Superfluid-insulator Transition Research Articles

Instabilities of bosonic spin currents in optical lattices

We analyze the dynamical and energetic instabilities of spin currents in a system of two-component bosons in an optical lattice, with a particular focus on the Neel state. We consider both the weakly interacting superfluid and the strongly interacting Mott insulating limits as well as the regime near the superfluid-insulator transition and establish the criteria for the onset of these instabilities. We use Bogoliubov theory to treat the weakly interacting superfluid regime. Near the Mott transition, we calculate the stability phase diagram within a variational Gutzwiller wavefunction approach. In the deep Mott limit we discuss the emergence of the Heisenberg model and calculate the stability diagram within this model. Though the Bogoliubov theory and the Heisenberg model (appropriate for deep superfluid and deep Mott phase respectively) predict no dynamical instabilities, we find, interestingly, between these two limiting cases there is a regime of dynamical instability. This result is relevant for the ongoing experimental efforts to realize a stable Neel-ordered state in multi-component ultracold bosons.

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.

Mechanism of superfluid-insulator transition in two-dimensional Bose Hubbard model

To understand the mechanism of Mott transitions in case of no magnetic influence, superfluid-insulator (Mott) transitions are studied for the S=0 Bose Hubbard model on the square lattice, using a variational Monte Carlo approach. In trial many-body wave functions, we introduce various types of attractive correlation factors between a doubly-occupied site (doublon, D) and an empty site (holon, H), which play a central role for the transition. We propose an improved picture of D–H binding; a Mott transition occurs when the D–H pair length becomes equivalent to the minimum D–D distance, which lengths are appropriately estimated. We confirm this picture is valid for all the wave functions with attractive D–H factors we consider, and point out it can be universal for nonmagnetic Mott transitions.

Pair Superfluidity of Three-Body Constrained Bosons in Two Dimensions

We examine the equilibrium properties of lattice bosons with attractive on-site interactions in the presence of a three-body hard-core constraint that stabilizes the system against collapse and gives rise to a dimer superfluid phase. Employing quantum Monte Carlo simulations, the ground state phase diagram of this system on the square lattice is analyzed. In particular, we study the quantum phase transition between the atomic and dimer superfluid regime and analyze the nature of the superfluid-insulator transitions. Evidence is provided for the existence of a tricritical point along the saturation transition line, where the transition changes from being first order to a continuous transition of the dilute Bose gas of holes. The Berzinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition from the dimer superfluid to the normal fluid is found to be consistent with an anomalous stiffness jump, as expected from the unbinding of half-vortices.

Effect of Doublon–Holon Binding on Mott Transition–Variational Monte Carlo Study of Two-Dimensional Bose Hubbard Models

To understand the mechanism of Mott transitions in case of no magnetic influence, superfluid-insulator (Mott) transitions in the S=0 Bose Hubbard model at unit filling are studied on the square and triangular lattices, using a variational Monte Carlo method. In trial many-body wave functions, we introduce various types of attractive correlation factors between a doubly-occupied site (doublon, D) and an empty site (holon, H), which play a central role for Mott transitions, in addition to the onsite repulsive (Gutzwiller) factor. By optimizing distance-dependent parameters, we study various properties of this type of wave functions. With a hint from the Mott transition arising in a completely D-H bound state, we propose an improved picture of Mott transitions, by introducing two characteristic length scales, the D-H binding length $\xi_{\rm dh}$ and the minimum D-D exclusion length $\xi_{\rm dd}$. Generally, a Mott transition occurs when $\xi_{\rm dh}$ becomes comparable to $\xi_{\rm dd}$. In the conductive (superfluid) state, domains of D-H pairs overlap with each other ($\xi_{\rm dh}>\xi_{\rm dd}$); thereby D and H can propagate independently as density carriers by successively exchanging the partners. In contrast, intersite repulsive Jastrow (D-D and H-H) factors have little importance for the Mott transition.

