Dynamics of pattern-loaded fermions in bichromatic optical lattices
Abstract
Motivated by experiments in Munich [M. Schreiber et al., Science 349, 842 (2015).SCIEAS0036-807510.1126/science.aaa7432], we study the dynamics of interacting fermions initially prepared in charge density wave states in one-dimensional bichromatic optical lattices. The experiment sees a marked lack of thermalization, which has been taken as evidence for an interacting generalization of Anderson localization, dubbed "many-body localization." We model the experiments using an interacting Aubry-Andre model and develop a computationally efficient low-density cluster expansion to calculate the even-odd density imbalance as a function of interaction strength and potential strength. Our calculations agree with the experimental results and shed light on the phenomena. We also explore a two-dimensional generalization. The cluster expansion method we develop should have broad applicability to similar problems in nonequilibrium quantum physics. © 2016 American Physical Society.