Dynamical depinning of a Tonks-Girardeau gas.

We study the dynamical depinning following a sudden turn off of an optical lattice for a gas of impenetrable bosons in a tight atomic waveguide. We use a Bose-Fermi mapping to infer the exact quantum dynamical evolution. At long times, in the thermodynamic limit, we observe the approach to a nonequilibrium steady state, characterized by the absence of quasi-long-range order and a reduced visibility in the momentum distribution. Similar features are found in a finite-size system at times corresponding to half the revival time, where we find that the system approaches a quasisteady state with a power-law behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]