Bose Glass Research Articles

Phase Transition of Interacting Disordered Bosons in One Dimension

Interacting bosons generically form a superfluid state. In the presence of disorder it can get converted into a compressible Bose glass state. Here we study such a transition in one dimension at moderate interaction using bosonization and renormalization group techniques. We derive the two-loop scaling equations and discuss the phase diagram. We find that the correlation functions at the transition are characterized by universal exponents in a finite region around the fixed point.

Ground-state properties of the disordered spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model: A stochastic mean-field theory study

We study the ground state of the disordered Bose-Hubbard model for spin-1 particles by means of the stochastic mean-field theory. This approach enables the determination of the probability distributions of various physical quantities, such as the superfluid order parameter, the average site occupation number, the standard deviation of the occupation per site and the square of the spin operator per site. We show how a stochastic method, previously used in the study of localization, can be flexibly used to solve the relevant equations with great accuracy. We have determined the phase diagram, which exhibits three phases: the polar superfluid, the Mott insulating, and the Bose glass. A complete characterization of the physical properties of these phases has been established.

The glass to superfluid transition in dirty bosons on a lattice

We investigate the interplay between disorder and interactions in a Bose gas on a lattice in the presence of randomly localized impurities. We compare the performance of two theoretical methods, namely the simple version of multi-orbital Hartree–Fock and the common Gross–Pitaevskii approach, and show how the former gives a very good approximation to the ground state in the limit of weak interactions, where the superfluid fraction is small. We further prove rigorously that for this class of disorder the fractal dimension of the ground state d* tends to the physical dimension in the thermodynamic limit. This allows us to introduce a quantity called the fractional occupation, which gives useful information on the crossover from a Lifshits to a Bose glass. Finally, we compare the temperature and interaction effects and highlight their similarities and intrinsic differences.

Field-induced criticality in a gapped quantum magnet with bond disorder

Neutron diffraction and calorimetric measurements are used to study the field-induced quantum phase transition in piperazinium-Cu$_2$(Cl$_{1-x}$Br$_x$)$_6$ ($x=0$, x=3.5% and x=7.5%), a prototypical quantum antiferromagnet with random bonds. The critical indexes $\phi$ and $\beta$ are determined. The findings contradict some original predictions for Bose Glass based on the assumption $z=d$, but are consistent with recent theoretical results implying $z<d$. Inelastic neutron experiments reveal that disorder has a profound effect on the lowest-energy magnetic gap excitation in the system.

Vortex depinning temperature in YBa2Cu3O7films with BaZrO3nanorods

The Bose glass theory for the vortex matter in superconductors with correlated disorder predicts the depinning of vortices due to the renormalization of the pinning barriers by thermal fluctuations. In the case of YB${}_{2}$Cu${}_{3}$O${}_{7}$ theoretical estimates give a depinning temperature ${T}_{dp}$ very close to the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ (${T}_{dp}$ \ensuremath{\sim} 0.95${T}_{c}$), while the results of standard magnetization relaxation experiments are repeatedly interpreted in terms of a much lower ${T}_{dp}$ (\ensuremath{\sim}0.5${T}_{c}$). We determined the temperature $T$ variation of the normalized magnetization relaxation rate $S$ for YB${}_{2}$Cu${}_{3}$O${}_{7}$ films containing BaZrO${}_{3}$ nanorods preferentially oriented along the $c$ axis, with the external magnetic field applied along the nanorods. By extending the $T$ interval up close to ${T}_{c}$, below the matching field a rich nonmonotonous $S$($T$) variation was observed. It is shown here that the often analyzed $S$($T$) maximum occurring at relatively low $T$ (which was connected to a disappointing ${T}_{dp}$) has an extrinsic origin, related to thermomagnetic instabilities. The accommodation of vortices to the columnar pins in the presence of the $T$-dependent macroscopic currents induced in the sample during experiments is actually signaled by a pronounced $S$($T$) deep located at high $T$, indicating that ${T}_{dp}$ remains close to ${T}_{c}$, in agreement with the theoretical prediction.

