Measuring the Edwards-Anderson order parameter of the Bose glass: A quantum gas microscope approach

Abstract

With the advent of spatially resolved fluorescence imaging in quantum gas microscopes, it is now possible to directly image glassy phases and probe the local effects of disorder in a highly controllable setup. Here we present numerical calculations using a spatially resolved local mean-field theory, show that it captures the essential physics of the disordered system, and use it to simulate the density distributions seen in single-shot fluorescence microscopy. From these simulated images we extract local properties of the phases which are measurable by a quantum gas microscope and show that unambiguous detection of the Bose glass is possible. In particular, we show that experimental determination of the Edwards-Anderson order parameter is possible in a strongly correlated quantum system using existing experiments. We also suggest modifications to the experiments which will allow further properties of the Bose glass to be measured.

Publication
In Phys. Rev. A 94, 051601(R) (2016)
Dr Steven J. Thomson
Dr Steven J. Thomson
Research Scientist at IBM Research

Theoretical condensed matter physicist, currently a Research Scientist at IBM Research UK.

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