Dimer of two bosons in a one-dimensional optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper provides an analytical study of two-boson bound states in a one-dimensional optical lattice, offering insights into their detection and properties within the Bose-Hubbard framework.

Contribution

It derives closed-form solutions for the bound and dissociated states of a two-boson lattice dimer in the infinite lattice limit, advancing understanding of their quantum states.

Findings

Analytic expressions for bound and dissociated states.

Methods for detecting the dimer via momentum and correlation measurements.

Strategies for dissociating the dimer using lattice modulation.

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the stationary states of two bosons in a one-dimensional optical lattice within the Bose-Hubbard model. Starting from a finite lattice with periodic boundary conditions, we effect a partial separation of the center-of-mass and relative motions of the two-atom lattice dimer in the lattice momentum representation, and carefully analyze the eigenstates of the relative motion. In the limit when the lattice becomes infinitely long, we find closed-form analytic expressions for both the bound state and the dissociated states of the lattice dimer. We outline the corresponding analysis in the position representation. The results are used to discuss three ways to detect the dimer: by measuring the momentum distribution of the atoms, by finding the size of the molecule with measurements of atom number correlations at two lattice sites, and by dissociating a bound state of the lattice dimer with a modulation of the lattice depth.