gas inside a cavity, the light-matter coupling is enhanced and nonlinear atomic dynamics is generated, offering a promising platform for quantum simulation of models with short- and long-range interactions. Recently, superradiant self-organized phases for ultracold atomic gases inside a cavity, pumped by a blue detuned optical lattice, have been observed. Here, we explore the formation of quantum many-body phases of bosonic atoms inside an optical cavity, subject to transverse blue detuned pumping. We investigate the strongly interacting regime, which can be reached by tuning the s-wave scattering length using external fields. We analyze the interplay between superradiant self-organization with superfluid and Mott insulator phases, without the need of including higher lying bands, as the Wannier functions are dynamically linked to the cavity light via backaction. We observe different kinds of structural phase transitions driven by the light inside the cavity and the interplay with atomic collisions. We observe the mode softening at the critical points in the quantum phase transitions which can be measured in future experiments. We obtain our results within a full self-consistent theoretical framework, the light-matter density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), which employs the computation of light dependent Wannier functions for the full quantum optical lattice in combination with DMRG for the atomic dynamics. The methods introduced here can be used to analyze the effects of strong quantum correlations in strongly interacting light-matter systems.

arXiv:2502.00588•Physical Review Letters•Aug 18, 2025•0 citations

Heating from continuous number density measurements in optical lattices

Yariv Yanay, Erich J. Mueller

We explore the effects of continuous number density measurement on atoms in an optical lattice. By integrating a master equation for quantum observables, we calculate how single-particle correlations decay. We consider weakly and strongly interacting bosons and noninteracting fermions. Even in the Mott regime, such measurements destroy correlations and increase the average energy, as long as some hopping is allowed. We explore the role of spatial resolution and find that the heating rate is proportional to the amount of information gained from such measurements.

arXiv:1405.4825•Physical Review A•Aug 7, 2014•13 citations
We analyze the heating of interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to intensity fluctuations of the lasers forming the lattice. We focus in particular on fluctuations at low frequencies below the band-gap frequency, such that the dynamics is restricted to the lowest band. We derive stochastic equations of motion, and analyze the effects on different many-body states, characterizing heating processes in both strongly and weakly interacting regimes. In the limit where the noise spectrum is flat at low frequencies, we can derive an effective master equation describing the dynamics. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions both in the perturbation theory limit and using a full time-dependent calculation of the stochastic many-body dynamics in one dimension based on time-dependent density-matrix--renormalization-group methods.
We analyze in detail the heating of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to incoherent scattering of light from the lasers forming the lattice. Because atoms scattered into higher bands do not thermalize on the time scale of typical experiments, this process cannot be described by the total energy increase in the system alone (which is determined by single-particle effects). The heating instead involves an important interplay between the atomic physics of the heating process and the many-body physics of the state. We characterize the effects on many-body states for various system parameters, where we observe important differences in the heating for strongly and weakly interacting regimes, as well as a strong dependence on the sign of the laser detuning from the excited atomic state. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions based on both perturbation-theory calculations and a time-dependent calculation of the dissipative many-body dynamics. The latter is made possible for one-dimensional systems by combining time-dependent density-matrix-renormalization-group methods with quantum trajectory techniques.
We study the thermalization of excitations generated by spontaneous emission events for cold bosons in an optical lattice. Computing the dynamics described by the many-body master equation, we characterize equilibration time scales in different parameter regimes. For simple observables, we find regimes in which the system relaxes rapidly to values in agreement with a thermal distribution, and others where thermalization does not occur on typical experimental time scales. Because spontaneous emissions lead effectively to a local quantum quench, this behavior is strongly dependent on the low-energy spectrum of the Hamiltonian, and undergoes a qualitative change at the Mott insulator--superfluid transition point. These results have important implications for the understanding of thermalization after localized quenches in isolated quantum gases, as well as the characterization of heating in experiments.
We calculate single-atom heating rates in a far-detuned optical lattice, in connection with recent experiments. We first derive a master equation, which includes a realistic atomic internal structure and a quantum treatment of the atomic motion in the lattice. The experimental feature that optical lattices are obtained by superimposing laser standing waves of different frequencies is also included, which leads to a micromotional correction to the light shift that we evaluate. We then calculate, and compare to experimental results, two heating rates, the total heating rate (which corresponds to the increase of the total mechanical energy of the atom in the lattice), and the ground-band heating rate (which corresponds to the increase of energy within the ground energy band of the lattice). The total heating rate remarkably is independent of the atomic state and of the sign of the laser detuning. In contrast, the ground-band heating rate in the deep lattice limit is strongly suppressed for blue-detuned lattices with respect to red-detuned lattices.
We investigate the many-body dissipative dynamics of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice in the presence of incoherent light scattering. Deriving and solving a master equation to describe this process microscopically for many particles, we observe contrasting behavior in terms of the robustness against this type of heating for different many-body states. In particular, we find that the magnetic correlations exhibited by a two-component gas in the Mott insulating phase should be particularly robust against decoherence from light scattering, because the decoherence in the lowest band is suppressed by a larger factor than the time scales for effective superexchange interactions that drive coherent dynamics. Furthermore, the derived formalism naturally generalizes to analogous states with SU(N)\text{SU}(N)SU(N) symmetry. In contrast, for typical atomic and laser parameters, two-particle correlation functions describing bound dimers for strong attractive interactions exhibit superradiant effects due to the indistinguishability of off-resonant photons scattered by atoms in different internal states. This leads to rapid decay of correlations describing off-diagonal long-range order for these states. Our predictions should be directly measurable in ongoing experiments, providing a basis for characterizing and controlling heating processes in quantum simulation with fermions.
When placing an ultracold atomic gas inside a cavity, the light-matter coupling is enhanced and nonlinear atomic dynamics is generated, offering a promising platform for quantum simulation of models with short- and long-range interactions. Recently, superradiant self-organized phases for ultracold atomic gases inside a cavity, pumped by a blue detuned optical lattice, have been observed. Here, we explore the formation of quantum many-body phases of bosonic atoms inside an optical cavity, subject to transverse blue detuned pumping. We investigate the strongly interacting regime, which can be reached by tuning the s-wave scattering length using external fields. We analyze the interplay between superradiant self-organization with superfluid and Mott insulator phases, without the need of including higher lying bands, as the Wannier functions are dynamically linked to the cavity light via backaction. We observe different kinds of structural phase transitions driven by the light inside the cavity and the interplay with atomic collisions. We observe the mode softening at the critical points in the quantum phase transitions which can be measured in future experiments. We obtain our results within a full self-consistent theoretical framework, the light-matter density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), which employs the computation of light dependent Wannier functions for the full quantum optical lattice in combination with DMRG for the atomic dynamics. The methods introduced here can be used to analyze the effects of strong quantum correlations in strongly interacting light-matter systems.
We explore the effects of continuous number density measurement on atoms in an optical lattice. By integrating a master equation for quantum observables, we calculate how single-particle correlations decay. We consider weakly and strongly interacting bosons and noninteracting fermions. Even in the Mott regime, such measurements destroy correlations and increase the average energy, as long as some hopping is allowed. We explore the role of spatial resolution and find that the heating rate is proportional to the amount of information gained from such measurements.