An optical lattice is generated by counterpropagating laser beams, creating a periodic intensity pattern. Due to the periodic potential, neutral atoms can be trapped using the Stark shift, giving rise to artificial quantum lattice systems allowing for an enormous degree of control over the system's parameters. In such systems, signatures of quantum phase transitions can be observed, and they may also serve as promising candidates for quantum information processing.

We are mainly concerned with non-equilibrium phenomena in quenched systems of atoms in optical lattices, with questions of temperature effects and adiabatic heating, as well as with complex mixed lattice models, including Bose-Fermi mixtures. Recently, questions of probing questions concerning disordered systems have been addressed, and ideas on realizing computational models have been implemented. This work is partially done in collaboration with experimentalists.

Selected group publications

• Probing the relaxation towards equilibrium in an isolated strongly correlated 1D Bose gas
  Nature Physics 8, 325 (2012)
• Towards experimental quantum field tomography with ultracold atoms
  Nature Communications 6, 7663 (2015)
• Emergence of coherence and the dynamics of quantum phase transitions
  PNAS 112(12), 3641 (2015)
• Exploring local quantum many-body relaxation by atoms in optical superlattices
  Physical Review Letters 101, 063001 (2008)
• Do mixtures of bosonic and fermionic atoms adiabatically heat up in optical lattices?
  Phyical Review Letters 100, 140409 (2008)
• Exact relaxation in a class of non-equilibrium quantum lattice systems
  Physical Review Letters 100, 030602 (2008)
• Inhomogeneous atomic Bose-Fermi mixtures in cubic lattices
  Physical Review Letters 93, 190405 (2004)