Confinement control by optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how combining confining and periodic optical lattice potentials can spatially confine particles and create complex slicing effects, especially relevant for low-temperature fermionic systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for particle confinement and slicing using optical lattices, highlighting effects in fermionic systems at low temperatures.

Findings

Particles can be spatially confined on a fraction of the system.

Increasing lattice period enables complex slicing of the system.

Results are particularly relevant for low-temperature fermionic systems.

Abstract

It is shown that the interplay of a confining potential with a periodic potential leads for free particles to states spatially confined on a fraction of the total extension of the system. A more complex `slicing' of the system can be achieved by increasing the period of the lattice potential. These results are especially relevant for fermionic systems, where interaction effects are in general strongly reduced for a single species at low temperatures.