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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Matter-wave scattering from ultracold atoms in an optical lattice
Scott N Sanders1, Florian Mintert, Eric J Heller
1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ssanders@post.harvard.edu
Abstract:
We study matter-wave scattering from an ultracold, many-body atomic system trapped in an optical lattice. The angular cross section of the target lattice for a matter wave is determined and is demonstrated to have a strong dependence on the many-body phase, superfluid, or Mott insulator. Analytical approaches are employed deep in the superfluid and Mott-insulator regimes, while intermediate points in the phase transition are treated numerically. Matter-wave scattering offers a convenient method for nondestructively probing the quantum many-body phase transition of atoms in an optical lattice.
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