Feshbach resonances in an optical lattice

D. B. M. Dickerscheid, U. Al Khawaja, D. van Oosten, H. T. C. Stoof

Published 2004-09-16, updated 2005-04-12Version 2

We present the theory for ultracold atomic gases in an optical lattice near a Feshbach resonance. In the single-band approximation the theory describes atoms and molecules which can both tunnel through the lattice. Moreover, an avoided crossing between the two-atom and the molecular states occurs at every site. We determine the microscopic parameters of the generalized Hubbard model that describes this physics, using the experimentally known parameters of the Feshbach resonance in the absence of the optical lattice. As an application we also calculate the zero-temperature phase diagram of an atomic Bose gas in an optical lattice.