Dynamical localization of interacting bosons in the few-body limit

Abstract

The quantum kicked rotor is well-known to display dynamical localization in the non-interacting limit. In the interacting case, while the mean-field (Gross-Pitaevskii) approximation displays a destruction of dynamical localization, its fate remains debated beyond mean-field. Here we study the kicked Lieb-Liniger model in the few-body limit. We show that for any interaction strength, two kicked interacting bosons always dynamically localize, in the sense that the energy of the system saturates at long time. However, contrary to the non-interacting limit, the momentum distribution $\Pi(k)$ of the bosons is not exponentially localized, but decays as $\mathcal C/k^4$, as expected for interacting quantum particles, with Tan's contact $\mathcal C$ which remains finite at long time. We discuss how our results will impact the experimental study of kicked interacting bosons.