Transport of a Bose gas in 1D disordered lattices at the fluid-insulator transition

Abstract

We investigate the momentum-dependent transport of 1D quasi-condensates in quasiperiodic optical lattices. We observe a sharp crossover from a weakly dissipative regime to a strongly unstable one at a disorder-dependent critical momentum. In the limit of non-disordered lattices the observations indicate a contribution of quantum phase slips to the dissipation. We identify a set of critical disorder and interaction strengths for which such critical momentum vanishes, separating a fluid regime from an insulating one. We relate our observation to the predicted zero-temperature superfluid-Bose glass transition.