The quantum evolution of a cloud of bosons initially localized on part of a one-dimensional optical lattice and suddenly subjected to a linear ramp is studied, realizing a quantum analog of the ``Galileo ramp'' experiment. The main remarkable effects of this realistic setup are revealed using analytical and numerical methods. Only part of the particles are ejected for a high enough ramp, while the others remain self-trapped. Then, the trapped density profile displays rich dynamics with Josephson-type oscillations around a plateau. This setup, by coupling bound states to propagative modes, creates two diverging condensates for which the entanglement is computed and related to the equilibrium one. Further, we address the role of integrability on the entanglement and on the damping and thermalization of simple observables.
Ultracold atoms in optical lattices constitute a versatile many-body platform with highly tunable parameters, allowing us to emulate a multitude of complex quantum systems, in the laboratory, even those eluding analytical treatment. In particular, the nonequilibrium dynamics of strongly correlated many-body systems represents one of the most challenging problems of modern quantum physics, with applications ranging from thermalization dynamics and transport properties to the management of correlations and the control of the dynamics. Understanding nonequilibrium phenomena of strongly correlated systems is a formidable task. A very promising route to gain insight into such systems is to examine few-body setups which contain only a few relevant degrees of freedom, yet incorporating the quantum correlations between the particles.
The present dissertation contributes to the understanding of the nonequilibrium dynamics of strongly-correlated quantum many-body systems by exploring systems of few-bosons
− of one or two species
− trapped in optical lattices. The systems are driven out-of-equilibrium either by performing a quench of a Hamiltonian parameter or by considering a time-periodic modulation of the external confinement. In the course of several consecutive works, we showcase different ways to couple the nonequilibrium modes, while unveiling their correlated nature and microscopic origin. To simulate the nonequilibrium dynamics, a sophisticated, highly flexible ab-initio method for numerically solving the time-dependent many-body Schrodinger equation is utilized, namely the Multi-Layer Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree Method for Atomic Mixtures (ML-MCTDHX).
Within the first part we study in six consecutive works the correlated nonequilibrium dynamics of few-boson systems in one-dimensional finite lattices. Starting from weak interactions, it is shown that a sudden increase of the interaction strength generates a global density-wave tunneling dynamics as well as intrawell breathing and cradle-like excited-band processes. The cradle process is a dipole-like process generated by the quench-induced over-barrier transport and it is one of the central results of the present thesis. Remarkably enough, the interaction quenches couple the density-wave and cradle modes, inducing resonance phenomena between the inter and intrawell dynamics. We further show that the cradle mode is inherently related to the initial delocalization and, following a quench from strong-to-weak interactions, can be excited only for incommensurate setups with filling larger than unity. Alternatively, a sudden ramping down of the lattice depth which favors the spatial delocalization is employed to access the cradle mode for setups with filling smaller than unity. Following a multiple interaction quench protocol, we observe the rise of several lowest-band tunneling modes as well as the cradle and the breathing mode. Besides the cradle mode, all other excited modes are highly tunable possessing different frequencies during and in between the quenches. In the excitation dynamics a monotonic behavior with increasing quench amplitude and a non-linear dependence on the duration of the application of the quenched interaction strength is revealed. Additionally, a periodic population transfer between momenta for quenches of increasing interaction is observed, with a power-law frequency dependence on the quench amplitude. Linear interaction quenches from a superfluid to a Mott-insulator state excite various inter- and intraband tunneling modes. The competition between the quench rate and the interparticle repulsion leads to a resonant dynamical response, at moderate ramp times, being related to avoided-crossings in the many-body eigenspectrum.
The resultant higher-band excitation dynamics is shown to obey an exponential decay possessing two distinct time scales with varying ramp time. Inspecting the crossover from shallow to deep lattices we find that for a diabatic quench the excited-band fraction decreases, while approaching the adiabatic limit it exhibits a nonlinear behavior for increasing height of the potential barrier. Quenching from strong-to-weak interactions leads to a melting of the Mott-insulator and negligible higher-band excitations.
Performing quenches either on the wavevector or the phase of a spatially dependent interaction profile triggers various tunneling channels and a rich excitation dynamics which is amplified for increasing inhomogeneity amplitude. Most importantly, the phase quench is shown to induce a directional transport enabling us to discern, otherwise, energetically degenerate tunneling pathways.
Finally, a periodic population transfer between distinct momenta for quenches of increasing wavevector and a directed occupation of higher momenta following a phase quench is observed. Employing a quench of an additional harmonic trap from strong-to-weak confinement, we find that the competition between the initial localization and the repulsive interaction leads to a resonant response of the system related to avoided-crossings in the many-body eigenspectrum with varying final trap frequency. Furthermore, we show that these avoided-crossings can be utilized to prepare the system in a desired state.
The second part comprises two efforts and is devoted to the study of the nonequilibrium dynamics of finite ultracold bosonic ensembles in periodically driven one-dimensional optical lattices. For a shaken lattice, a wide range of driving frequencies is covered and a resonant behavior of the intrawell dynamics is revealed and found to be related to a rich intraband excitation spectrum.