Ultracold bosons in a synthetic periodic magnetic field: Mott phases and reentrant superfluid-insulator transitions

We study Mott phases and superfluid-insulator (SI) transitions of ultracold bosonic atoms in a two-dimensional square optical lattice at commensurate filling and in the presence of a synthetic periodic vector potential characterized by a strength $p$ and a period $l=qa$, where $q$ is an integer and $a$ is the lattice spacing. We show that the Schr\"odinger equation for the noninteracting bosons in the presence of such a periodic vector potential can be reduced to an one-dimensional Harper-like equation which yields $q$ energy bands. The lowest of these bands have either single or double minima whose position within the magnetic Brillouin zone can be tuned by varying $p$ for a given $q$. Using these energies and a strong-coupling expansion technique, we compute the phase diagram of these bosons in the presence of a deep optical lattice. We chart out the $p$ and $q$ dependence of the momentum distribution of the bosons in the Mott phases near the SI transitions and demonstrate that the bosons exhibit several reentrant field-induced SI transitions for any fixed period $q$. We also predict that the superfluid density of the resultant superfluid state near such a SI transition has a periodicity $q$ $(q/2)$ in real space for odd (even) $q$ and suggest experiments to test our theory.

Quasiparticle excitations in Bose-Fermi mixtures

We analyze the excitation spectrum of a three-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixture with tunable resonant interaction parameters and high hyperfine spin multiplets. We focus on a three-particle vertex describing fermionic and bosonic atoms which can scatter to create fermionic molecules or disassociate. For a single molecular level, in analogy to the single magnetic impurity problem we argue that the low-lying excitations of the mean-field theory are described by the Fermi-liquid picture with a quasiparticle weight and charge which is justified by a $1/{N}_{\ensuremath{\psi}}$ expansion, expected to be exact in the limit of infinite degeneracy (or very high fermionic spin) ${N}_{\ensuremath{\psi}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$. Our emphasis is placed on the novel conditions for chemical equilibrium and how many-body chemical reactions renormalize the bosonic chemical potential, modifying condensation and superfluid-insulator transitions.

Superfluid-insulator transitions in attractive Bose-Hubbard model with three-body constraint

By means of the method of the effective potential, the phase transitions from the Mott insulating state to either the atomic or the dimer superfluid state in the three-body constrained attractive Bose lattice gas are analyzed. Because of the appearance of the Feshbach resonance coupling between the two kinds of order parameters in the derived Ginzburg-Landau function, it is found that the continuous Mott-insulator--superfluid transitions can be preempted by first-order ones. Since the employed approach can provide accurate predictions of phase boundaries in the strong coupling limit, where the dimer superfluid phase can emerge, our work sheds light on the search of this phase in real ultracold Bose gases in optical lattices.

Superfluid-insulator transition of disordered bosons in one dimension

We study the superfluid-insulator transition in a one dimensional system of interacting bosons, modeled as a disordered Josephson array, using a strong randomness real space renormalization group technique. Unlike perturbative methods, this approach does not suffer from run-away flows and allows us to study the complete phase diagram. We show that the superfluid insulator transition is always Kosterlitz- Thouless like in the way that length and time scales diverge at the critical point. Interestingly however, we find that the transition at strong disorder occurs at a non universal value of the Luttinger parameter, which depends on the disorder strength. This result places the transition in a universality class different from the weak disorder transition first analyzed by Giamarchi and Schulz [Europhys. Lett. {\bf 3}, 1287 (1987)]. While the details of the disorder potential are unimportant at the critical point, the type of disorder does influence the properties of the insulating phases. We find three classes of insulators which arise for different classes of disorder potential. For disorder only in the charging energies and Josephson coupling constants, at integer filling we find an incompressible but gapless Mott glass phase. If both integer and half integer filling factors are allowed then the corresponding phase is a random singlet insulator, which has a divergent compressibility. Finally in a generic disorder potential the insulator is a Bose glass with a finite compressibility.

Phase diagrams of theXXZmodel on a depleted square lattice

Using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations and a mean field theory, we investigate the spin-1/2 $XXZ$ model with nearest-neighbor interactions on a periodic depleted square lattice. In particular, we present results for 1/4 depleted lattice in an applied magnetic field and investigate the effect of depletion on the ground state. The ground state phase diagram is found to include an antiferromagnetic (AF) phase of magnetization ${m}_{z}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1/6$ and an in-plane ferromagnetic (FM) phase with finite spin stiffness. The agreement between the QMC simulations and the mean-field theory based on resonating trimers suggests the AF phase and in-plane FM phase can be interpreted as a Mott insulator and superfluid of trimer states, respectively. While the thermal transitions of the in-plane FM phase are well described by the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, the quantum-phase transition from the AF phase to in-plane FM phase undergo a direct second-order insulator-superfluid transition upon increasing magnetic field.

