We calculate the shift, due to interatomic interactions, of an optical transition in an atomic Fermi gas trapped in an optical lattice, as in recent experiments of Campbell {\it et al.}, Science {\bf 324}, 360 (2009). Using a pseudospin formalism to describe the density matrix of the internal two states of the optical transition, we derive a Bloch equation which incorporates both the spatial inhomogeneity of the probe laser field and the interatomic interactions. Expressions are given for the frequency shift as a function of the pulse duration, detuning of the probe laser, and the spatial dependence of the electric field of the probe beam. In the low temperature semiclassical regime, we find that the magnitude of the shift is proportional to the temperature.
We theoretically investigate the response of a two component Fermi gas to vector potentials which couple separately to the two spin components. Such vector potentials may be implemented in ultracold atomic gases using optically dressed states. Our study indicates that light-induced gauge potentials may be used to probe the properies of the interacting ultracold Fermi gas, providing. amongst other things, ways to measure the superfluid density and the strength of pairing.
We show how density dependent gauge potentials can be induced in dilute gases of ultracold atoms using light-matter interactions. We study the effect of the resulting interacting gauge theory and show how it gives rise to novel topological states in the ultracold gas. We find in particular that the onset of persistent currents in a ring geometry is governed by a critical number of particles. The density-dependent gauge potential is also found to support chiral solitons in a quasi-one-dimensional ultracold Bose gas.
We clarify some technical issues in the present generalized effective-potential Landau theory (GEPLT) that makes the GEPLT more consistent and complete. Utilizing this clarified GEPLT, we analytically study the quantum phase transitions of ultracold Bose gases in bipartite superlattices at zero termparture. The corresponding quantum phase boundaries are analytically calculated up to the third-order hopping, which are in excellent agreement with the quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations.
The object of study of this thesis are dipolar systems in the quantum degenerate regime. In general, dealing with many-body systems and evaluating their properties requires to deal with the Schrödinger equation. In the present study we employ different Monte Carlo methods, that are stochastic techniques that allow to find numerical solutions to it.
In this chapter, we describe scattering resonance phenomena in general, and focus on the mechanism of Feshbach resonances, for which a multi-channel treatment is required. We derive the dependence of the scattering phase shift on magnetic field and collision energy. From this, the scattering length and effective range coefficient can be extracted, expressions which are particularly useful for ultracold gases.
Ultracold atomic gases have developed into prime systems for experimental studies of Efimov three-body physics and related few-body phenomena, which occur in the universal regime of resonant interactions. In the last few years, many important breakthroughs have been achieved, confirming basic predictions of universal few-body theory and deepening our understanding of such systems. We review the basic ideas along with the fast experimental developments of the field, focussing on ultracold cesium gases as a well-investigated model system. Triatomic Efimov resonances, atom-dimer Efimov resonances…
In this work we investigate the unique properties of ultracold Bose gases in one and two dimensions. In two dimensions, we present simulations of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition using the projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation formalism. We confirm the presence of the BKT phase by observing algebraic decay in the first-order correlation function, unbinding of vortex pairs, and behaviour of the superfluid fraction. In one dimension we use a transverse Gaussian ansatz and the Lagrangian approach to derive an effective equation of motion for the one dimensional Bose gas at…
This article provides a brief review of how various spectroscopies have been used to investitage many-body quantum phenomena in the context of ultracold Fermi gases. In particular, work done with RF spectroscopy, Bragg spectroscopy and lattice modulation spectroscopy is considered. The theoretical basis of these spectroscopies, namely linear response theory in the many-body quantum physics context is briefly presented. Experiments related to the BCS-BEC crossover, imbalanced Fermi gases, polarons, possible pseudogap and Fermi liquid behaviour and measuring the contact are discussed. Remaining …
We study the dissociation of Feshbach molecules in ultracold Fermi gases with spin-orbit (SO) coupling. Since SO coupling can induce quantum transition between the Feshbach molecules and the fully polarized Fermi gas, the Feshbach molecules can be dissociated by the SO coupling. We experimentally realized this new type of dissociation in ultracold gases of 40K atoms with SO coupling created by Raman beams, and observed that the dissociation rate is highly non-monotonic on both the positive and negative Raman-detuning sides. Our results show that the dissociation of Feshbach molecules can be co…
We review recent developments in the use of magnetic lattices as a complementary tool to optical lattices for trapping periodic arrays of ultracold atoms and degenerate quantum gases. Recent advances include the realisation of Bose-Einstein condensation in multiple sites of a magnetic lattice of one-dimensional microtraps, the trapping of ultracold atoms in square and triangular magnetic lattices, and the fabrication of magnetic lattice structures with sub-micron period suitable for quantum tunnelling experiments. Finally, we describe a proposal to utilise long-range interacting Rydberg atoms …
We study the virial relations for ultracold trapped two component Fermi gases in the case of short finite range interactions. Numerical verifications for such relations are reported through the BCS-BEC crossover. As an intermediate step, it is necessary to evaluate the partial derivatives of the many body energy with respect to the inverse of the scattering length and with respect to the interaction range. They are found to have extreme values at the unitary limit. The virial results are used to check the quality of the variational wave function involved in the calculations.
