Probing transport and slow relaxation in the mass-imbalanced Fermi-Hubbard model

Constraints in the dynamics of quantum many-body systems can dramatically alter transport properties and relaxation time scales even in the absence of static disorder. Here, we report on the observation of such constrained dynamics arising from the distinct mobility of two species in the one-dimensional mass-imbalanced Fermi-Hubbard model, realized with ultracold ytterbium atoms in a state-dependent optical lattice. By displacing the trap potential and monitoring the dynamical response of the system, we identify suppressed transport and slow relaxation with a strong dependence on the mass imbalance and interspecies interaction strength, suggesting eventual thermalization for long times. Our observations are supported by numerical simulations and pave the way to study metastability arising from dynamical constraints in other quantum many-body systems