Moreover, it is shown that for increasing repulsion a strong suppression of the interwell tunneling and an enhanced excitation dynamics occurs. For a vibrating lattice, an additional interaction quench gives rise to admixtures of different excitations in the outer wells, an enhanced breathing in the center and an amplification of the emerging tunneling dynamics. The occurence of multiple resonances between the inter- and intrawell dynamics at different quench amplitudes is revealed, with the position of the resonances being tunable via the driving frequency and thus allowing for further control of the mode coupling in optical lattices.
In the third and final part of this thesis we unravel the quench dynamics of a Bose-Bose and a Bose-Fermi mixture. Utilizing an interspecies interaction quench we cross the miscibility-immiscibility threshold in a harmonically confined Bose-Bose mixture. We show that increasing the interspecies repulsion coefficient results in a filamentation of the density of each species, with the spontaneously generated filaments being strongly correlated and exhibiting domain-wall structures. Strikingly, by following the reverse quench protocol, i.e., upon decreasing the interspecies interaction strength, the formation of multiple dark-antidark solitary waves is observed. These solitary wave structures are found to decay into the many-body environment, soon after their generation in sharp contrast to the predictions of the mean-field approximation. To relate our findings with possible experimental realizations, we simulate, for the first time for binary mixtures, single-shot images showcasing that the growth rate of the variance of a sample of single-shots probes the degree of entanglement inherent in the system. As a next step we investigate the expansion dynamics of a mass balanced Bose-Fermi mixture confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice upon quenching an imposed harmonic trap from strong-to-weak confinement. Tuning the interspecies interaction strength we realize the immiscible and miscible correlated ground state phases. We further show that the system's dynamical response crucially depends on the initial phase and consists of an expansion of each cloud and an interwell tunneling dynamics. Varying the quench amplitude and referring to a fixed phase a multitude of response regimes is unveiled, being richer within the immiscible phase, which are described by distinct expansion strengths and tunneling channels. Finally, in the expansion dynamics a two-body anti-correlated behavior between the predominantly occupied wells is unveiled.
We study the temporal expansion of an ultracold Bose gas in two-dimensional square optical lattices. The gas is described by the Bose-Hubbard model deep in the superfluid regime, with initially all bosons condensed in the central site of the lattice. We use the previously developed nonequilibrium propagator method for capturing the time evolution of an interacting bosonic system, where the many-body Hamiltonian is represented in an appropriate local basis and the corresponding field operators are separated into the classical [Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)] part and quantum mechanical fluctuations. After a quench, i.e., after a sudden switch of the lattice nearest-neighbor hopping, the expanding bosonic cloud separates spatially into a fast ballistic forerunner and a slowly expanding central part controlled by self-trapping. We show that the forerunner expansion is driven by the coherent dynamics of the BEC and that its velocity is consistent with the Lieb-Robinson bound. For smaller lattices we analyze how quasiparticle collisions lead to enhanced condensate depletion and oscillation damping.
We study the temporal expansion of an ultracold Bose gas in two-dimensional, square optical lattices. The gas is described by the Bose-Hubbard model deep in the superfluid regime, with initially all bosons condensed in the central site of the lattice. We use the previously developed nonequilibrium propagator method for capturing the time evolution of an interacting bosonic system, where the many-body Hamiltonian is represented in an appropriate local basis and the corresponding field operators are separated into the classical (BEC) part and quantum mechanical fluctuations. After a quench, i.e. after a sudden switch of the lattice nearest-neighbor hopping, the expanding, bosonic cloud separates spatially into a fast, ballistic forerunner and a slowly expanding central part controlled by selftrapping. We show that the forerunner expansion is driven by the coherent dynamics of the BEC and that its velocity is consistent with the Lieb-Robinson bound. For smaller lattices we analyze how quasiparticle collisions lead to enhanced condensate depletion and oscillation damping.
In this work, we investigate the quantum dynamics of a model for two single-mode Bose–Einstein condensates which are coupled via Josephson tunnelling. Using direct numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian, we compute the time evolution of the expectation value for the relative particle number across a wide range of couplings. Our analysis shows that the system exhibits rich and complex behaviours varying between harmonic and non-harmonic oscillations, particularly around the threshold coupling between the delocalized and self-trapping phases. We show that these behaviours are dependent on both the initial state of the system and regime of the coupling. In addition, a study of the dynamics for the variance of the relative particle number expectation and the entanglement for different initial states is presented in detail.
We study the quantum evolution of a cloud of hard-core bosons loaded on a one-dimensional optical lattice after its sudden release from a harmonic trap. Just after the trap has been removed, a linear ramp potential is applied, mimicking the so-called Galileo ramp experiment. The nonequilibrium expansion of the bosonic cloud is elucidated through a hydrodynamical description which is compared to the exact numerical evolution obtained by exact diagonalization on finite lattice sizes. The system is found to exhibit a rich behavior, showing, in particular, Bloch oscillations of a self-trapped condensate and an ejected particle density leading to two diverging entangled condensates. Depending on the initial density of the gas different regimes of Josephson-like oscillations are observed. At low densities, the trapped part of the cloud is in a superfluid phase that oscillates in time as a whole. At higher densities, the trapped condensate is in a mixed superfluid--Mott-insulator phase that show a breathing regime for steep enough potential ramps.