Quantum Critical Dynamics Simulation of Dirty Boson Systems

Recently, the scaling result z=d for the dynamic critical exponent at the Bose glass to superfluid quantum phase transition has been questioned both on theoretical and numerical grounds. This motivates a careful evaluation of the critical exponents in order to determine the actual value of z. We study a model of quantum bosons at T=0 with disorder in 2D using highly effective worm MonteCarlo simulations. Our data analysis is based on a finite-size scaling approach to determine the scaling of the quantum correlation time from simulation data for boson world lines. The resulting critical exponents are z=1.8±0.05, ν=1.15±0.03, and η=-0.3±0.1, hence suggesting that z=2 is not satisfied.

Noise correlation scalings: Revisiting the quantum phase transition in incommensurate lattices with hard-core bosons

Finite size scalings of the momentum distribution and noise correlations are performed to study Mott insulator, Bose glass, and superfluid quantum phases in hard-core bosons (HCBs) subjected to quasiperiodic disorder. The exponents of the correlation functions at the superfluid to Bose-glass (SF-BG) transition are found to be approximately one half of the ones that characterize the superfluid phase. The derivatives of the peak intensities of the correlation functions with respect to quasiperiodic disorder are shown to diverge at the SF-BG critical point. This behavior does not occur in the corresponding free fermion system, which also exhibits an Anderson-like transition at the same critical point and thus provides a unique experimental tool to locate the phase transition in interacting bosonic systems. We also report on the absence of primary sublattice peaks in the momentum distribution of the superfluid phase for special fillings.

Glassy Behavior in a Binary Atomic Mixture

We experimentally study one-dimensional, lattice-modulated Bose gases in the presence of an uncorrelated disorder potential formed by localized impurity atoms, and compare to the case of correlated quasidisorder formed by an incommensurate lattice. While the effects of the two disorder realizations are comparable deeply in the strongly interacting regime, both showing signatures of Bose-glass formation, we find a dramatic difference near the superfluid-to-insulator transition. In this transition region, we observe that random, uncorrelated disorder leads to a shift of the critical lattice depth for the breakdown of transport as opposed to the case of correlated quasidisorder, where no such shift is seen. Our findings, which are consistent with recent predictions for interacting bosons in one dimension, illustrate the important role of correlations in disordered atomic systems.

Two distinct Mott-insulator to Bose-glass transitions and breakdown of self-averaging in the disordered Bose-Hubbard model

We investigate the instabilities of the Mott-insulating phase of the weakly disordered Bose-Hubbard model within a renormalization group analysis of the replica field theory obtained by a strong-coupling expansion around the atomic limit. We identify an order parameter and associated correlation length scale that are capable of capturing the transition from a state with zero compressibility, the Mott insulator, to one in which the compressibility is finite, the Bose glass. The order parameter is the relative variance of the disorder-induced mass distribution. In the Mott insulator, the relative variance renormalizes to zero, whereas it diverges in the Bose glass. The divergence of the relative variance signals the breakdown of self-averaging. The length scale governing the breakdown of self-averaging is the distance between rare regions. This length scale is finite in the Bose glass but diverges at the transition to the Mott insulator with an exponent of $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/D$ for incommensurate fillings. Likewise, the compressibility vanishes with an exponent of $\ensuremath{\gamma}=4/D\ensuremath{-}1$ at the transition. At commensurate fillings, the transition is controlled by a different fixed point at which both the disorder and interaction vertices are relevant.

Superfluid-insulator transition in the disordered two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model

We investigate the superfluid-insulator transition in the disordered two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model through quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The Bose-Hubbard model is studied in the presence of site disorder, and the quantum critical point between the Bose glass and superfluid is determined in the grand canonical ensemble at $\ensuremath{\mu}/U=0$ (close to $\ensuremath{\rho}=0.5$), $\ensuremath{\mu}/U=0.375$ (close to $\ensuremath{\rho}=1$), and $\ensuremath{\mu}/U=1$ as well as in the canonical ensemble at $\ensuremath{\rho}=0.5$ and 1. Particular attention is paid to disorder averaging, and it is shown that a large number of disorder realizations are needed in order to obtain reliable results. Typically, more than $100\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}000$ disorder realizations were used. In the grand canonical ensemble, we find $Z{t}_{c}/U=0.112(1)$ with $\ensuremath{\mu}/U=0.375$, significantly different from previous studies. When compared to the critical point in the absence of disorder ($Z{t}_{c}/U=0.2385$), this result confirms previous findings showing that disorder enlarges the superfluid region. At the critical point, we then study the dynamic conductivity.

