Bose-Hubbard ladder subject to effective magnetic field: quench dynamics in a harmonic trap

Motivated by a recent experiment with optical lattices that has realized a ladder geometry with an effective magnetic field (Atala et al., Nature Physics $\mathbf{\text{10}}$, 588 (2014)), we study the dynamics of bosons on a tight-binding two-leg ladder with complex hopping amplitudes. This system displays a quantum phase transition even without interactions. We study the non-equilibrium dynamics without and with interactions, in the presence of a harmonic trapping potential. In particular we consider dynamics induced by quenches of the trapping potential and of the magnitude of the rung hopping. We present a striking “slowing down” effect in the collective mode dynamics near the phase transition. This manifestation of a slowing down phenomenon near a quantum phase transition can be visualized unusually directly: the collective mode dynamics can be followed experimentally in real time and real space by imaging the atomic cloud.