Manipulating atom-number distributions and detecting spatial distributions in lattice-confined spinor gases

We present an experimental study demonstrating the manipulation of atom-number distributions of spinor gases after nonequilibrium quantum quenches across superfluid to Mott-insulator phase transitions in cubic optical lattices. Our data indicate that atom distributions in individual Mott lobes can be tuned by properly designing quantum quench sequences, which suggests methods of maximizing the fraction of atoms in Mott lobes of even occupation numbers and has applications in attaining different quantum magnetic phases including massively entangled states. Spatial distributions of gases in three-dimensional lattices are derived from the observed number distributions, which reveal complex spatial dynamics during the quantum quenches. Qualitative agreements are also found between our experimental data and numerical simulations based on time-dependent Gutzwiller approximations in two-dimensional systems.