Ultracold atoms represent an ideal model systems for strongly correlated phenomena and for the realization of exotic quantum phases. The recent experimental progress in creating gases with dipolar interaction opens access to many interesting phases as for example a sliding Luttinger liquid phase which we predicted in coupled one dimensional tubes. Beside the excellent and rapid control over system parameters (as the interaction strength) the detection of the quantum phases is still limited. We present a non-perturbative analysis of new experimental techniques for probing ultracold bosons in an optical lattice, i.e. by periodic modulations of the lattice depth. The time evolution of the strongly correlated system is explicitly calculated using the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group method (t-DMRG)