Spin Effects in Bose-Glass Phases

We study the mechanism of formation of Bose glass (BG) phases in the spin-1 Bose Hubbard model when diagonal disorder is introduced. To this aim, we analyze first the phase diagram in the zero-hopping limit, there disorder induces superposition between Mott insulator (MI) phases with different filling numbers. Then BG appears as a compressible but still insulating phase. The phase diagram for finite hopping is also calculated with the Gutzwiller approximation. The bosons' spin degree of freedom introduces another scattering channel in the two-body interaction modifying the stability of MI regions with respect to the action of disorder. This leads to some peculiar phenomena such as the creation of BG of singlets, for very strong spin correlation, or the disappearance of BG phase in some particular cases where fluctuations are not able to mix different MI regions.

Phase diagram of hard-core bosons on clean and disordered two-leg ladders: Mott insulator–Luttinger liquid–Bose glass

One-dimensional free fermions and hard-core bosons are often considered to be equivalent. Indeed, when restricted to nearest-neighbor hopping on a chain, the particles cannot exchange themselves, and therefore hardly experience their own statistics. Apart from the off-diagonal correlations which depend on the so-called Jordan-Wigner string, real-space observables are similar for free fermions and hard-core bosons on a chain. Interestingly, by coupling only two chains, thus forming a two-leg ladder, particle exchange becomes allowed and leads to a totally different physics between free fermions and hard-core bosons. Using a combination of analytical (strong coupling, field theory, renormalization group) and numerical (quantum Monte Carlo, density-matrix renormalization group) approaches, we study the apparently simple but nontrivial model of hard-core bosons hopping in a two-leg ladder geometry. At half filling, while a band insulator appears for fermions at large interchain hopping ${t}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}&gt;2t$ only, a Mott gap opens up for bosons as soon as ${t}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}\ensuremath{\ne}0$ through a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Away from half filling, the situation is even more interesting since a gapless Luttinger liquid mode emerges in the symmetric sector with a nontrivial filling-dependent Luttinger parameter $1/2\ensuremath{\leqslant}{K}_{s}\ensuremath{\leqslant}1$. Consequences for experiments in cold atoms and spin ladders in a magnetic field, as well as disorder effects, are discussed. In particular, a quantum phase transition is expected at finite disorder strength between a one-dimensional superfluid and an insulating Bose glass phase.

Comment on “Transition from Bose glass to a condensate of triplons in Tl1–xKxCuCl3”

We argue that the interpretation of the calorimetric data for disordered quantum antiferromagnets Tl$_{1-x}$K$_x$CuCl$_3$ in terms of Bose Glass physics by F. Yamada {\it et al.} in [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 83}, 020409(R) (2011)] is not unambiguous. A consistent analysis shows no difference in the crossover critical index for the disorder-free TlCuCl$_3$ and its disordered derivatives. Furthermore, we question the very existence of a proper field-induced thermodynamic phase transition in Tl$_{1-x}$K$_x$CuCl$_3$.

Reply to “Comment on ‘Transition from Bose glass to a condensate of triplons in Tl1−xKxCuCl3’ ”

Showing low-temperature specific heat and other experimental data and also on the basis of established physics, we argue against the comment made by Zheludev and H\"{u}vonnen criticizing our recent study on the magnetic-field-induced spin ordering and critical behavior in Tl$_{1-x}$K$_x$CuCl$_3$, which is described as the Bose glass-condensate transition of triplons.

