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Hruby L, Dogra N, Landini M, et al. Metastability and avalanche dynamics in strongly correlated gases with long-range interactions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018;115(13):3279-3284doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720415115.
Hruby, L., Dogra, N., Landini, M., Donner, T., & Esslinger, T. (2018). Metastability and avalanche dynamics in strongly correlated gases with long-range interactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(13), 3279-3284. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720415115
Hruby, Lorenz, et al. "Metastability and avalanche dynamics in strongly correlated gases with long-range interactions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 115,13 (2018): 3279-3284. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720415115
Hruby L, Dogra N, Landini M, Donner T, Esslinger T. Metastability and avalanche dynamics in strongly correlated gases with long-range interactions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Mar 27;115(13):3279-3284. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720415115. Epub 2018 Mar 08. PMID: 29519875; PMCID: PMC5879698.
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Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Mar 27;115(13):3279-3284. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720415115. Epub 2018 Mar 08.

Metastability and avalanche dynamics in strongly correlated gases with long-range interactions.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Lorenz Hruby, Nishant Dogra, Manuele Landini, Tobias Donner, Tilman Esslinger

Affiliations

  1. Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
  2. Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland [email protected].

PMID: 29519875 PMCID: PMC5879698 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720415115

Abstract

We experimentally study the stability of a bosonic Mott insulator against the formation of a density wave induced by long-range interactions and characterize the intrinsic dynamics between these two states. The Mott insulator is created in a quantum degenerate gas of 87-Rubidium atoms, trapped in a 3D optical lattice. The gas is located inside and globally coupled to an optical cavity. This causes interactions of global range, mediated by photons dispersively scattered between a transverse lattice and the cavity. The scattering comes with an atomic density modulation, which is measured by the photon flux leaking from the cavity. We initialize the system in a Mott-insulating state and then rapidly increase the global coupling strength. We observe that the system falls into either of two distinct final states. One is characterized by a low photon flux, signaling a Mott insulator, and the other is characterized by a high photon flux, which we associate with a density wave. Ramping the global coupling slowly, we observe a hysteresis loop between the two states-a further signature of metastability. A comparison with a theoretical model confirms that the metastability originates in the competition between short- and global-range interactions. From the increasing photon flux monitored during the switching process, we find that several thousand atoms tunnel to a neighboring site on the timescale of the single-particle dynamics. We argue that a density modulation, initially forming in the compressible surface of the trapped gas, triggers an avalanche tunneling process in the Mott-insulating region.

Keywords: avalanche dynamics; cavity QED; extended Bose-Hubbard model; metastability; quantum gas

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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