PIRSA:16050028

Sudden expansion and domain wall melting in clean and disordered optical lattices

Hauschild, J. (2016). Sudden expansion and domain wall melting in clean and disordered optical lattices. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/16050028

Hauschild, Johannes. Sudden expansion and domain wall melting in clean and disordered optical lattices. Perimeter Institute, May. 06, 2016, https://pirsa.org/16050028 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:16050028,
            doi = {10.48660/16050028},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/16050028},
            author = {Hauschild, Johannes},
            keywords = {Condensed Matter},
            language = {en},
            title = {Sudden expansion and domain wall melting in clean and disordered optical lattices},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2016},
            month = {may},
            note = {PIRSA:16050028 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Johannes Hauschild

Max Planck Institute

Talk number
PIRSA:16050028
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract

We numerically investigate the expansion of clouds of hard-core bosons in a 2D square lattice using a matrix-product state based method. This non-equilibrium setup is induced by quenching a trapping potential to zero and is specifically motivated by an experiment with ultracold atoms [1]. As the anisotropy for hopping amplitudes in different spatial directions is varied from 1D to 2D, we observe a crossover from a fast ballistic expansion in the 1D limit to much slower dynamics in the isotropic 2D lattice [2].

 

Introducing a site-dependent disorder potential allows to study many body localization (MBL). In a very recent experiment, the melting of a domain wall gave evidence for an MBL transition in 2D [3]. We study 1D and quasi-1D models, for which the phase diagram in the presence of disorder is known, such as the Anderson insulator, Aubry-Andre model and interacting fermions in 1D and on a two-leg ladder [4]. By considering several observables, we demonstrate that the domain wall melting can indeed yield quantitative information on the transition from an ergodic to the MBL phase as a function of disorder.

 

[1] J. P. Ronzheimer et al., PRL 110, 205301 (2013) [2] J. Hauschild et al., PRA 92, 053629 (2015) [3] J. Choi et al., arXiv:1604.04178 (2016) [4] J. Hauschild et al., in preparation