Probing states in the Mott insulator regime in the case of coherent bosons trapped in an optical lattice.
We propose a method to probe states in the Mott insulator regime produced from a condensate in an optical lattice. We consider a system in which we create time-dependent number fluctuations in a given site by turning off the atomic interactions and lowering the potential barriers on a nearly pure Mott state to allow the atoms to tunnel between sites. We calculate the expected interference pattern and number fluctuations from such a system and show that one can potentially observe a deviation from a pure Mott state. We also discuss a method in which to detect these number fluctuations using time-of-flight imaging.
Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom.
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Roberts
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Burnett