Trap modulation spectroscopy of the Mott-insulator transition in optical lattices

Lignier, H. and Zenesini, A. and Ciampini, D. and Morsch, O. and Arimondo, E. and Montangero, S. and Pupillo, G. and Fazio, R. (2008) Trap modulation spectroscopy of the Mott-insulator transition in optical lattices. Physical review. A, Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, 79 (4). 041601. ISSN 1094-1622

Abstract

We introduce a new technique to probe the properties of an interacting cold atomic gas that can be viewed as a dynamical compressibility measurement. We apply this technique to the study of the superfluid to Mott insulator quantum phase transition in one and three dimensions for a bosonic gas trapped in an optical lattice. Excitations of the system are detected by time-of-flight measurements. The experimental data for the one-dimensional case are in good agreement with the results of a time-dependent density matrix renormalization group calculation.

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