We study an ultracold atomic gas with attractive interactions in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We find that its excitation spectrum displays a quantum soliton band, corresponding to N-particle bound states, and a continuum band of other, mostly extended, states. For a system of a finite size, the two branches are degenerate in energy for weak interactions, while a gap opens above a threshold value of the interaction strength. We find that the interplay between degenerate extended and bound states has important consequences for both static and dynamical properties of the system. In particular, the solitonic states turn out to be protected from spatial perturbations and random disorder. We discuss how such dynamics implies that our system effectively provides an example of a quantum many-body system that, with the variation of the bosonic lattice filling, crosses over from integrable nonergodic to nonintegrable ergodic dynamics, through nonintegrable-nonergodic regimes.
We study an ultracold atomic gas with attractive interactions in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We find that its excitation spectrum displays a quantum soliton band, corresponding to N-particle bound states, and a continuum band of other, mostly extended, states. For a system of a finite size, the two branches are degenerate in energy for weak interactions, while a gap opens above a threshold value of the interaction strength. We find that the interplay between degenerate extended and bound states has important consequences for both static and dynamical properties of the system. In particular, the solitonic states turn out to be protected from spatial perturbations and random disorder. We discuss how such dynamics implies that our system effectively provides an example of a quantum many-body system that, with the variation of the bosonic lattice filling, crosses over from integrable nonergodic to nonintegrable ergodic dynamics, through nonintegrable-nonergodic regimes.
Within the framework of a mean-field description, we investigate atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, with attraction between atoms, under the action of a strong transverse confinement and periodic [optical-lattice (OL)] axial potential. Using a combination of the variational approximation, one-dimensional (1D) nonpolynomial Schr\"odinger equation, and direct numerical solutions of the underlying 3D Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we show that the ground state of the condensate is a soliton belonging to the semi-infinite band gap of the periodic potential. The soliton may be confined to a single cell of the lattice or extended to several cells, depending on the effective self-attraction strength g (which is proportional to the number of atoms bound in the soliton) and depth of the potential, V0, the increase of V0 leading to strong compression of the soliton. We demonstrate that the OL is an effective tool to control the soliton's shape. It is found that, due to the 3D character of the underlying setting, the ground-state soliton collapses at a critical value of the strength, g=gc, which gradually decreases with the increase of V0; under typical experimental conditions, the corresponding maximum number of 7Li atoms in the soliton, Nmax, ranges between 8000 and 4000. Examples of stable multipeaked solitons are also found in the first finite band gap of the lattice spectrum. The respective critical value gc again slowly decreases with the increase of V0, corresponding to ${N}_{\mathrm{max}}\ensuremath{\simeq}5000$.
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.
By developing a multiple-scale method, we study analytically the dynamics of the soliton inside the semi-infinite band gap (SIBG) of quasi-one-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensates trapped in an optical lattice. In the linear case, a stable condition of soliton formation is obtained. For a weak nonlinearity, whether there occurs a spatially propagating or localized gap soliton is determined by the lattice depth. Meanwhile, we predict the existence of the dark (bright) gap solitons for the repulsive (attractive) interactions in the SIBG, different from that of the gap solitons in other energy gaps. And the collision of two dark (or bright) solitons is nearly elastic under a safe range of atomic numbers. An experimental protocol is further designed for observing these phenomena.
Models of two-dimensional (2D) traps, with double-well structure in the third direction, for Bose-Einstein condensates are introduced with attractive or repulsive interactions between atoms. The models are based on systems of linearly coupled 2D Gross-Pitaevskii equations, where the coupling accounts for tunneling between the wells. Each well carries an optical lattice (OL) (stable 2D solitons cannot exist without OLs). The linear coupling splits each finite band gap in the spectrum of the single-component model into two subgaps. The main subject of the work is spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in two-component 2D solitons and localized vortices (SSB was not considered before in 2D settings). Using variational approximation (VA) and numerical methods, we demonstrate that, in a system with attraction or repulsion, SSB occurs in families of symmetric or antisymmetric solitons (or vortices), respectively. The corresponding bifurcation destabilizes the original solution branch and gives rise to a stable branch of asymmetric solitons or vortices. The VA provides for an accurate description of the emerging branch of asymmetric solitons. In the model with attraction, all stable branches eventually terminate due to the onset of collapse. Stable asymmetric solitons in higher finite band gaps and vortices with a multiple topological charge are found too. The models also give rise to first examples of embedded solitons and embedded vortices (the states located inside Bloch bands) in two dimensions. In the linearly coupled system with opposite signs of the nonlinearity in the two cores, two distinct types of stable solitons and vortices are found, dominated by either the self-attractive component or the self-repulsive one. In the system with a mismatch between the two OLs, a pseudobifurcation is found: when the mismatch attains its largest value $(\ensuremath{\pi})$, the bifurcation does not happen, as branches of different solutions asymptotically approach each other, but fail to merge.
Quantum lattice solitons in a system of two ultracold bosons near Feshbach resonance are investigated. It is shown that their binding energy, effective mass, and spatial width, can be manipulated varying the detuning from the Feshbach resonance. In the case of attractive atomic interactions, the molecule creation stabilizes the solitons. In the case of repulsive interactions, the molecule creation leads to the possibility of existence of bright solitons in some interval of detunings. Due to quantum fluctuations the soliton width is a random quantity. Its standard deviation is larger than the mean value for such a small number of particles.
Quantum degenerate atomic gases offer a unique platform for the exploration of a wide variety of interacting many-body systems in a pristine environment, based on a set of powerful tools for the coherent control of the atoms' internal and external degrees of freedom. Here, we present experimental studies of strongly interacting bosonic mixtures in one-dimensional (1D) systems, in which the mobilities of the two species are independently controlled with a state-selective optical lattice. In a first experiment, we freeze out the tunneling of one species from a binary mixture, and study the formation of ``quantum emulsion'' states, where immobile atoms serve as a static, random disorder for a more mobile species. We investigate the 1D superfluid-to-insulator transition in the presence of this disorder, and make comparisons to the effects of quasi-disorder from an incommensurate optical lattice. We observe enhanced localization in the more random potential, highlighting the important role of correlations in disordered systems. Through a combined measurement of transport, localization, and excitation spectra, we are able to obtain strong evidence for observation of a disordered, insulating quantum phase, the 1D Bose glass. In a second experiment, we introduce a new experimental technique for the characterization of ultracold gases held in optical lattices. In analogy to neutron diffraction from solids, we use atomic de Broglie waves to non-destructively probe the spatial structure of 1D Mott insulators through elastic Bragg diffraction, and to probe inelastic band-structure excitations of more weakly interacting 1D Bose gases. Furthermore, we use the diffraction of matter waves to detect the formation of forced-antiferromagnetic ordering in a crystalline atomic spin mixture. Lastly, we study the dynamical response of matter waves to a periodically pulsed, incommensurate optical lattice, a situation that realizes a system of two coupled kicked quantum rotors. We observe that the coupling induces a suppression of energy growth at quantum resonances, and a localization-to-delocalization transition in momentum space for off-resonant driving. Our observations confirm a long-standing theoretical prediction for the two-rotor system, and illustrate how classical behavior can emerge from the evolution of a simple quantum system. | 193 pages