  An atomic gas subject to a commensurate periodic potential generated by an
optical lattice undergoes a superfluid--Mott insulator transition. Confining a
strongly interacting gas to one dimension generates an instability where an
arbitrary weak potential is sufficient to pin the atoms into the Mott state;
here, we derive the corresponding phase diagram. The commensurate pinned state
may be detected via its finite excitation gap and the Bragg peaks in the static
structure factor.
