Localization and anomalous transport in a 1D soft boson optical lattice

We study the dynamics of Bose–Einstein condensed atoms in a one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice potential in a regime where the collective (Josephson) tunnelling energy is comparable with the on-site interaction energy, and the number of particles per lattice site is mesoscopically large. By directly imaging the motion of atoms in the lattice, we observe an abrupt suppression of atom transport through the array for a critical ratio of these energies, consistent with quantum fluctuation induced localization. Directly below the onset of localization, the frequency of the observed superfluid transport can be explained by a phonon excitation but deviates substantially from that predicted by the hydrodynamic/Gross–Pitaevskii equations.