Observation of density-induced tunneling

Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Nov 7;113(19):193003. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.193003. Epub 2014 Nov 7.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of bosonic atoms in a tilted one-dimensional optical lattice and report on the first direct observation of density-induced tunneling. We show that the interaction affects the time evolution of the doublon oscillation via density-induced tunneling and pinpoint its density and interaction dependence. The experimental data for different lattice depths are in good agreement with our theoretical model. Furthermore, resonances caused by second-order tunneling processes are studied, where the density-induced tunneling breaks the symmetric behavior for attractive and repulsive interactions predicted by the Hubbard model.