Improving mean-field theory for bosons in optical lattices via degenerate perturbation theory

Abstract

The objective of this paper is the theoretical description of the Mott-insulator to superfluid quantum phase transition of a Bose gas in an optical lattice. In former works the Rayleigh-Schr\"odinger perturbation theory was used within a mean-field approach, which yields partially non-physical results since the degeneracy between two adjacent Mott lobes is not taken into account. In order to correct such non-physical results we apply the Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory to the mean-field approximation of the Bose-Hubbard model. Detailed explanations of how to use the Brillouin-Wigner theory are presented, including a graphical approach that allows to efficiently keep track of the respective analytic terms. To prove the validity of this computation, the results are compared with other works. Besides the analytic calculation of the phase boundary from Mott-insulator to superfluid phase, the condensate density is also determined by simultaneously solving two algebraic equations. The analytical and numerical results turn out to be physically meaningful and can cover a region of system parameters inaccessible until now. Our results are of particular interest provided an harmonic trap is added to the former calculations in an homogeneous system, in view of describing an experiment within the local density approximation. Thus, the paper represents an essential preparatory work for determining the experimentally observed wedding-cake structure of particle-density profile at both finite temperature and hopping.