Effects of Interactions and Pairing in a Quantum Kicked Rotor with Ultracold Fermions

The quantum kicked rotor (QKR) is a deceptively simple theoretical model that exhibits rich transport phenomena, including a momentum-space analogue of the celebrated Anderson localization effect. In earlier work we realized an atom-optics version of the QKR using Bose-Einstein condensates in a pulsed optical lattice. We observed the interaction dependance of the dynamical Anderson localization in 1D [SeeToh 22] and the Anderson Metal-Insulator transition in 3D [SeeToh 24]. While this localization, distinguished by a saturation in energy growth, occurs for kicking periods incommensurate with the inverse lattice recoil frequency, resonances and anti-resonances can emerge in the system’s energy evolution for commensurate kicking periods. Due to the mass dependence of the recoil frequency, a QKR’s energy spectrum can provide insight into pairing processes. We will report on progress towards experimental realization of the QKR in ultracold 6Li, with a focus on employing the QKR spectrum to probe pairing and superfluidity throughout the BEC-BCS crossover.