We propose an experimental scheme for studying the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) phenomenon in a quantum mechanical regime using ultracold atoms. Specifically, we suggest and analyze a setup of one-dimensional Bose gases confined into an optical lattice. The strength of quantum fluctuations is controlled by tuning the number of atoms per lattice sites (filling factor). By simulating the real-time dynamics of the Bose-Hubbard model by means of the exact numerical method of time-evolving block decimation, we investigate the effects of quantum fluctuations on the FPU recurrence and show that strong quan…
Investigating Friedel oscillations in ultracold gases would complement the studies performed on solid state samples with scanning-tunneling microscopes. In atomic quantum gases interactions and external potentials can be tuned freely and the inherently slower dynamics allow to access non-equilibrium dynamics following a potential or interaction quench. Here, we examine how Friedel oscillations can be observed in current ultracold gas experiments under realistic conditions. To this aim we numerically calculate the amplitude of the Friedel oscillations which a potential barrier provokes in a 1D …
We show that the Bose-Hubbard Model exhibits an increase in density with temperature at fixed pressure in the regular fluid regime and in the superfluid phase. The anomaly at the Bose-Einstein condensate is the first density anomaly observed in a quantum state. We propose that the mechanism underlying both the normal phase and the superfluid phase anomalies is related to zero point entropies and ground state phase transitions. A connection with the typical experimental scales and setups is also addressed. This key finding opens a new pathway for theoretical and experimental studies of water-li…
We demonstrate a novel class of trapping potentials, time-averaged adiabatic potentials (TAAP) which allows the generation of a large variety of traps and waveguides for ultracold atoms. Multiple traps can be coupled through controllable tunneling barriers or merged altogether. We present analytical expressions for pancake-, cigar-, and ring- shaped traps. The ring-geometry is of particular interest for guided matter-wave interferometry as it provides a perfectly smooth waveguide of controllable diameter, and thus a tunable sensitivity of the interferometer.
We describe how optical dressing can be used to generate bandstructures for ultracold atoms with non-trivial Z_2 topological order. Time reversal symmetry is preserved by simple conditions on the optical fields. We first show how to construct optical lattices that give rise to Z_2 topological insulators in two dimensions. We then describe a general method for the construction of three-dimensional Z_2 topological insulators. A central feature of our approach is a new way to understand Z_2 topological insulators starting from the nearly-free electron limit.
We show that a time-dependent magnetic field inducing a periodically modulated scattering length may lead to interesting novel scenarios for cold gases in optical lattices, characterized by a nonlinear hopping depending on the number difference at neighboring sites. We discuss the rich physics introduced by this hopping, including pair superfluidity, exactly defect-free Mott-insulator states for finite hopping, and pure holon and doublon superfluids. We also address experimental detection, showing that the introduced nonlinear hopping may lead in harmonically trapped gases to abrupt drops in t…
We study the quench dynamics of a two-component ultracold Fermi gas from the weak into the strong interaction regime, where the short time dynamics are governed by the exponential growth rate of unstable collective modes. We obtain an effective interaction that takes into account both Pauli blocking and the energy dependence of the scattering amplitude near a Feshbach resonance. Using this interaction we analyze the competing instabilities towards Stoner ferromagnetism and pairing.
