Transport and interaction blockade of ultracold bosonic atoms in triple-well systems

Peter Schlagheck

Peter Schlagheck

Peter Schlagheck, Francesc Malet, Jonas C. Cremon +1 more

We theoretically investigate the transport properties of cold bosonic atoms in a quasi one-dimensional triple-well potential that consists of two large outer wells, which act as microscopic source and drain reservoirs, and a small inner well, which represents a quantum-dot-like scattering region. Bias and gate "voltages" introduce a time-dependent tilt of the triple-well configuration, and are used to shift the energetic level of the inner well with respect to the outer ones. By means of exact diagonalization considering a total number of six atoms in the triple-well potential, we find diamond-like structures for the occurrence of single-atom transport in the parameter space spanned by the bias and gate voltages. We discuss the analogy with Coulomb blockade in electronic quantum dots, and point out how one can infer the interaction energy in the central well from the distance between the diamonds.

Chih-Chun Chien, Sebastiano Peotta, Massimiliano Di Ventra

Sebastian Krinner

Líney H. Kristinsdóttir, Olov Karlström, J. Bjerlin +4 more

Cold-atom systems offer a great potential for the future design of new mesoscopic quantum systems with properties that are fundamentally different from semiconductor nanostructures. Here, we investigate the quantum-gas analogue of a quantum wire and find a new scenario for the quantum transport: Attractive interactions may lead to a complete suppression of current in the low-bias range, a total current blockade. We demonstrate this effect for the example of ultracold quantum gases with dipolar interactions.