Nonlinear transport in a one-dimensional Mott insulator in strong electric fields

The time-dependent Schrodinger's equation is integrated for a one-dimensional strongly correlated electron system driven by large electric fields. For larger electric fields, many-body Landau-Zener tunneling takes place at anti-crossings of the many-body energy levels. The nonlinear I-V characteristics as well as the time dependence of the energy expectation value is obtained. The energy of the Mott insulator in electric fields shows a saturation, which suggests a dynamical localization in energy space of the many-body wave functions. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.