Department of Physics
Condensed Matter Seminar

Cold atoms in optical lattices are a unique laboratory for investigating quantum phase transitions between strongly correlated superfluid and Mott insulating phases. One of the major bottlenecks in the analysis of experiments is a clear set of criteria for identifying the superfluid phase. Is a "sharp" interference pattern a signature of a superfluid? How can the phase diagram be mapped out? I will discuss results obtained from quantum Monte Carlo simulations and compare with experiments to answer the questions raised above.