Dynamics of quantum many-body systems is one of the most complex problems in physics since it involves the time evolution of a large number of particles that interact with each other under the influence of external forces. With ultracold atoms in optical atomic lattices it can be done in a controlled environment by applying a periodic force. This Colloquium covers the experimental and theoretical developments in this exciting field of physics.
Dynamics of quantum many-body systems is one of the most complex problems in physics since it involves the time evolution of a large number of particles that interact with each other under the influence of external forces. With ultracold atoms in optical atomic lattices it can be done in a controlled environment by applying a periodic force. This Colloquium covers the experimental and theoretical developments in this exciting field of physics.
Motivated by current experiments with ultracold atoms, the study of complex dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices forms the central subject of this work. A lattice model of interacting bosons under the influence of an external force is motivated and derived from the experimental setup. Several dynamical regimes of this model are discussed in this thesis. In a first part we will develop a new measure for detecting avoided crossings in complex energy spectra and apply it to the quantum chaotic regime of the single-band system. The second and main part of this work is dedicated to the coupling between energy bands described in terms of a two-band model. The complex time evolution is already apparent in the horizontal and vertical population dynamics of the non-interacting problem. We find resonances in the interband transport, and, in a second step, study the effect of inter-particle interactions on these resonant oscillations. We are able to predict all time scales of the complex interband dynamics even in the presence of interactions. This is possible via the introduction of an effective model that is motivated and supported by a multitude of numerical results and proves exactly solvable.
Ultracold atoms in optical lattices provide an extremely clean and controllable setting to explore quantum many-body phases of matter. Here we give a brief review of the strong-correlation physics that has been realized using such ultracold atoms in optical lattices ranging from the realization of Hubbard models to studies of quantum magnetism and the detection of single atoms with lattice site resolution. All this has opened up fundamentally new opportunities for the investigation of quantum many-body systems. Introduction Over the past years, ultracold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as versatile new systems to explore the physics of quantum many-body systems. On the one hand, they can be helpful in gaining a better understanding of known phases of matter and their dynamical behavior; on the other hand, they allow one to realize completely novel quantum systems that have not been studied before in nature [1, 2, 3]. Commonly, the approach of exploring quantum many-body systems in such a way is referred to as “quantum simulations.” Examples of some of the first strongly interacting many-body phases that have been realized both in lattices and in the continuum include the quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator [4, 5, 6], fermionic Mott insulators [7, 8], the achievement of a Tonks- Girardeau gas [9, 10], and the realization of the Bose-Einsten condensate (BEC)– Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) crossover (see also Chapter 12) in Fermi gas mixture [11] using Feshbach resonances [12]. In almost all of these experiments, detection was limited to time-of-flight imaging or more refined derived techniques that mainly characterized the momentum distribution of the quantum gas [2]. For several years, researchers in the field have therefore aspired to employ in situ single-particle detection methods for the analysis of ultracold quantum gases. Only recently has it become possible to implement such imaging techniques, marking a milestone for the characterization and manipulation of ultracold quantum gases [13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. In our discussion, we will focus on one of the most successful of these techniques based on high-resolution fluorescence imaging. Despite being a rather new technique, such quantum gas microscopy has already proven to be an enabling technology for probing and manipulating quantum many-body systems. For the first time, controllable and strongly interacting many-body systems, as realized with ultracold atoms, could be observed on a local scale [17, 16].
The search for novel phases of quantum coherent matter has been one of the main driving forces in condensed matter physics for many years. The unprecedented experimental sophistication reached recently in ultracold atomic gases has opened new and exciting perspectives in this search. The ability to externally manipulate the interatomic interaction, the capacity to embed atomic clouds in optical lattices or confine them in low dimensions, as well as the possibility to prepare mixtures of atoms with different statistics and/or populations, is presenting an opportunity to realise and explore novel correlated phases of matter. During the lectures I will focus mainly on aspects of condensation and superfluidity phenomena in fermionic systems. Theoretical elements will be discussed together with recent experimental realisations.
