Adiabatic loading of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a 3D optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper experimentally studies how a Bose-Einstein condensate is adiabatically loaded into a 3D optical lattice, analyzing excitation generation and the role of tunneling in the superfluid regime.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the dynamics of adiabatic loading in optical lattices, emphasizing the importance of tunneling timescales.

Findings

Excitations increase with faster ramping of the lattice.

Visibility of interference patterns decreases with non-adiabatic loading.

Tunneling governs the limiting timescale for adiabatic loading.

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the adiabatic loading of a Bose-Einstein condensate into an optical lattice potential. The generation of excitations during the ramp is detected by a corresponding decrease in the visibility of the interference pattern observed after free expansion of the cloud. We focus on the superfluid regime, where we show that the limiting time scale is related to the redistribution of atoms across the lattice by single-particle tunneling.