Fermi polaron in a one-dimensional quasiperiodic optical lattice: The simplest many-body localization challenge

Hui Hu, An-Bang Wang, Su Yi, and Xia-Ji Liu
Phys. Rev. A 93, 053601 – Published 2 May 2016

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the behavior of a moving impurity immersed in a sea of fermionic atoms that are confined in a quasiperiodic (bichromatic) optical lattice within a standard variational approach. We consider both repulsive and attractive contact interactions for such a simple many-body localization problem of Fermi polarons. The variational approach enables us to access relatively large systems and therefore may be used to understand many-body localization in the thermodynamic limit. The energy and wave function of the polaron states are found to be strongly affected by the quasirandom lattice potential and their experimental measurements (i.e., via radio-frequency spectroscopy or quantum gas microscope) therefore provide a sensitive way to underpin the localization transition. We determine a phase diagram by calculating two critical quasirandom disorder strengths, which correspond to the onset of the localization of the ground-state polaron state and the many-body localization of all polaron states, respectively. Our predicted phase diagram could be straightforwardly examined in current cold-atom experiments.

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  • Received 29 December 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.053601

©2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Hui Hu1,2, An-Bang Wang1, Su Yi1, and Xia-Ji Liu2

  • 1Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China
  • 2Centre for Quantum and Optical Science, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne 3122, Australia

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Issue

Vol. 93, Iss. 5 — May 2016

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