Preparation of stable excited states in an optical lattice via sudden quantum quench

We study how stable excited many-body states of the Bose-Hubbard model, including both the gas-like state for strongly attractive bosons and bound cluster state for repulsive bosons, can be produced with cold bosonic atoms in an one-dimensional optical lattice. Starting from the initial ground states of strongly interacting bosonic systems, we can achieve stable excited states of the systems with opposite interaction strength by suddenly switching the interaction to the opposite limit. By exactly solving dynamics of the Bose-Hubbard model, we demonstrate that the produced excited state can be a very stable dynamic state. This allows the experimental study of excited state properties of ultracold atoms system in optical lattices.