Superfluid fermi gas in a 1D optical lattice

We calculate the superfluid transition temperature for a two-component 3D Fermi gas in a 1D tight optical lattice and discuss a dimensional crossover from the 3D to quasi-2D regime. For the geometry of finite size discs in the 1D lattice, we find that even for a large number of atoms per disc the critical effective tunneling rate for a quantum transition to the Mott insulator state can be large compared to the loss rate caused by three-body recombination. This allows the observation of the Mott transition, in contrast to the case of Bose-condensed gases in the same geometry.     

Creation of a molecular condensate by dynamically melting a Mott insulator

We propose the creation of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate by loading an atomic condensate into an optical lattice and driving it into a Mott insulator with exactly two atoms per site. Molecules in a Mott insulator state are then created under well defined conditions by photoassociation with essentially unit efficiency. Finally, the Mott insulator is melted and a superfluid state of the molecules is created. We study the dynamics of this process and photoassociation of tightly trapped atoms.     

Formation of spatial shell structure in the superfluid to Mott insulator transition

We report on the direct observation of the transition from a compressible superfluid to an incompressible Mott insulator by recording the in-trap density distribution of a Bosonic quantum gas in an optical lattice. Using spatially selective microwave transitions and spin-changing collisions, we are able to locally modify the spin state of the trapped quantum gas and record the spatial distribution of lattice sites with different filling factors. As the system evolves from a superfluid to a Mott insulator, we observe the formation of a distinct shell structure, in good agreement with theory.     

Phase diagram for a Bose-Einstein condensate moving in an optical lattice

The stability of superfluid currents in a system of ultracold bosons was studied using a moving optical lattice. Superfluid currents in a very weak lattice become unstable when their momentum exceeds 0.5 recoil momentum. Superfluidity vanishes already for zero momentum as the lattice deep reaches the Mott insulator (MI) phase transition. We study the phase diagram for the disappearance of superfluidity as a function of momentum and lattice depth between these two limits. Our phase boundary extrapolates to the critical lattice depth for the superfluid-to-MI transition with 2% precision. When a one-dimensional gas was loaded into a moving optical lattice a sudden broadening of the transition between stable and unstable phases was observed.     

Quantum phases of dipolar bosons in optical lattices

The ground state of dipolar bosons placed in an optical lattice is analyzed. We show that the modification of experimentally accessible parameters can lead to the realization and control of different quantum phases, including superfluid, supersolid, Mott insulator, checkerboard, and collapse phases.     

Critical points of the Bose–Hubbard model with three-body local interaction

Using the density matrix renormalization group method, we study a one-dimensional system of bosons that interact with a local three-body term. We calculate the phase diagram for higher densities, where the Mott insulator lobes are surrounded by the superfluid phase. We also show that the Mott insulator lobes always grow as a function of the density. The critical points of the Kosterlitz–Thouless transitions were determined through the von Neumann block entropy, and its dependence on the density is given by a power law with a negative exponent.     

Superfluid-Mott-Insulator Phase Transition of Bosons in an Optical Lattice

The Bose-Hubbard model describing interacting bosons in an optical lattice is reduced to a simple spin-1 XY model with single-ion anisotropy in the vicinity of the Mort phase. We propose a mean-field theory based on a constraint SU（3） pseudo-boson representation on the effective model to study the properties of the superfluid-Mott-insulator phase transition. By calculating the elementary excitation spectra and the average particle number tluctuation in the Brillouin zone center, we lind that the energy gaps vanish continuously around （JXY/Jz）c≈ 0.175 and （JxY/Jz）c ≈ 0.094 for 2D and 3D cubic lattices respectively, where the superfluid order parameters come up from zero and the Mort insulator state changes into a superfluid state.     

Superfluid-insulator transition in a moving system of interacting bosons

We analyze the stability of superfluid currents in a system of strongly interacting ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. We show that such a system undergoes a dynamic, irreversible phase transition at a critical phase gradient that depends on the interaction strength between atoms. At commensurate filling, the phase boundary continuously interpolates between the classical modulation instability of a weakly interacting condensate and the equilibrium quantum phase transition into a Mott insulator state at which the critical current vanishes. We argue that quantum fluctuations smear the transition boundary in low dimensional systems. Finally we discuss the implications to realistic experiments.     

