Anomalous diffusion in a dynamical optical lattice
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Zheng, W
Cooper, NR
Abstract
Motivated by experimental progress in strongly coupled atom-photon systems in optical cavities, we study theoretically the quantum dynamics of atoms coupled to a one-dimensional dynamical optical lattice. The dynamical lattice is chosen to have a period that is incommensurate with that of an underlying static lattice, leading to a dynamical version of the Aubry-Andr'e model which can cause localization of single-particle wavefunctions. We show that atomic wavepackets in this dynamical lattice generically spread via anomalous diffusion, which can be tuned between super-diffusive and sub-diffusive regimes. This anomalous diffusion arises from an interplay between quantum localization and quantum fluctuations of the cavity field.
Description
Keywords
cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.quant-gas
Journal Title
Physical Review A
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
2469-9926
2469-9934
2469-9934
Volume Title
97
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Publisher DOI
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K030094/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P009565/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P009565/1)