  Cold atoms provide a unique arena to study many-body systems far from
equilibrium. Furthermore, novel 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
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.