Superfluidity-insulator phase transition in ensemble of Fermi atoms in optical lattice

An ultracold Fermi gas in an optical lattice with a parabolic potential is modeled by the quantum Monte Carlo method. The gas density profile is calculated in the Hubbard model; it is shown that a domain with a density of one atom per site is formed in the trap that corresponds to the Mott insulator state. The insulator phase is surrounded by a superfluid region occupying the center of the trap, as well as its periphery.     

光晶格中玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体的自旋和磁研究

近年应用光晶格（optical lattice)控制原子玻色－爱因斯坦凝聚体（BEC）的研究取得了突破性的进展。德国Munich研究小组首次在三维光晶格中观察到了超冷原子从BEC超流状态向Mott insulator状态的量子相变。这样的量子相变现象不仅具有重大的理论研究价值，而且为BEC的实际应用提供了新的途径。文章介绍了作者近来在光晶格中BEC的自旋和磁特性方面的一些研究进展，并探讨了它们在磁传感器及量子计算中的可能应用。     

Mean-field phase diagram for Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians with random hopping

The zero temperature phase diagram for ultracold bosons in a random 1D potential is obtained through a site decoupling mean-field scheme performed over a Bose-Hubbard (BH) Hamiltonian, whose hopping term is considered as a random variable. As for the model with random on-site potential, the presence of disorder leads to the appearance of a Bose glass phase. The different phases—i.e., Mott insulator, superfluid, and Bose glass—are characterized in terms of condensate fraction and superfluid fraction. Furthermore, the boundary of the Mott lobes is related to an off-diagonal Anderson model featuring the same disorder distribution as the original BH Hamiltonian.     

Off-site trimer superfluid on a one-dimensional optical lattice

The Bose-Hubbard model with an effective off-site three-body tunneling,characterized by jumps towards one another,between one atom on a site and a pair atoms on the neighborhood site,is studied systematically on a one-dimensional(1D) lattice,by using the density matrix renormalization group method.The off-site trimer superfluid,condensing at momentum k = 0,emerges in the softcore Bose-Hubbard model but it disappears in the hardcore Bose-Hubbard model.Our results numerically verify that the off-site trimer superfluid phase derived in the momentum space from[Phys.Rev.A81,011601(R)(2010)]is stable in the thermodynamic limit.The off-site trimer superfluid phase,the partially off-site trimer superfluid phase and the Mott insulator phase are found,as well as interesting phase transitions,such as the continuous or first-order phase transition from the trimer superfluid phase to the Mott insulator phase.Our results are helpful in realizing this novel off-site trimer superfluid phase by cold atom experiments.     

Interference of atomic levels and superfluid-Mott insulator phase transitions in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

The superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition in a Bose-Einstein condensate of neutral atoms with doubly degenerate internal ground states in an optical lattice is theoretically investigated. The optical lattice is created by two counterpropagating linearly polarized laser beams with the angle theta between the polarization vectors (lin-angle-lin configuration). The phase diagram of the system and the critical values of the parameters are worked out. It is shown that the sign of the detuning plays an important role and that there is a strong suppression of the Mott transition in the case of blue detuning. Varying the laser intensity and/or the angle theta one can manipulate the Mott insulator to superfluid quantum phase transition as well as prepare the condensate in physically distinguishable "ferromagnetic" and "antiferromagnetic" superfluid states.     

Dynamics of a bistable Mott insulator to superfluid phase transition in cavity optomechanics

We study the dynamics of the many-body state of ultracold bosons trapped in a bistable optical lattice in an optomechanical resonator controlled by a time-dependent input field. We focus on the dynamics of the many-body system following discontinuous jumps of the intracavity field. We identify experimentally realizable parameters for the bistable quantum phase transition between Mott insulator and superfluid.     

