Dynamically Generated Double Occupancy as a Probe of Cold Atom Systems

TL;DR

This paper theoretically validates the use of dynamically generated double occupancy as a reliable probe for identifying Mott phases in cold atom systems, emphasizing the importance of low temperatures for conclusive results.

Contribution

It provides an analytic study of the driven Hubbard model to confirm the effectiveness of double occupancy measurements in detecting Mott phases.

Findings

Double occupancy measurement indicates Mott phase at low temperatures.

Conclusive evidence requires temperatures much lower than the hopping amplitude.

Theoretical validation supports experimental techniques in cold atom systems.

Abstract

The experimental investigation of quantum phases in optical lattice systems provides major challenges. Recently, dynamical generation of double occupancy via modulation of the hopping amplitude t has been used to characterize the strongly correlated phase of fermionic atoms. Here, we want to validate this experimental technique with a theoretical study of the driven Hubbard model using analytic methods. We find that conclusive evidence for a Mott phase can be inferred from such a measurement, provided that sufficiently low temperatures kT<<t can be reached.