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arXiv:2305.14817 · Physical Review Letters

Interaction Effects on the Dynamical Anderson Metal-Insulator Transition Using Kicked Quantum Gases

Jun Hui See Toh, Mengxin Du, Xinxin Tang, Ying Su, Tristan Rojo, Carson O. Patterson, Nicolas R. Williams, Chuanwei Zhang, Subhadeep Gupta

Published Aug 15, 2024• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Understanding the interplay of interaction and disorder in quantum transport poses long-standing scientific challenges for theory and experiment. While highly controlled ultracold atomic platforms combining atomic interactions with spatially disordered lattices have led to remarkable advances, the extension of such controlled studies to phenomena in high-dimensional disordered systems, such as the three-dimensional Anderson metal-insulator transition has been limited. Kicked quantum gases provide an alternate experimental platform that captures the Anderson model in momentum space and features dynamical localization as the analog of Anderson localization. Here, we utilize a momentum space lattice platform using quasiperiodically kicked ultracold atomic gases to experimentally investigate interaction effects on the three-dimensional dynamical Anderson metal-insulator transition. We observe interaction-driven subdiffusion and a divergence of delocalization onset time on approaching the phase boundary. Mean-field numerical simulations show qualitative agreement with experimental observations, but with significant quantitative deviations.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.133.076301

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Understanding the interplay of interaction and disorder in quantum transport poses long-standing scientific challenges for theory and experiment. While highly controlled ultracold atomic platforms combining atomic interactions with spatially disordered lattices have led to remarkable advances, the extension of such controlled studies to phenomena in high-dimensional disordered systems, such as the three-dimensional Anderson metal-insulator transition has been limited. Kicked quantum gases provide an alternate experimental platform that captures the Anderson model in momentum space and features dynamical localization as the analog of Anderson localization. Here, we utilize a momentum space lattice platform using quasiperiodically kicked ultracold atomic gases to experimentally investigate interaction effects on the three-dimensional dynamical Anderson metal-insulator transition. We observe interaction-driven subdiffusion and a divergence of delocalization onset time on approaching the phase boundary. Mean-field numerical simulations show qualitative agreement with experimental observations, but with significant quantitative deviations.
Ultracold atoms in quasiperiodic lattices offer a versatile platform for studying many intriguingly disorder-driven phenomena. Here we study the quantum transport of noninteracting ultracold 133 Cs atoms in a one-dimensional quasiperiodic momentum lattice, which is formed by using the laser-coupled momentum states as synthetic dimensions. Through measurements of the site-resolved density distribution of atoms in the synthetic quasiperiodic lattice, we directly observe the transition from the atomic diffusive transport to Anderson localization in the initial injection site with increasing strength of the quasiperiodic modulation. We show the dependence of momentum width characterizing the atomic expansion degree on the quasiperiodic modulation strength, and our observation is in good agreement with the theoretical calculation. Our work provides significant insights for understanding the quantum spreading in disordered systems.
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We experimentally study localization and dynamics of ultracold fermions in speckle and optical lattice potentials to explore Anderson localization, many-body localization, and relaxation dynamics in strongly correlated systems. Anderson localization is probed by releasing non-interacting, spin-polarized gases into three dimensional, anisotropic disordered potentials produced from optical speckle. A fraction of the atoms are localized by the disorder, and a mobility edge is found separating localized from extended states. The length scale of the speckle is varied, and the localized state is found to scale linearly with the geometric mean of the speckle autocorrelation length. We realize the Fermi Hubbard model by loading atoms in a cubic optical lattice. Non-equilibrium momentum distributions are created via Raman transitions, and the excitation relaxation rate is measured in the lattice. Transport experiments were performed in a disordered optical lattice to explore the disordered Hubbard model. These experiments reveal localization in the presence of strong interactions and an interaction driven metal-to-insulator transition. The localized state is found to be insensitive to a doubling in the temperature of the gas and is consistent with predictions of many-body localization.
It is now possible to study experimentally the combined effect of disorder and interactions in cold atom physics. Motivated by these developments we investigate the dynamics around the metal-insulator transition (MIT) in a one-dimensional Fermi gas with short-range interactions in a quasiperiodic potential by the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group technique. By tuning disorder and interactions we study the MIT from the weakly to the strongly interacting limit. The MIT is not universal as time evolution, well described by a process of anomalous diffusion, depends qualitatively on the interaction strength. By using scaling ideas we relate the parameter that controls the diffusion process with the critical exponent that describes the divergence of the localization length. In the limit of strong interactions theoretical arguments suggest that the motion at the MIT tends to ballistic and critical exponents approach mean-field predictions.
Abstract We consider Anderson localization in the half-filled Anderson–Hubbard model in the presence of either random on-site interactions or spatially alternating interactions in the lattice. By using dynamical mean field theory with the equation of motion method as an impurity solver, we calculate the arithmetically and geometrically averaged local density of states and derive the equations determining the critical value for the phase transition between metallic, Anderson and Mott insulating phases. The nonmagnetic ground state phase diagrams are constructed numerically. We figure out that the presence of Coulomb disorder drives the system toward the Anderson localized phase that can occur even in the absence of Anderson structural disorder. For the spatially alternating interactions, we find that the metallic region is reduced and the Anderson insulator one is enlarged with increasing interaction modulation. Our obtained results are relevant to current research in ultracold atoms in disordered optical lattices where metal–insulator transition can be observed experimentally by using ultracold atom techniques.
We investigate the Lieb-Liniger model of one-dimensional bosons subjected to periodic kicks. In both the noninteracting and strongly interacting limits, the system undergoes dynamical localization, leading to energy saturation at long times. However, for finite interactions, we reveal an interaction-driven transition from an insulating to a metallic phase at a critical kicking strength, provided the number of particles is three or more. Using the Bethe ansatz solution of the Lieb-Liniger gas, we establish a formal correspondence between its dynamical evolution and an Anderson model in N spatial dimensions, where N is the number of particles. This theoretical prediction is supported by extensive numerical simulations for three particles, complemented by finite-time scaling analysis, demonstrating that this transition belongs to the orthogonal Anderson universality class.