Role of trap-induced scales in non-equilibrium dynamics of strongly interacting trapped bosons

Abstract

We use a time-dependent hopping expansion technique to study the non-equilibrium dynamics of strongly interacting bosons in an optical lattice in the presence of a harmonic trap characterized by a force constant K. We show that after a sudden quench of the hopping amplitude J across the superfluid (SF)-Mott insulator (MI) transition, the SF order parameter and the local density fluctuation exhibit sudden decoherence beyond a trap-induced time scale . We also show that after a slow linear ramp down of J, and the boson defect density display a novel non-monotonic spatial profile. Both these phenomena can be explained as consequences of trap-induced time and length scales affecting the dynamics and can be tested by concrete experiments.