Coherent pumping of a Mott insulator: Fermi golden rule versus Rabi oscillations

Cold atoms provide a unique arena to study many-body systems far from equilibrium. Furthermore, phases in cold atom systems are conveniently investigated by dynamical probes pushing the system out of equilibrium. Here, we discuss the pumping of doubly occupied sites in a fermionic Mott insulator by a periodic modulation of the hopping amplitude. We show that deep in the insulating phase the many-body system can be mapped onto an effective two-level system which performs coherent Rabi oscillations due to the driving. Coupling of the two-level system to the remaining degrees of freedom renders the Rabi oscillations damped. We compare this scheme to an alternative description where the particles are incoherently pumped into a broad continuum.