The Bloch oscillation (BO) and Wannier-Stark localization (WSL) are fundamental concepts about metal-insulator transitions in condensed matter physics. These phenomena have also been observed in semiconductor superlattices and simulated in platforms such as photonic waveguide arrays and cold atoms. Here, we report experimental investigation of BOs and WSL simulated with a 5-qubit programmable superconducting processor, of which the effective Hamiltonian is an isotropic $XY$ spin chain. When applying a linear potential to the system by properly tuning all individual qubits, we observe that the propagation of a single spin on the chain is suppressed. It tends to oscillate near the neighborhood of their initial positions, which demonstrates the characteristics of BOs and WSL. We verify that the WSL length is inversely correlated to the potential gradient. Benefiting from the precise single-shot simultaneous readout of all qubits in our experiments, we can also investigate the thermal transport, which requires the joint measurement of more than one qubits. The experimental results show that, as an essential characteristic for BOs and WSL, the thermal transport is also blocked under a linear potential. Our experiment would be scalable to more superconducting qubits for simulating various of out-of-equilibrium problems in quantum many-body systems.
We show that the interband dynamics in a tilted two-band Bose-Hubbard model can be reduced to an analytically accessible spin model in the case of resonant interband oscillations. This allows us to predict the revival time of these oscillations which decay and revive due to inter-particle interactions. The presented mapping onto the spin model and the so achieved reduction of complexity has interesting perspectives for future studies of many-body systems.
We analyze the Wannier-Stark spectrum of a quantum particle in generic one-dimensional double-periodic lattices. In the limit of weak static field the spectrum is shown to be a superposition of two Wannier-Stark ladders originated from two Bloch subbands. As the strength of the field is increased, the spectrum rearranges itself into a single Wannier-Stark ladder. We derive analytical expressions which describe the rearrangement employing the analogy between the Wannier-Stark problem and the driven two-level system in the strong-coupling regime.
In this work, we discuss the resonance states of a quantum particle in a periodic potential plus a static force. Originally this problem was formulated for a crystal electron subject to a static electric field and it is nowadays known as the Wannier-Stark problem. We describe a novel approach to the Wannier-Stark problem developed in recent years. This approach allows to compute the complex energy spectrum of a Wannier-Stark system as the poles of a rigorously constructed scattering matrix and solves the Wannier-Stark problem without any approximation. The suggested method is very efficient fr…
Stimulated by the experimental realization of spin-dependent tunneling via gradient magnetic field [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 225301 (2013); Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 185301 (2013)], we investigate dynamics of Bloch oscillations and Landau-Zener tunneling of single spin-half particles in a periodic potential under the influence of a spin-dependent constant force. In analogy to the Wannier-Stark system, we call our system as the Wannier-Zeeman system. If there is no coupling between the two spin states, the system can be described by two crossing Wannier-Stark ladders with opposite tilts. The spatial c…
We observe Wannier-Stark localization in curved photonic lattices, realized using arrays of evanescently coupled optical waveguides. By correctly tuning the strength of inter-site coupling in the lattice, we observe that Wannier-Stark states become increasingly localized, and eventually fully localized to one site, as the curvature of the lattice is increased. We then demonstrate that tunneling can be successfully restored in the lattice by applying a sinusoidal modulation to the lattice position, an effect that is a direct analogue of photon-assisted tunneling. This precise tuning of the tunn…
We investigated how the presence of an additional lattice potential, driven by a harmonic noise process, changes the transition rate from the ground band to the first excited band in a Wannier-Stark system. Alongside numerical simulations, we present two models that capture the essential features of the dynamics. The first model uses a noise-driven Landau-Zener approximation and describes the short time evolution of the full system very well. The second model assumes that the noise process' correlation time is much larger than the internal timescale of the system, yet it allows for good estima…
The resonance spectrum of a tilted periodic quantum system for a bichromatic periodic potential is investigated. For such a bichromatic Wannier-Stark system exceptional points, degeneracies of the spectrum, can be localized in parameter space by means of an efficient method for computing resonances. Berry phases and Petermann factors are analyzed. Finally the influence of a nonlinearity of the Gross-Pitaevskii type on the resonance crossing scenario is briefly discussed.
This papers presents a formalism describing the dynamics of a quantum particle in a one-dimensional tilted time-dependent lattice. The description uses the Wannier-Stark states, which are localized in each site of the lattice and provides a simple framework leading to fully-analytical developments. Particular attention is devoted to the case of a time-dependent potential, which results in a rich variety of quantum coherent dynamics is found.
