Observation of Photon-Assisted Tunneling in Optical Lattices

We have observed tunneling suppression and photon-assisted tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice subjected to a constant force plus a sinusoidal shaking. For a sufficiently large constant force, the ground energy levels of the lattice are shifted out of resonance and tunneling is suppressed; when the shaking is switched on, the levels are coupled by low-frequency photons and tunneling resumes. Our results agree well with theoretical predictions and demonstrate the usefulness of optical lattices for studying solid-state phenomena.