Sudden-quench dynamics of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer states in deep optical lattices

We determine the exact dynamics of an initial Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) state of ultracold atoms in a deep hexagonal optical lattice. The dynamical evolution is triggered by a quench of the lattice potential such that the interaction strength U_f is much larger than the hopping amplitude J_f. The quench initiates collective oscillations with frequency | U_f|/2 π in the momentum occupation numbers and imprints an oscillating phase with the same frequency on the BCS order parameter Δ . The oscillation frequency of Δ is not reproduced by treating the time evolution in mean-field theory. In our theory, the momentum noise (i.e., density-density) correlation functions oscillate at frequency | U_f|/2 π as well as at its second harmonic. For a very deep lattice, with zero tunneling energy, the oscillations of momentum occupation numbers are undamped. Nonzero tunneling after the quench leads to dephasing of the different momentum modes and a subsequent damping of the oscillations. The damping occurs even for a finite-temperature initial BCS state, but not for a noninteracting Fermi gas. Furthermore, damping is stronger for larger order parameter and may therefore be used as a signature of the BCS state. Finally, our theory shows that the noise correlation functions in a honeycomb lattice will develop strong anticorrelations near the Dirac point.