Imaging the Mott Insulator Shells using Atomic Clock Shifts

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel microwave spectroscopy technique to image and analyze the shell structure of a Mott Insulator phase in a Bose-Einstein condensate within a 3D optical lattice, revealing detailed occupation number distributions.

Contribution

The study introduces a method to spectroscopically distinguish and image different occupation number shells in a Mott Insulator, providing new insights into its structure and properties.

Findings

Successfully imaged shells with occupation numbers n=1 to n=5

Measured onsite interaction energies for individual shells

Determined the lifetime of different Mott Insulator shells

Abstract

Microwave spectroscopy was used to probe the superfluid-Mott Insulator transition of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a 3D optical lattice. Using density dependent transition frequency shifts we were able to spectroscopically distinguish sites with different occupation numbers, and to directly image sites with occupation number n=1 to n=5 revealing the shell structure of the Mott Insulator phase. We use this spectroscopy to determine the onsite interaction and lifetime for individual shells.