Gauge-Away Effect in Cold Gases on Optical Lattices

It is shown that a simple modification of the geometry in which Raman lasers are applied to a cold gas in an optical lattice results in transforming the emerging effective electromagnetic field into a pure gauge. This contrived gauge-away effect can be observed experimentally by measuring the Mott-Insulator to Superfluid critical point. The underlying mechanism for this phenomenon is the ability to engineer the transfer of the transverse component of the gauge potential into its longitudinal one.