We study an experimentally realizable paradigm of complex many-body quantum systems, a two-band Wannier-Stark model, for which diffusion in Hilbert space as well as many-body Landau-Zener processes can be engineered. A cross-over between regular to quantum chaotic spectra is found within the many-body avoided crossings at resonant tunneling conditions. The spectral properties are shown to determine the evolution of states across a cascade of Landau-Zener events. We apply the obtained spectral information to study the non-equilibrium dynamics of our many-body system in different parameter regim…
We study the energy spectrum of atoms trapped in a vertical 1D optical lattice in close proximity to a reflective surface. We propose an effective model to describe the interaction between the atoms and the surface at any distance. Our model includes the long-range Casimir-Polder potential together with a short-range Lennard-Jones potential, which are considered non-perturbatively with respect to the optical lattice potential. We find an intricate energy spectrum which contains a pair of loosely-bound states localized close to the surface in addition to a surface-modified Wannier-Stark ladder …
We investigate a Bose-Einstein condensate held in a quasi-one-dimensional Wannier-Stark lattice which is a combination of linear potential with an accelerated optical lattice. It is demonstrated that the system can be reduced to a periodically driven Gross-Pitaevskii one, in which we find the first exact analytical solution and the regular and chaotic numerical solutions with accelerated atomic flow densities. The results suggest an experimental scheme for generating and controlling the accelerating regular and chaotic matter-waves.
We systematically construct flatbands (FB) for tight-binding models on simple Bravais lattices in space dimension $d \geq 2$ in the presence of a static uniform DC field. Commensurate DC field directions yield irreducible Wannier-Stark (WS) bands in perpendicular dimension $d - 1$ with $d$-dimensional eigenfunctions. The irreducible bands turn into dispersionless flatbands in the absence of nearest neighbor hoppings between lattice sites in any direction perpendicular to the DC field. The number of commensurate directions which yield flatbands is of measure one. We arrive at a complete halt of…
In this paper we show that in the semicassical regime of periodic potential large enough, the Stark-Wannier ladders become a dense energy spectrum because of a cascade of bifurcations while increasing the ratio between the effective nonlinearity strength and the tilt of the external field; this fact is associated to a transition from regular to quantum chaotic dynamics. The sequence of bifurcation points is explicitly given.
We study a quantum particle in a tilted honeycomb lattice in the tight-binding approximation. First we discuss the particle eigenstates, i.e., the stationary Wannier-Stark states. These states are proved to be extended states for the rational directions of the static field and localized states for the irrational directions. We find energy bands of the extended states and analyze the localized states. It is shown, in particular, that the localized `honeycomb' Wannier-Stark states are chaotic states with irregular dependence of the localization length on the static field magnitude. Second we dis…
Recent experimental progress in the creation of synthetic electric and magnetic fields, acting on cold atoms in a two-dimensional lattice, has attracted renewed interest to the problem of a quantum particle in the Hall configuration. The present work contains a detailed analysis of the eigenstates of this system, called Landau-Stark states, and of the associated dynamical phenomenon of cyclotron-Bloch oscillations. It is shown that Landau-Stark states and cyclotron-Bloch oscillations crucially depend on two factors. The first is the orientation of the electric field relative to the primary axe…
We present a method to numerically compute accurate tunnelling rates for a Bose-Einstein condensate which is described by the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Our method is based on a sophisticated real-time integration of the complex-scaled Gross-Pitaevskii equation, and it is capable of finding the stationary eigenvalues for the Wannier-Stark problem. We show that even weak nonlinearities have significant effects in the vicinity of very sensitive resonant tunnelling peaks, which occur in the rates as a function of the Stark field amplitude. The mean-field interaction induces a broadening…
We analyze the Wannier-Stark spectrum of a quantum particle in tilted two-dimensional lattices with the Bloch spectrum consisting of two subbands, which could be either separated by a finite gap or connected at the Dirac points. For rational orientations of the static field given by an arbitrary superposition of the translation vectors the spectrum is a ladder of energy bands. We obtain asymptotic expressions for the energy bands in the limit of large and weak static fields and study them numerically for intermediate field strength. We show that the structure of energy bands determines the rat…
We study the Bloch oscillation dynamics of a spin-orbit-coupled cold atomic gas trapped inside a one-dimensioanl optical lattice. The eigenspectra of the system is identified as two interpenetrating Wannier-Stark ladder. Based on that, we carefully analyzed the Bloch oscillation dynamics and found out that intraladder coupling between neighboring rungs of Wannier-Stark ladder give rise to ordinary Bloch oscillation while interladder coupling lead to small amplitude high frequency oscillation superimposed on it. Specifically spin-orbit interaction breaks Galilean invariance, which can be reflec…
