Emergence of coherence and the dynamics of quantum phase transitions

Understand

The dynamics of quantum phase transitions poses one of the most challenging problems in modern many-body physics.

• Here, we study a prototypical example in a clean and well-controlled ultracold atom setup by observing the emergence of coherence when crossing the Mott insulator to superfluid quantum phase transition.
• In the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, we find perfect agreement between experimental observations and numerical simulations for the resulting coherence length.
• We thereby perform a largely certified analogue quantum simulation of this strongly correlated system reaching beyond the regime of free quasiparticles.