Bose-glass, superfluid, and rung-Mott phases of hard-core bosons in disordered two-leg ladders

By means of Monte Carlo techniques, we study the role of disorder on a system of hard-core bosons in a two-leg ladder with both intra-chain ($t$) and inter-chain ($t^\prime$) hoppings. We find that the phase diagram as a function of the boson density, disorder strength, and $t^\prime/t$ is far from being trivial. This contrasts the case of spin-less fermions where standard localization arguments apply and an Anderson-localized phase pervades the whole phase diagram. A compressible Bose-glass phase always intrudes between the Mott insulator with zero (or one) bosons per site and the superfluid that is stabilized for weak disorder. At half filling, there is a direct transition between a (gapped) rung-Mott insulator and a Bose glass, which is driven by exponentially rare regions where disorder is suppressed. Finally, by doping the rung-Mott insulator, a direct transition to the superfluid is possible only in the clean system, whereas the Mott phase is always surrounded by the a Bose glass when disorder is present. The phase diagram based on our numerical evidence is finally reported.

Quantum criticality in disordered bosonic optical lattices

Using the exact Bose-Fermi mapping, we study universal properties of ground-state density distributions and finite-temperature quantum critical behavior of one-dimensional hard-core bosons in trapped incommensurate optical lattices. Through the analysis of universal scaling relations in the quantum critical regime, we demonstrate that the superfluid to Bose glass transition and the general phase diagram of disordered hard-core bosons can be uniquely determined from finite-temperature density distributions of the trapped disordered system.

Study of Kosterlitz–Thouless Transition of Bose Systems Governed by a Random Potential Using Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations

We perform quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the 2D hard-core Bose–Hubbard model in a random potential. Our motivation is to investigate the effects of randomness on the Kosterlitz–Thouless (KT) transition and its quantum critical phenomenon. The chemical potential is assumed to be random, by site, with a Gaussian distribution. The KT transition is confirmed by a finite-size analysis of the superfluid density and the power-law decay of the correlation function. By changing the variance of the Gaussian distribution, we find that the transition temperature decreases as the variance increases. We obtain the phase diagram showing the superfluid and the disordered phases, and estimate the quantum critical point (QCP) and the critical exponent. Our results on the ground state show the existence of the Bose glass phase. Finally, we discuss what the variance of the QCP indicates from the viewpoint of quantum percolation .

Correlation function of weakly interacting bosons in a disordered lattice

One of the most important issues in disordered systems is the interplay of the disorder and repulsive interactions. Several recent experimental advances on this topic have been made with ultracold atoms, in particular the observation of Anderson localization and the realization of the disordered Bose–Hubbard model. There are, however, still questions as to how to differentiate the complex insulating phases resulting from this interplay, and how to measure the size of the superfluid fragments that these phases entail. It has been suggested that the correlation function of such a system can give new insights, but so far very little experimental investigation has been performed. Here, we show the first experimental analysis of the correlation function for a weakly interacting, bosonic system in a quasiperiodic lattice. We observe an increase in the correlation length as well as a change in the shape of the correlation function in the delocalization crossover from Anderson glass to coherent, extended state. In between, the experiment indicates the formation of progressively larger coherent fragments, consistent with a fragmented BEC, or Bose glass.

Transition from Bose glass to a condensate of triplons in Tl1−xKxCuCl3

Transition from Bose glass to a condensate of triplons in Tl<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow /><mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mo>−</mml:mo><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>K<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow /><mml:mrow><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>CuCl<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow /><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>

Disordered spinor Bose-Hubbard model

We study the zero-temperature phase diagram of the disordered spin-$1$ Bose-Hubbard model in a two-dimensional square lattice. To this aim, we use a mean-field Gutzwiller ansatz and a probabilistic mean-field perturbation theory. The spin interaction induces two different regimes, corresponding to a ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order. In the ferromagnetic case, the introduction of disorder reproduces analogous features of the disordered scalar Bose-Hubbard model, consisting in the formation of a Bose glass phase between Mott insulator lobes. In the antiferromagnetic regime, the phase diagram differs more from the scalar case. Disorder in the chemical potential can lead to the disappearance of Mott insulator lobes with an odd-integer filling factor and, for sufficiently strong spin coupling, to Bose glass of singlets between even-filling Mott insulator lobes. Disorder in the spinor coupling parameter results in the appearance of a Bose glass phase only between the $n$ and the $n+1$ lobes for $n$ odd. Disorder in the scalar Hubbard interaction inhibits Mott insulator regions for occupation larger than a critical value.