Quantum phase transition and elementary excitations of a Bose-Fermi mixture in a one-dimensional optical lattice

The mixture of the scalar bosonic and the spinless or polarized fermionic cold atoms in the one-dimensional optical lattice is studied. The system is modeled by the Bose-Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian, which shows different behavior from that of the Bose-Hubbard or the Fermi-Hubbard models. Because the $\text{SU}(1\ensuremath{\mid}1)$-supersymmetric Bethe ansatz solution gives an excellent approximation to this kind of mixed cold atomic systems, the ground-state properties of the system such as the densities of state in the momentum space are obtained based on the Bethe ansatz. If the number of bosons is equal to that of fermions and the filling factor is 1, it is found that there exists a critical on-site interaction ${U}_{c}$. If $U<{U}_{c}$, the ground state of the system is in the superfluid phase, while if $U>{U}_{c}$, the ground state is in the insulating phase. The superfluid-insulator transition occurs at ${U}_{c}$. From the analysis of the superfluid density, the value of the critical point is determined as ${U}_{c}=2.79256$, which is larger than the ${U}_{c}=0$ for the Fermi-Hubbard model and smaller than the ${U}_{c}=3.28$ for the Bose-Hubbard model. The elementary excitations and effective Hamiltonian in the strong-coupling limit are also discussed.

Bose-Hubbard model on a star lattice

We analyze the Bose-Hubbard model of hardcore bosons with nearest-neighbor hopping and repulsive interactions on a star lattice using both quantum Monte Carlo simulation and dual vortex theory. We obtain the phase diagram of this model as a function of the chemical potential and the relative strength of hopping and interaction. In the strong-interaction regime, we find that the Mott phases of the model at 1/2 and 1/3 fillings, in contrast to their counterparts on square, triangular, and kagome lattices, are either translationally invariant resonant valence bond (RVB) phases with no density-wave order or have coexisting density-wave and RVB orders. We also find that upon increasing the relative strength of hopping and interaction, the translationally invariant Mott states undergo direct second-order superfluid-insulator quantum phase transitions. We compute the critical exponents for these transitions and argue using the dual vortex picture that the transitions, when approached through the tip of the Mott lobe, belong to the inverted XY universality class.

Transition from band insulator to Bose-Einstein-condensate superfluid and Mott state of cold Fermi gases with multiband effects in optical lattices

We study two models realized by two-component Fermi gases loaded in optical lattices. We clarify that multi-band effects inevitably caused by the optical lattices generate a rich structure, when the systems crossover from the region of weakly bound molecular bosons to the region of strongly bound atomic bosons. Here the crossover can be controlled by attractive fermion interaction. One of the present models is a case with attractive fermion interaction, where an insulator-superfluid transition takes place. The transition is characterized as the transition between a band insulator and a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) superfluid state. Differing from the conventional BCS superfluid transition, this transition shows unconventional properties. In contrast to the one particle excitation gap scaled by the superfluid order parameter in the conventional BCS transition, because of the multi-band effects, a large gap of one-particle density of states is retained all through the transition although the superfluid order grows continuously from zero. A reentrant transition with lowering temperature is another unconventionality. The other model is the case with coexisting attractive and repulsive interactions. Within a mean field treatment, we find a new insulating state, an orbital ordered insulator. This insulator is one candidate for the Mott insulator of molecular bosons and is the first example that the orbital internal degrees of freedom of molecular bosons appears explicitly. Besides the emergence of a new phase, a coexisting phase also appears where superfluidity and an orbital order coexist just by doping holes or particles. The insulating and superfluid particles show differentiation in momentum space as in the high-Tc cuprate superconductors.

Strong Coupling Theory for the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard Model

We present an analytic strong-coupling approach to the phase diagram and elementary excitations of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model describing a superfluid-insulator transition of polaritons in an array of coupled QED cavities. In the Mott phase, we find four modes corresponding to particle or hole excitations with lower and upper polaritons, respectively. Simple formulas are derived for the dispersion and spectral weights within a strong-coupling random-phase approximation (RPA). The phase boundary is calculated beyond RPA by including the leading correction due to quantum fluctuations.

