Control and amplification of Bloch oscillations via photon-mediated interactions

Abstract

We propose a scheme to control and enhance atomic Bloch oscillations via photon-mediated interactions in an optical lattice supported by a standing-wave cavity with incommensurate lattice and cavity wavelengths. Our scheme uses position-dependent atom-light couplings in an optical cavity to spatially prepare an array of atoms at targeted lattice sites starting from a thermal gas. On this initial state we take advantage of dispersive position-dependent atom-cavity couplings to perform nondestructive measurements of single-particle Bloch oscillations, and to generate long-range interactions self-tuned by atomic motion. The latter leads to the generation of dynamical phase transitions in the deep lattice regime and the amplification of Bloch oscillations in the shallow lattice regime. Our work introduces possibilities accessible in state-of-the-art cavity QED experiments for the exploration of many-body dynamics in self-tunable potentials.