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Anomalous diffusion in a dynamical optical lattice

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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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

Volume Title

97

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K030094/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P009565/1)