Tight-binding single-particle models on simple Bravais lattices in space dimension $d \geq 2$, when exposed to commensurate DC fields, result in the complete absence of transport due to the formation of Wannier--Stark flatbands [Phys. Rev. Res. $\textbf{3}$, 013174 (2021)]. The single-particle states localize in a factorial manner, i.e., faster than exponential. Here, we introduce interaction among two such particles that partially lifts the localization and results in metallic two-particle bound states that propagate in the directions perpendicular to the DC field. We demonstrate this effect …
The Born-Fock theorem is one of the most fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics and forms the basis for reliable and efficient navigation in the Hilbert space of a quantum system with a time-dependent Hamiltonian by adiabatic evolution. In the absence of level crossings, i.e. without degeneracies, and under adiabatic time evolution all eigenstates of the Hamiltonian keep their energetic order, labelled by a conserved integer quantum number. Thus controlling the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian and their energetic order in asymptotic limits allows to engineer a perfect adiabatic transfer betwe…
The quasienergy spectrum of a Bloch electron affected by dc-ac fields is known to be a fractal function of the so-called electric matching ratio which is the ratio of the ac field frequency and the Bloch frequency. This paper studies a manifestation of the fractal spectrum in the system atom in a standing laser wave, which is a quantum optical realization of a Bloch electron. It is shown that for an appropriate choice of the system parameters the atomic survival probability (a quantity measured in laboratory experiments) develops a fractal structure as a function of the electric matching ratio…
A superconducting qubit was driven in an ultrastrong fashion by an oscillatory microwave field, which was created by coupling via the nonlinear Josephson energy. The observed Stark shifts of the `atomic' levels are so pronounced that corrections even beyond the lowest-order Bloch-Siegert shift are needed to properly explain the measurements. The quasienergies of the dressed two-level system were probed by resonant absorption via a cavity, and the results are in agreement with a calculation based on the Floquet approach.
We consider dynamics of a charged particle in a finite along the $x$ direction square lattice in the presence of normal to the lattice plane magnetic field and in-plane electric field aligned with the $y$ axis. For vanishing magnetic field this dynamics would be common Bloch oscillations where the particle oscillates in the $y$ direction with amplitude inverse proportional to the electric field. We show that a non-zero magnetic field crucially modifies this dynamics. Namely, the new Bloch oscillations consist of time intervals where the particle moves with constant velocity in the $x$ directio…
A quantum particle subjected to a constant force undergoes an accelerated motion following a parabolic path, which differs from the classical motion just because of wave packet spreading (quantum diffusion). However, when a periodic potential is added (such as in a crystal) the particle undergoes Bragg scattering and an oscillatory (rather than accelerated) motion is found, corresponding to the famous Bloch oscillations. Here we introduce an exactly-solvable quantum Hamiltonian model, corresponding to a generalized Wannier-Stark Hamiltonian $\hat{H}$, in which a quantum particle shows an inter…
Emission of high-order harmonics from solids provides a new avenue in attosecond science. On one hand, it allows to investigate fundamental processes of the non-linear response of electrons driven by a strong laser pulse in a periodic crystal lattice. On the other hand, it opens new paths toward efficient attosecond pulse generation, novel imaging of electronic wave functions, and enhancement of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) intensity. A key feature of HHG in a solid (as compared to the well-understood phenomena of HHG in an atomic gas) is the delocalization of the process, whereby an e…
Stark many-body localized (SMBL) systems have been shown both numerically and experimentally to have Bloch many-body oscillations, quantum many-body scars, and fragmentation in the large field tilt limit. Likewise, they are believed to show localization similar to disordered MBL. We explain and analytically prove all these observations by rigorously showing the existence of novel algebraic structures that are exponentially stable in time, which we call dynamical l-bits. Moreover, we show that many-body Bloch oscillations persist even at infinite temperature for exponentially long-times. We num…
Wannier-Stark ladder in a PT symmetric system is generally complex that leads to amplified/damped Bloch oscillation. We show that a non-amplified wave packet oscillation with very large amplitude can be realized in a non-Hermitian tight binding lattice if certain conditions are satisfied. We show that pseudo PT symmetry guarantees the reality of the quasi energy spectrum in our system.
We treat the eigenvalue problem posed by self-similar potentials, i.e. homogeneous functions under a particular affine transformation, by means of symmetry techniques. We find that the eigenfunctions of such problems are localized, even when the potential does not rise to infinity in every direction. It is shown that the logarithm of the energy displays levels contained in families that are analogous to Wannier-Stark ladders. The position of each ladder is proved to be determined by the specific details of the potential and not by its transformation properties. This is done by direct computati…
