Time-resolved observation of coherent multi-body interactions in quantum phase revivals.
Interactions lie at the heart of correlated many-body quantum phases. Typically, the interactions between microscopic particles are described as two-body interactions. However, it has been shown that higher-order multi-body interactions could give rise to novel quantum phases with intriguing properties. So far, multi-body interactions have been observed as inelastic loss resonances in three- and four-body recombinations of atom-atom and atom-molecule collisions. Here we demonstrate the presence of effective multi-body interactions in a system of ultracold bosonic atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice, emerging through virtual transitions of particles from the lowest energy band to higher energy bands. We observe such interactions up to the six-body case in time-resolved traces of quantum phase revivals, using an atom interferometric technique that allows us to precisely measure the absolute energies of atom number states at a lattice site. In addition, we show that the spectral content of these time traces can reveal the atom number statistics at a lattice site, similar to foundational experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics that yield the statistics of a cavity photon field. Our precision measurement of multi-body interaction energies provides crucial input for the comparison of optical-lattice quantum simulators with many-body quantum theory.
Will
Sebastian
S
Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, 55099 Mainz, Germany. sebastian.will@lmu.de
Best
Thorsten
T
Schneider
Ulrich
U
Hackermüller
Lucia
L
Lühmann
Dirk-Sören
DS
Bloch
Immanuel
I
Phys Rev Lett. 1986 Jul 7;57(1):13-16
10033345
Science. 2006 Aug 4;313(5787):649-52
16888134
Phys Rev Lett. 1996 Mar 11;76(11):1800-1803
10060524
Phys Rev Lett. 2008 May 30;100(21):210403
18518588
Nature. 2002 Sep 5;419(6902):51-4
12214228
Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Aug 1;101(5):050402
18764376
Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Aug 29;101(9):090404
18851591
Nature. 2008 Oct 30;455(7217):1216-9
18830245
Nature. 2006 Mar 16;440(7082):315-8
16541068
Phys Rev Lett. 1996 Mar 11;76(11):1796-1799
10060523
Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Jul 15;95(3):030405
16090725
Phys Rev Lett. 1996 Sep 9;77(11):2158-2161
10061873
Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Sep 9;89(11):110401
12225133
Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Mar 10;96(9):090401
16606244
Nature. 2001 Jan 4;409(6816):63-6
11343111
Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Mar 13;102(10):100401
19392092
Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Jul 29;95(5):050404
16090855
Phys Rev Lett. 2007 May 18;98(20):200405
17677678