Atomic current in optical lattices: Esaki-Tsu equation revisited

Abstract

The paper discusses the master equation approach to derivation of the Esaki-Tsu equation for drift current. It is shown that the relaxation term in the master equation can be identified by measuring the velocity distribution of the carriers. We also show that the standard form of the relaxation term, used earlier to derive Esaki-Tsu equation, predicts unphysical velocity distribution and suggest a more elaborated relaxation term, which is argued to correctly capture the effect of bosonic bath in experiments on atomic current in optical lattices.