Superfluid-insulator transition in a moving system of interacting bosons |
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Authors: | Altman E Polkovnikov A Demler E Halperin B I Lukin M D |
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Institution: | Physics Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. |
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Abstract: | We analyze the stability of superfluid currents in a system of strongly interacting ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. We show that such a system undergoes a dynamic, irreversible phase transition at a critical phase gradient that depends on the interaction strength between atoms. At commensurate filling, the phase boundary continuously interpolates between the classical modulation instability of a weakly interacting condensate and the equilibrium quantum phase transition into a Mott insulator state at which the critical current vanishes. We argue that quantum fluctuations smear the transition boundary in low dimensional systems. Finally we discuss the implications to realistic experiments. |
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