Disappearance of quasiparticles in a Bose lattice gas
Abstract
We use a momentum-space hole-burning technique implemented via stimulated Raman transitions to measure the momentum relaxation time for a gas of bosonic atoms trapped in an optical lattice. By changing the lattice potential depth, we observe a smooth crossover between relaxation times larger and smaller than the bandwidth. The latter condition violates the Mott-Ioffe-Regel bound and indicates a breakdown of the quasiparticle picture. We produce a simple kinetic model that quantitatively predicts these relaxation times. Finally, we introduce a cooling technique based upon our hole-burning technique. ©2016 American Physical Society.
Date Published
Journal
Physical Review A
Volume
94
Issue
2
URL
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84982671584&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevA.94.021601&partnerID=40&md5=8c21032a4e241103a2b23c5efcd89a34
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevA.94.021601
Research Area
Group (Lab)
Funding Source
PHY12-05548
W9112-1-0462
W9112-1-0462