We show that the presence of a harmonic trap may in itself lead to many-body localization for cold atoms confined in that trap in a quasi-one-dimensional geometry. Specifically, the coexistence of delocalized phase in the center of the trap with localized region closer to the edges is predicted with the borderline dependent on the curvature of the trap. The phenomenon, similar in its origin to Stark localization, should be directly observed with cold atomic species. We discuss both the spinless and the spinful fermions; for the latter we address Stark localization at the same time as it has not been analyzed up until now.

• Received 7 April 2020
• Revised 9 June 2020
• Accepted 28 July 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.032039

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society