Superfluid to Bose-Glass Transition in a 1D Weakly Interacting Bose Gas

We study the one-dimensional Bose gas in spatially correlated disorder at zero temperature, using an extended density-phase Bogoliubov method. We analyze, in particular, the decay of the one-body density matrix and the behavior of the Bogoliubov excitations across the phase boundary. We observe that the transition to the Bose-glass phase is marked by a power-law divergence of the density of states at low energy. A measure of the localization length displays a power-law energy dependence in both regions, with the exponent equal to -1 at the boundary. We draw the phase diagram of the superfluid-insulator transition in the limit of small interaction strength.

Magnetic phases and transitions of the two-species Bose-Hubbard model

A model of two-species bosons moving on the sites of a lattice is studied at nonzero temperature, focusing on magnetic order and superfluid-insulator transitions. First, Landau theory is used to find the general structure of the phase diagram and in particular to demonstrate the presence of first-order transitions and hysteresis in the vicinity of a multicritical point. Second, an explicit thermodynamic phase diagram is calculated using an approach based on a field-theoretical description of the Bose-Hubbard model, which incorporates the crucial effects of particle-number fluctuations. The maximum transition temperature to a magnetically ordered Mott insulator is found to be limited by the presence of the superfluid phase.

Magnetic and Superfluid Transitions in the One-Dimensional Spin-1 Boson Hubbard Model

Recent progress in experiments on trapped ultracold atoms has made it possible to study the interplay between magnetism and superfluid-insulator transitions in the boson Hubbard model. We report on quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the spin-1 boson Hubbard model in the ground state. For antiferromagnetic interactions favoring singlets, we present exact numerical evidence that the superfluid-insulator transition is first (second) order for even (odd) Mott lobes. Inside even lobes, we search for nematic-to-singlet first order transitions. In the ferromagnetic case where transitions are all continuous, we map the phase diagram and show the superfluid to be ferromagnetic. We compare the quantum Monte Carlo phase diagram with a third order perturbation calculation.

Two-dimensional fermionic superfluids, pairing instability, and vortex liquids in the absence of time reversal symmetry

We consider a generic two-dimensional system of fermionic particles with attractive interactions and no disorder. If time-reversal symmetry is absent, it is possible to obtain incompressible insulating states in addition to the superfluid at zero temperature. The superfluid-insulator phase transition is found to be second order in type-II systems using a perturbative analysis of Cooper pairing instability in quantum Hall states of unpaired fermions. We obtain the pairing phase diagram as a function of chemical potential (density) and temperature. However, a more careful analysis presented here reveals that the pairing quantum phase transition is always preempted by another transition into a strongly correlated normal state which retains Cooper pairing and cannot be smoothly connected to the quantum Hall state of unpaired fermions. Such a normal phase can be qualitatively viewed as a liquid of vortices, although it may acquire conventional broken symmetries. Even if it did not survive at finite temperatures its influence would be felt through strong quantum fluctuations below a crossover temperature scale. These conclusions directly apply to fermionic ultra-cold atom systems near unitarity, but are likely relevant for the properties of other strongly correlated superfluids as well, including high temperature superconductors.

Quantum criticality and black holes

Many condensed matter experiments explore the finite temperature dynamics of systemsnear quantum critical points. Often, there are no well-defined quasiparticle excitations, andso quantum kinetic equations do not describe the transport properties completely. Thetheory shows that the transport coefficients are not proportional to a mean free scatteringtime (as is the case in the Boltzmann theory of quasiparticles), but are completelydetermined by the absolute temperature and by equilibrium thermodynamic observables.Recently, explicit solutions of this quantum critical dynamics have become possible via theanti-de Sitter/conformal field theory duality discovered in string theory. This shows thatthe quantum critical theory provides a holographic description of the quantumtheory of black holes in a negatively curved anti-de Sitter space, and relates itstransport coefficients to properties of the Hawking radiation from the black hole. Wereview how insights from this connection have led to new results for experimentalsystems: (i) the vicinity of the superfluid–insulator transition in the presence ofan applied magnetic field, and its possible application to measurements of theNernst effect in the cuprates, (ii) the magnetohydrodynamics of the plasma of Diracelectrons in graphene and the prediction of a hydrodynamic cyclotron resonance.

Superfluid-insulator transition of two-band fermionic atom systems in optical lattices

We study the multiband effects on ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices by two-site dynamical mean-field theory. We find that the density wave state becomes stable for a small orbital splitting region. As the orbital splitting is increased, the transition from the density wave state to the superfluid state occurs. By systematically changing the orbital splitting and the attractive interaction, we obtain the phase diagram at half-filling.