Ballistic dynamics during the sudden expansion of a two-component Fermi gas in a one-dimensional lattice
S. Langer, Fabian Heidrich‐Meisner, A Sommerfeld
Abstract
We show that in the sudden expansion of a spin-balanced two-component Fermi gas in an optical lattice induced by releasing particles from a trap, over a wide parameter regime, the radius Rn of the particle cloud grows linearly in time. This allow us to define the expansion velocity Vex from Rn = Vext. The goal of this work is to clarify the dependence of the expansion velocity on the initial conditions which we establish from time-dependent density matrix renormalization group simulations, both for a box trap and a harmonic trap. As a prominent result, the presence of a Mott-insulating region leaves clear fingerprints in the expansion velocity. Our predictions can be verified in experiments with ultra-cold atoms.