Quantum phase slips are the primary excitations in one-dimensional superfluids and superconductors at low temperatures. They have been well characterized in most condensed-matter systems, and signatures of their existence has been recently observed in superfluids based on quantum gases too. In this review we briefly summarize the main results obtained on the investigation of phase slips from superconductors to quantum gases. In particular we focus our attention on recent experimental results of the dissipation in one-dimensional Bose superfluids flowing along a shallow periodic potential, whic…
Itinerant ferromagnetism in cold Fermi gases with repulsive interactions is studied applying the Jastrow-Slater approximation generalized to finite polarization and temperature. For two components at zero temperature a second order transition is found at $ak_F\simeq0.90$ compatible with QMC. Thermodynamic functions and observables such as the compressibility and spin susceptibility and the resulting fluctuations in number and spin are calculated. For trapped gases the resulting cloud radii and kinetic energies are calculated and compared to recent experiments. Spin polarized systems are recomm…
We introduce a density functional formalism to study the ground-state properties of strongly-correlated dipolar and ionic ultracold bosonic and fermionic gases, based on the self-consistent combination of the weak and the strong coupling limits. Contrary to conventional density functional approaches, our formalism does not require a previous calculation of the interacting homogeneous gas, and it is thus very suitable to treat systems with tunable long-range interactions. Due to its asymptotic exactness in the regime of strong correlation, the formalism works for systems in which standard mean-…
Weyl fermion, also referred to as pseudo-magnetic monopole in momentum space, is an undiscovered massless elementary particle with half-integer spin predicted according to relativistic quantum field theory. Motivated by the recent experimental observation of Weyl semimetal band in ultracold Bose gases with Raman-assisted 3D spin-orbit coupling, we investigate the properties and possible observation of Weyl fermions in the low-energy quasi-particle excitations of ultracold Fermi gases. Following a previous suggestion that the existing Raman lattice scheme can be readily generalized to fermionic…
We study the collapse of ultracold fermionic gases into inhomogeneous states due to strong dipolar interaction in both 2D and 3D. Depending on the dimensionality, we find that two different types of inhomogeneous states are stabilized once the dipole moment reaches a critical value $d>d_c$: the {\it stripe phase} and {\it phase separation} between high and low densities. In 2D, we prove that the stripe phase is always favored for $d\gtrsim d_c$, regardless of the microscopic details of the system. In 3D, the one-loop perturbative calculation suggests that the same type of instability leads to …
We study experimentally the dissipative dynamics of ultracold bosonic gases in a dynamic disorder potential with tunable correlation time. First, we measure the heating rate of thermal clouds exposed to the dynamic potential and present a model of the heating process, revealing the microscopic origin of dissipation from a thermal, trapped cloud of bosons. Second, for Bose-Einstein condensates, we measure the particle loss rate induced by the dynamic environment. Depending on the correlation time, the losses are either dominated by heating of residual thermal particles or the creation of excita…
We consider a gas of bosons in a bichromatic optical lattice at finite temperatures. As the amplitude of the secondary lattice grows, the single-particles eigenstates become localized. We calculate the canonical partition function using exact methods for the noninteracting and strongly interacting limit and analyze the statistical properties of the superfluid phase, localized phase and the strongly interacting gas. We show that those phases may be distinguished in experiment using off-resonant light scattering.
