Dynamics of Quantum Statistical Correlations in Ultracold Bose Gases

Abstract

The dynamical evolution of an ultracold Bose gas distributed across the sites of an optical lattice is investigated theoretically in the framework of the Bose-Hubbard model. First, the focus is set on the evolution of squeezing correlations in the two mode system. It is shown that the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian do not exploit the full region of possible squeezing allowed by Heisenbergs uncertainty relation for number and phase fl uctuations. The development of nonclassical correlations and relative number squeezing is studied at the transition from the Josephson to the Fock regime. Comparing the full quantum evolution with classical statistical simulations allows us to identify quantum aspects of the squeezing formation. In the quantum regime, the measurement of squeezing allows us to distinguish even and odd total particle number states. Then, a far from equilibrium quantum field theory method, the so-called two-particle-irreducible effective action approach, is presented for the description of the dynamics in larger lattices. The resulting dynamics is compared to the classical statistical time evolution. The validity of the quantum field evolution is probed for various initial conditions in the classical regime.