Ultracold quantum gases in optical lattices form almost ideal conditions to analyze the physics of strongly correlated quantum phases in periodic potentials. Such strongly correlated quantum phases are of fundamental interest in condensed matter physics, because they lie at the heart of topical quantum materials, such as high-Tc superconductors and quantum magnets, which pose a challenge to our basic understanding of interacting many-body systems. Quite generally, such strongly interacting quantum phases arise when the interaction energy between two particles dominates over the kinetic energy of the two particles. Such a regime can either be achieved by increasing the interaction strength between the atoms via Feshbach resonances or by decreasing the kinetic energy, such that eventually the interaction energy is the largest energy scale in the system. The latter can, for example, simply be achieved by increasing the optical lattice depth. This chapter tries gives an introduction into the field of optical lattices and the physics of strongly interacting quantum phases. A prominent example hereof is the superfluid-to-Mott insulator transition, which transforms a weakly interacting quantum gas into a strongly correlated many body system. Dominating interactions between the particles are in fact crucial for the Mott insulator transition and also for the realization of controlled interaction-based quantum gates, of which several have been successfully realized experimentally.
In this work, we study complex many-body systems consisting of ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices.Motivated by the state-of-the-art of experiments realizing higher bands physics with ultracold atoms, we use a one-dimensional bichromatic optical lattice, whose properties permit to engineer a very well isolated two-band system. The underlying single- and manyparticle physics is investigated based on a two-band Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian. An external \nStark force is introduced to drive the inter-band dynamics. In a first, andmain part of thiswork, we numerically characterize ourmany-bodyWannier-Stark systemthrough its spectral and dynamical properties, in terms of important system parameters. We present a detailed study of \nthe diffusion in Hilbert space. Relaxation and controlled non-adiabatic dynamics are studied by driving the system across the spectral resonances, mainly by using quantum sweeps. In a second part, we implement an effective Hamiltonian in order to characterize the spectral properties \nof a leaky one-dimensional optical lattice with controlled dissipation. We show that the stability of long-lived localizedmany-body states, i.e. discrete solitonic states, can be described with good accuracy by the decay rates statistics of the accessible complex energy spectrum of \nthe effective (non-hermitian)Hamiltonian.
Ultracold bosonic gases in optical lattices are strongly correlated quantum systems similar to solids. The strong correlation between the electrons in a solid on the one hand, and the bosonic atoms in optical lattice on the other, exhibit various quantum phenomena like insulation, conductivity, localization of electrons and atoms, respectively. Controlled by the intensity of the lattice laser, the ultracold bosonic gas can be transferred from a regime with superfluid character for shallow lattices into a regime of strong correlations, the Mott insulator. As an additional external parameter besides the lattice depth, one can generate spatial inhomogeneities by superimposing an additional standing wave (so-called two-color superlattices), which gives rise to localization effects or the formation of a Bose-glass phase. In the present work, numerical simulations are employed in order to investigate characteristic signatures of the quantum phases in the low-energy excitation spectrum of one-dimensional systems. We simulate temporal small amplitude modulations of the optical lattice in analogy to experiments, and evaluate the response of the system from the time-evolved initial state. The lattice systems are described in the framework of the Bose-Hubbard model. For the evaluation of the time-evolved state, we employ several numerical methods. We analyze systems of small size (6 particles on 6 sites) using an exact time-evolution by integration of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The formulation of an importance truncation scheme enables us to retain only the relevant components of the model space in the strongly correlated regime and, thus, allows for the investigation of systems with 10 particles on 10 sites using exact time-evolution. Based on this method, we present results of the Mott-insulating regime as well as for the Bose-glass phase. Furthermore, we employ particle-hole methods, which allow for the treatment of systems with experimental lattice sizes and particle numbers. Starting from the equation of motion method we adapt the Tamm-Dancoff approximation as well as the random-phase approximation for the occupation number representation of the Bose-Hubbard model. We present results of simulations of up to 50 particles on 50 sites and discuss the impact of the lattice depth on the low-energy excitations (U-resonance). Moreover, the impact of a two-color superlattice and the variation of its amplitude is investigated.