The recent experimental realization of synthetic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) opens a new avenue for exploring novel quantum states with ultracold atoms. However, in experiments for generating two-dimensional SOC (e.g., Rashba type), a perpendicular Zeeman field, which opens a band gap at the Dirac point and induces many topological phenomena, is still lacking. Here we theoretically propose and experimentally realize a simple scheme for generating two-dimension SOC and a perpendicular Zeeman field simultaneously in ultracold Fermi gases by tuning the polarization of three Raman lasers that couple…
We study the Bose-Einstein condensate phase transition of three-dimensional ultracold bosons with isotropic Rashba spin-orbit coupling. Investigating the structure of Ginzburg-Landau free energy as a function of the condensate density, we show, within the Bogoliubov approximation, that the condensate phase transition is first order with a jump in the condensate density. We calculate the transition temperature and the jump in the condensate density at the transition for large spin-orbit coupling, where the transition temperature depends linearly on the density of particles. Finally, we discuss …
We propose an effective Ising spin chain constructed with dipolar quantum gases confined in a one-dimensional optical superlattice. Mapping the motional degrees of freedom of a single particle in the lattice onto a pseudo-spin results in effective transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields. This effective Ising spin chain exhibits a quantum phase transition from a paramagnetic to a single-kink phase as the dipolar interaction increases. Particularly in the single-kink phase,a magnetic kink arises in the effective spin chain and behaves as a quasi-particle in a pinning potential exerted by the…
This Dissertation presents results of a thorough study of ultracold bosonic and fermionic gases in three-dimensional and quasi-one-dimensional systems. Although the analyses are carried out within various theoretical frameworks (Gross-Pitaevskii, Bethe ansatz, local density approximation, etc.) the main tool of the study is the Quantum Monte Carlo method in different modifications (variational Monte Carlo, diffusion Monte Carlo, fixed-node Monte Carlo methods). We benchmark our Monte Carlo calculations by recovering known analytical results (perturbative theories in dilute limits, exactly solv…
Ultracold atomic Fermi gases can be tuned to interact strongly, where they display spectroscopic signatures above the superfluid transition reminiscent of the pseudogap in cuprates. However, the extent of the analogy can be questioned, since thermodynamic quantities in the low temperature spin-imbalanced normal state can be described successfully using Fermi liquid theory. Here we present spin susceptibility measurements across the interaction strength-temperature phase diagram using a novel radiofrequency technique with ultracold $^6\textrm{Li}$ gases. For all significant interaction strength…
We present two Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) algorithms for systems of ultracold quantum gases featuring synthetic spin-orbit interactions. The first one is a discrete spin generalization of the T- moves spin-orbit DMC, which provides an upper bound to the fixed-phase energy. The second is a spin-integrated DMC method which recovers the fixed-phase property by avoiding the definition of the effective Hamiltonian involved in the T-moves approach. The latter is a more accurate method but it is restricted to spin-independent two-body interactions. We report a comparison between both algorithms for …
Cooling atomic gases into strongly correlated quantum phases requires estimates of the entropy to perform thermometry and establish viability. We construct an ansatz partition function for models of Laughlin states of atomic gases by combining high temperature series expansions with exact diagonalization. Using the ansatz we find that entropies required to observe Laughlin correlations with bosonic gases are within reach of current cooling capabilities.
Anderson localization has been observed for a variety of media, including ultracold atomic gases with speckle disorder in one and three dimensions. However, observation of Anderson localization in a two-dimensional geometry for ultracold gases has been elusive. We show that a cause of this difficulty is the relatively high percolation threshold of a speckle potential in two dimensions, resulting in strong classical localization. We propose a realistic point-like disorder potential that circumvents this percolation limit with localization lengths that are experimentally observable. The percolat…
Motivated by recent experimental advances in ultracold atomic gases placed in cavities, we study the influence of the atom-cavity coupling on the Fermi gases trapped in optical lattices. By adiabatic elimination of the cavity photon field, the atom-cavity coupling gives rise to effective long-range interactions. It results in a variety of two-body scattering processes, during which the atomic pairs can acquire an additional center-of-mass momentum. This reveals the possibility of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluids in which the atomic pairing momentum is nonzero. By inspecting …
Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is central to many physical phenomena, including fine structures of atomic spectra and quantum topological matters. Whereas SOC is in general fixed in a physical system, atom-laser interaction provides physicists a unique means to create and control synthetic SOC for ultracold atoms \cite{Dalibard}. Though significant experimental progresses have been made, a bottleneck in current studies is the lack of a two-dimensional (2D) synthetic SOC, which is crucial for realizing high-dimensional topological matters. Here, we report the experimental realization of 2D SOC in ul…
