Fractional photon-assisted tunneling of ultra-cold atoms in periodically shaken double-well lattices

Fractional photon-assisted tunneling is investigated both numerically and analytically in a double-well lattice. While integer photon-assisted tunneling is a single-particle effect, fractional photon-assisted tunneling is an interaction-induced many-body effect. Double-well lattices with few particles in each double well are ideal to study this effect far from the mean-field effects. It is predicted that the 1/4-resonance is observable in such systems. Fractional photon-assisted tunneling provides a physically relevant model, for which N-th order time-dependent perturbation theory can be large although all previous orders are small. All predicted effects will be observable with an existing experimental setup [1]. (C) 2012 by Astro Ltd. Published exclusively by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA