Ultracold atoms in disordered optical lattices

Brian DeMarco

Vera Guarrera, L. Fallani, Jessica Lye +2 more

In recent years ultracold atoms in optical lattices have been extensively employed as quantum simulators to study the physics of conventional solid state systems. Due to the possibility of introducing controlled disorder, it appears now a straightforward progression to use ultracold atoms in optical potentials to also study the physics of complex systems. We experimentally study a system of bosonic 87Rb atoms in a 3D optical lattice, where disorder is introduced on the length scale of the lattice sites by using an auxiliary optical lattice with a non‐commensurate wavelength. Increasing the amount of disorder, we observe the transition from a Mott Insulator state to a novel gapless insulating phase induced by the cooperation of interactions and disorder, which could be identified with a Bose Glass phase. We discuss the experimental results as well as possible additional techniques for a better diagnostic of the system and future implementations of the two‐color lattices in the study of different disorder‐induced phenomena.

Immanuel Bloch

Jakub Zakrzewski, Dominique Delande

Realistic simulations of current ultracold atom experiments in optical lattices show that the ramping up of the optical lattice is significantly nonadiabatic, implying that experimentally prepared Mott insulators are not really in the ground state of the atomic system. The nonadiabaticity is even larger in the presence of a secondary quasiperiodic lattice simulating ``disorder.'' Alternative ramping schemes are suggested that improve the adiabaticity when the disorder is not too large.

Nathan E. Lundblad

Immanuel Bloch, P. Zoller