We develop a non-perturbative theoretical framework to treat collisions with generic anisotropic interactions in quasi-one-dimensional geometries. Our method avoids the limitations of pseudopotential theory allowing to include accurately long-range anisotropic interactions. Analyzing ultracold dipolar collisions in a harmonic waveguide we predict dipolar confinement-induced resonances (DCIRs) which are attributed to different angular momentum states. The analytically derived resonance condition reveals in detail the interplay of the confinement with the anisotropic nature of the dipole-dipole …
We study theoretically some effects produced by a propagation of the charged particles in dilute gases of alkali-metal atoms in the state with Bose-Einstein condensates. The energy change of the high-speed (relativistic) particle that corresponds to the Cherenkov effect in the condensate is investigated. We show that in the studied cases the particle can both loose and receive the energy from a gas. We find the necessary conditions for the particle acceleration in the multi-component condensate. It is shown that the Cherenkov effect in Bose-Einstein condensates can be used also for defining th…
Exactly solvable models of ultracold Fermi gases are reviewed via their thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz solution. Analytical and numerical results are obtained for the thermodynamics and ground state properties of two- and three-component one-dimensional attractive fermions with population imbalance. New results for the universal finite temperature corrections are given for the two-component model. For the three-component model, numerical solution of the dressed energy equations confirm that the analytical expressions for the critical fields and the resulting phase diagrams at zero temperature are …
We study theoretically the dynamics of two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in two dimensions, which admit topological excitations related to the Skyrmions of nuclear physics. We show that there exists a branch of uniformly propagating solitary waves characterised by a conserved momentum. These excitations exhibit a cross-over from spatially extended spin-wave states at low momentum to a localised "spin-wave droplet" at intermediate momentum; at still higher momentum, the configuration evolves continuously into a Skyrmion-antiSkyrmion pair. We discuss how these solitary waves can be generat…
We experimentally investigate the mix-dimensional scattering occurring when the collisional partners live in different dimensions. We employ a binary mixture of ultracold atoms and exploit a species-selective 1D optical lattice to confine only one atomic species in 2D. By applying an external magnetic field in proximity of a Feshbach resonance, we adjust the free-space scattering length to observe a series of resonances in mixed dimensions. By monitoring 3-body inelastic losses, we measure the magnetic field values corresponding to the mix-dimensional scattering resonances and find a good agre…
We reveal that the p-wave superfluid can be realized in a mixture of fermionic and F=1 bosonic gases. We derive a general set of the gap equations for gaps in the s- and p-channels. It is found that the spin-spin bose-fermi interactions favor the p-wave pairing and naturally suppress the pairing in the s-channel. The gap equations for the polar phase of p-wave superfluid fermions are numerically solved. It is shown that a pure p-wave superfluid can be observed in a well-controlled environment of atomic physics.
We discuss the thermodynamic signatures for the topological phase transitions into Majorana and Weyl superfluid phases in ultracold Fermi gases in two and three dimensions in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling and a Zeeman field. We analyze the thermodynamic properties exhibiting the distinct nature of the topological phase transitions linked with the Majorana fermions (2D Fermi gas) and Weyl fermions (3D Fermi gas) which can be observed experimentally, including pressure, chemical potential, isothermal compressibility, entropy, and specific heat, as a function of the interaction and t…
In this letter we address the issue how synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling can strongly affect three-body physics in ultracold atomic gases. We consider a system which consists of three fermionic atoms, including two spinless heavy atoms and one spin-1/2 light atom subjected to an isotropic SO coupling. We find that SO coupling can induce universal three-body bound states with negative s-wave scattering length at a smaller mass ratio, where no trimer bound state can exist if in the absence of SO coupling. The energies of these trimers are independent of high-energy cutoff, and therefore they a…
We experimentally realize the spin-tensor momentum coupling (STMC) using the three ground Zeeman states coupled by three Raman laser beams in ultracold atomic system of $^{40}$K Fermi atoms. This new type of STMC consists of two bright-state bands as a regular spin-orbit coupled spin-1/2 system and one dark-state middle band. Using radio-frequency spin-injection spectroscopy, we investigate the energy band of STMC. It is demonstrated that the middle state is a dark state in the STMC system. The realized energy band of STMC may open the door for further exploring exotic quantum matters.
