title: Disorder-induced localization in a strongly correlated atomic Hubbard gas.
abstract: We observe the emergence of a disorder-induced insulating state in a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas trapped in an optical lattice. This closed quantum system, free of a thermal reservoir, realizes the disordered Fermi-Hubbard model, which is a minimal model for strongly correlated electronic solids. We observe disorder-induced localization of a metallic state through measurements of mass transport. By varying the lattice potential depth, we detect interaction-driven delocalization of the disordered insulating state. We also measure localization that persists as the temperature of the gas is raised. These behaviors are consistent with many-body localization, which is a novel paradigm for understanding localization in interacting quantum systems at nonzero temperature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Kondov
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: W R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: McGehee
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: DeMarco