Light scattering from ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices at finite temperature

Abstract

We study light scattering from atoms in optical lattices at finite temperature. We examine the light scattered by fermions in the noninteracting regime and by bosons in the superfluid and Mott insulating regimes. We extend previous theoretical studies to include the full band structure of the optical lattice. We find that light scattering that excites atoms out of the lowest band leads to an increase in light scattering away from the classical diffraction peaks and is largely temperature independent. This additional light scattering leads to lower efficiency of temperature measurements based on photon counting.