Interplay of the Staggered and Three-Body Interaction Potentials on the Quantum Phases of a Spin-1 Ultracold Atom in an Optical Lattice

The interplay of the staggered and the three-body interaction potentials on the quantum phases of a spin-1 Bose Hubbard model using a mean field approximation (MFA) is studied. In the antiferromagnetic (AF) case, a smaller value of the staggered potential (SP) results in the charge and the spin density wave ordering along with the Mott insulator (MI) and the staggered superfluid (SSF) phases. While the competition between two types of the potential leads to the stabilization of the higher order MI and charge density wave (CDW) phases with increasing three-body interaction strength. Further, the spin eigenvalue and nematic order parameters are calculated to scrutinize the spin singlet-nematic formation in the MI and the CDW phases and spin population fractions to analyze the nature of the SSF phase. A signature of the spin density wave (SDW) pattern is also observed in the gapped phase lobes. In case of a purely three-body interaction, the third and higher order insulating lobes become dominant with increasing staggered potential strength. Subsequently, all MFA phase diagrams are then nicely corroborated with the analytical results obtained using a perturbative expansion corresponding to the AF and ferromagnetic cases.     

Quantum phase transition of ultracold bosons in double-well optical lattices

We study the superfluid-to-Mott insulator transition of bosons in a two-legged ladder optical lattice of a type accessible in current experiments on double-well optical lattices. The zero-temperature phase diagram is mapped out, with a focus on its dependence upon interchain hopping and the tilt between double wells. We find that the unit-filling Mott phase exhibits a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of the tilt parameter, producing a reentrant phase transition between the Mott insulator and superfluid phases.     

Unusual liquid state of hard-core bosons on the pyrochlore lattice

We study the physics of hard-core bosons with unfrustrated hopping (t) and nearest-neighbor repulsion (V) on the three dimensional pyrochlore lattice. At half-filling, we demonstrate that the small V/t superfluid state eventually becomes unstable at large enough V/t to an unusual insulating state which displays no broken lattice translation symmetry. Equal time and static density correlators in this insulator are well described by a mapping to electric field correlators in the Coulomb phase of a U(1) lattice gauge theory, allowing us to identify this insulator with a U(1) fractionalized Mott-insulating state. The possibility of observing this phase in suitably designed atom-trap experiments with ultracold atoms is also discussed, as are specific experimental signatures.     

Spin-1 Bose–Hubbard model with two- and three-body interactions

We investigated the ground state of spin-1 bosons interacting under local two- and three-body interactions in one dimension by means of the density matrix renormalization group method. We found that the even–odd asymmetry will be obtained or not depending on the relative values of the two- and three-body interactions. The Mott insulator lobes are spin isotropic, the first showing a dimerized pattern and the second being composed of singlets. The three-body interactions disfavor a longitudinal polar superfluid and a quantum phase transition to a transverse polar superfluid occurs, which could be continuous or discontinuous.     

Creation of a dipolar superfluid in optical lattices

We show that, by loading a Bose-Einstein condensate of two different atomic species into an optical lattice, it is possible to achieve a Mott-insulator phase with exactly one atom of each species per lattice site. A subsequent photoassociation leads to the formation of one heteronuclear molecule with a large electric dipole moment, at each lattice site. The melting of such a dipolar Mott insulator creates a dipolar superfluid, and eventually a dipolar molecular condensate.     

Effective area and expansion energy of trapped Bose gas in a combined magnetic-optical potential

In this Letter a conventional method of statistical physics and quantum mechanics is used to calculate the effective area and the expansion energy for trapped Bose gas in a combined optical-magnetic potential. Correction due to the finite number of particles, interatomic interaction and the deepness of the lattice potential are given simultaneously. It is found that the system possess two different phases which are superfluid phase and Mott insulator phase. The critical temperature which separate these two phases is calculated. In the superfluid phase both the effective area and expansion energy is sensitive to the variation of temperature and lattice depth. Mott insulator phase is characterized by vanishing of the condensed fraction and freezing of the effective area at the value which corresponding to BEC transition temperature. So these parameters can serve as a practical thermometer for such system. The expansion energy shows that the lack of expansion in any direction is due to the strong anisotropy of the trapping potential in this direction. The obtained results provide a solid theoretical foundation for the current experiments.