Ground-state and Excitation Spectra of Bose–Fermi Mixtures in a Three-Dimensional Optical Lattice

Abstract

Motivated by recent developments in the experimental study of Bose-Fermi mixtures, we investigate ground-state phase diagrams and excitation spectra for Bose-Fermi mixtures in a three-dimensional (3D) optical lattice. The Gutzwiller approximation is used to identify a new phase in which both superfluid bosons and metal fermions coexist. As a useful probe to identify the quantum phases, we also calculate the excitation spectra. In Mott insulator phase, two excitation features appear in the spectra that correspond to particle and hole excitations. In superfluid phase, there are Bogoliubov modes and amplitude modes. In coexisting phase, two gapless dispersive modes are identified, which shift due to interaction between bosons and fermions.