Pattern formation in mixtures of light and heavy fermions

Our studies of ultracold gases in optical lattices are mainly focused on mixtures of light and heavy atoms, e.g., potassium and rubidium. If the ratio of the masses is sufficiently large, the dynamics of the heavier species can be neglected and the system can be effectively described by the Falicov-Kimball model. It is a model for which Monte Carlo calculations based on modified Metropolis algorithm can be carried out (Maciej M. Maska, K. Czajka, Phys. Rev. B 74, 035109 (2006)). Using this approach we propose a set of experiments with ultracold atoms that show how to examine different types of pattern formation (Maciej M. Maska, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 060404 (2008)).