We investigate the effects of phase noise and particle loss on the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice. Starting from the many-body master equation, we discuss the applicability of generalized mean-field approximations in the presence of dissipation as well as methods to simulate quantum effects beyond mean-field by including higher-order correlation functions. It is shown that localized particle dissipation leads to surprising dynamics, as it can suppress decay and restore the coherence of a Bose-Einstein condensate. These effects can be applied to engineer coherent structures such as stable discrete breathers and dark solitons.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figur

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Open many-body quantum systems have attracted renewed interest in the context of quantum information science and quantum transport with biological clusters and ultracold atomic gases. The physical relevance in many-particle bosonic systems lies in the realization of counterintuitive transport phenomena and the stochastic preparation of highly stable and entangled many-body states due to engineered dissipation. We review a variety of approaches to describe an open system of interacting ultracold bosons which can be modeled by a tight-binding Hubbard approximation. Going along with the presentation of theoretical and numerical techniques, we present a series of results in diverse setups, based on a master equation description of the dissipative dynamics of ultracold bosons in a one-dimensional lattice. Next to by now standard numerical methods such as the exact unravelling of the master equation by quantum jumps for small systems and beyond mean-field expansions for larger ones, we present a coherent-state path integral formalism based on Feynman-Vernon theory applied to a many-body context.

We introduce a method for the dissipative preparation of strongly correlated quantum states of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice via localized particle loss. The interplay of dissipation and interactions enables different types of dynamics. This ushers a new line of experimental methods to maintain the coherence of a Bose-Einstein condensate or to deterministically generate macroscopically entangled quantum states.