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Detecting the tunneling rates for strongly interacting fermions on optical lattices

Strongly interacting fermionic atoms on optical lattices are studied through a Hubbard-like model Hamiltonian, in which tunneling rates of atoms and molecules between neighboring sites are assumed to be different. In the limit of large onsite repulsion U, the model is shown to reproduce the t-J Hamiltonian, in which the J coefficient of the Heisenberg term depends on the particle-assisted tunneling rate g: explicitly, $J=4 g^2/U$. At half-filling, g drives a crossover from a Brinkman-Rice paramagnetic insulator of fully localized atoms (g=0) to the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator of the standard Hubbard case (g=t). This is observed already at the intermediate coupling regime in the number of doubly occupied sites, thus providing a criterion to extract from measurements the effective value of g.