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Large-Amplitude Superexchange of High-Spin Fermions in Optical Lattices

We show that fermionic high-spin systems with spin-changing collisions allow to monitor superexchange processes in optical superlattices with large amplitudes and strong spin fluctuations. By investigating the non-equilibrium dynamics, we find a superexchange dominated regime at weak interactions. The underlying mechanism is driven by an emerging tunneling-energy gap in shallow few-well potentials. As a consequence, the interaction-energy gap that is expected to occur only for strong interactions in deep lattices is reestablished. By tuning the optical lattice depth, a crossover between two regimes with negligible particle number fluctuations is found: first, the common regime with vanishing spin-fluctuations in deep lattices and, second, a novel regime with strong spin fluctuations in shallow lattices. We discuss the possible experimental realization with ultracold 40K atoms and observable quantities in double wells and two-dimensional plaquettes.