We study energy and particle transport for one-dimensional strongly interacting bosons through a single channel connecting two atomic reservoirs. We show the emergence of particle- and energy- current separation, leading to the violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law. As a consequence, we predict different time scales for the equilibration of temperature and particle imbalances between the reservoirs. Going beyond the linear spectrum approximation, we show the emergence of ther- moelectric effects, which could be controlled by either tuning interactions or the temperature. Our results describe in…
We study the anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau and Lawrence-Doniach models describing a layered superfluid ultracold Fermi gas in optical lattices. We derive the coefficients of the anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau and the mass tensor as a function of anisotropy, filling and interaction, showing that near the unitary limit the effective anisotropy of the masses is significantly reduced. The anisotropy parameter is shown to vary in realistic setups in a wide range of values. We also derive the Lawrence-Doniach model - often used to describe the 2D-3D dimensional crossover in layered superconductors - for …
We show that arbitrarily high-order exceptional points (EPs) can be achieved in a repulsively interacting two-species Bose gas in one dimension. By exactly solving the non-Hermitian two-boson problem, we demonstrate the existence of third-order EPs when the system is driven across the parity-time symmetry breaking transition. We further address the fourth-order EPs with three bosons and generalize the results to $N$-body system, where the EP order can be as high as $N+1$. Physically, such high order originates from the intrinsic ferromagnetic correlation in spinor bosons, which renders the ent…
We explore atom-laser-like transport processes of ultracold Bose-condensed atomic vapors in mesoscopic waveguide structures beyond the Gross-Pitaevskii mean-field theory. Based on a microscopic description of the transport process in the presence of a coherent source which models the outcoupling from a reservoir of perfectly Bose-Einstein condensed atoms, we derive a system of coupled quantum evolution equations that describe the dynamics of a dilute condensed Bose gas in the framework of the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approximation. We apply this method to study the transport of dilute Bose gase…
A variety of solitary waves, such as solitons, vortex rings, solitonic vortices, and more complex entities, have recently been predicted to exist. They can move in superfluid ultracold gases along elongated traps. The theoretical description of this motion requires knowledge of the inertial soliton mass and the effective number of particles in it as functions of the soliton energy. While these functions can be calculated by a microscopic theory, it is also possible to express them directly in terms of observable quantities, such as the order parameter phase jump and the particle number depleti…
One-dimensional systems of interacting atoms are an ideal laboratory to study the Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition. In the renormalization group picture there is essentially a two-parameter phase diagram to explore. We first present how detailed experiments have shown direct evidence for the theoretical treatment of this transition. Then generalization to the case of two-component systems with bound state formation is discussed. Trimer formation in the asymmetric attractive Hubbard model involve in a crucial way this kind of physics.
We show that simple laser configurations can give rise to "optical flux lattices", in which optically dressed atoms experience a periodic effective magnetic flux with high mean density. These potentials lead to narrow energy bands with non-zero Chern number. Optical flux lattices will greatly facilitate the achievement of the quantum Hall regime for ultracold atomic gases.
The recent advances in single atom detection and manipulation in experiments with ultracold quantum gases are reviewed. The discussion starts with the basic principles of trapping, cooling and detecting single ions and atoms. The realization of single atom detection in ultracold quantum gases is presented in detail and the employed methods, which are based on light scattering, electron scattering, field ionization and direct neutral particle detection are discussed. The microscopic coherent manipulation of single atoms in a quantum gas is also covered. Various examples are given in order to hi…
We suggest pump-probe spectroscopy to study pair correlations that determine the many-body dynamics in weakly interacting, dilute ultracold gases. A suitably chosen, short laser pulse depletes the pair density locally, creating a 'hole' in the electronic ground state. The dynamics of this non-stationary pair density is monitored by a time-delayed probe pulse. The resulting transient signal allows to spectrally decompose the 'hole' and to map out the pair correlation functions.
We theoretically analyze interference patterns of parametrically driven one dimensional ultracold atomic gases. By modulating the interaction strength periodically in time, we propose to excite collective modes in a pair of independent one dimensional gases at energies corresponding to the drive frequency. The excited collective modes lead to spatial oscillations in the correlations of the interference pattern, which can be analyzed to obtain the sound velocity of the collective modes. We discuss both bosonic and fermionic systems, and how such experiments could be used to probe spin charge se…
We report on the measurement of the scattering properties of ultracold $^{174}$Yb bosons in a three-dimensional (3D) optical lattice. Site occupancy in an atomic Mott insulator is resolved with high-precision spectroscopy on an ultranarrow optical clock transition. Scattering lengths and loss rate coefficients for $^{174}$Yb atoms in different collisional channels involving the ground state $^1$S$_0$ and the metastable $^3$P$_0$ are derived. These studies set important constraints for future experimental studies of two-electron atoms for quantum-technological applications.
