Nonequilibrium dynamics of Tonks-Girardeau gases on optical lattices

We summarize in the present work exact results obtained for Tonks-Girardeau gases on one-dimensional optical lattices both for the ground state and nonequilibrium dynamics. On the theoretical side, impenetrable bosons offer the opportunity to study strongly interacting systems in one-dimensional lattices exactly, by means of the Jordan-Wigner transformation, and hence contribute to the topic of strong correlations at the center of interest in both condensed matter physics and quantum gases. This motivation is further enhanced by recent experimental realizations of such systems with ultracold atoms. After having shown their universal properties in equilibrium, we concentrate on their nonequilibrium dynamics. It will be shown that, starting from a pure Fock state, quasi-long-range correlations develop dynamically and lead to the formation of quasicondensates with a momentum determined by the underlying lattice. We expect this effect to be relevant for atom lasers with full control of the wavelength. Then, we will show that the free evolution of an initially confined Tonks-Girardeau gas leads to a momentum distribution that approaches at long times that of the equivalent fermionic system, giving rise to a bosonic gas with a Fermi edge, and hence a fermionization that can only be obtained out of equilibrium. Remarkably, although the momentum distribution function of the Tonks-Girardeau gas becomes equal to the one of the fermions, no loss in coherence is observed in the system, as reflected by a large occupation of eigenstates of the one-particle density matrix.     

Hard-core bosons in flat band systems above the critical density

We investigate the behaviour of hard-core bosons in one- and two-dimensional flat band systems, the chequerboard and the kagomé lattice and one-dimensional analogues thereof. The one-dimensional systems have an exact local reflection symmetry which allows for exact results. We show that above the critical density an additional particle forms a pair with one of the other bosons and that the pair is localised. In the two-dimensional systems exact results are not available but variational results indicate a similar physical behaviour.     

Two-step condensation of lattice bosons

We present a theoretical study of Bose-Einstein condensation in highly anisotropic harmonic traps. The bosons are considered to be moving in an optical lattice in an overall anisotropic harmonic confining potential. We find that two-step condensation occurs for lattice bosons at much reduced harmonic potential anisotropy when compared to the case of an ideal Bose gas in an anisotropic harmonic confinement. We also show that when the bosons are in an isotropic harmonic confinement but with highly anisotropic hopping in the optical lattice, two-step condensation does not occur. We interpret some of our results using single boson density of energy states corresponding to the potentials faced by the bosons.     

Observation of reduced three-body recombination in a correlated 1D degenerate Bose gas

We investigate the correlation properties of a one-dimensional interacting Bose gas by loading a magnetically trapped 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) into a deep two-dimensional optical lattice. We measure the three-body recombination rate for both the BEC in the magnetic trap and the BEC loaded into the optical lattice. The recombination rate coefficient is a factor of 7 smaller in the lattice, which we interpret as a reduction in the local three-body correlation function in the 1D case. This is a signature of correlation intermediate between that of the uncorrelated, phase coherent, 1D, mean-field regime and the strongly correlated Tonks-Girardeau regime.     

Relaxation in a completely integrable many-body quantum system: an ab initio study of the dynamics of the highly excited states of 1D lattice hard-core bosons

In this Letter we pose the question of whether a many-body quantum system with a full set of conserved quantities can relax to an equilibrium state, and, if it can, what the properties of such a state are. We confirm the relaxation hypothesis through an ab initio numerical investigation of the dynamics of hard-core bosons on a one-dimensional lattice. Further, a natural extension of the Gibbs ensemble to integrable systems results in a theory that is able to predict the mean values of physical observables after relaxation. Finally, we show that our generalized equilibrium carries more memory of the initial conditions than the usual thermodynamic one. This effect may have many experimental consequences, some of which have already been observed in the recent experiment on the nonequilibrium dynamics of one-dimensional hard-core bosons in a harmonic potential [T. Kinoshita et al., Nature (London) 440, 900 (2006)10.1038/nature04693].     

Supersolid Phase in One-Dimensional Hard-Core Boson Hubbard Model with a Superlattice Potential

The ground state of the one-dimensional hard-core boson Hubbard model with a superlattice potential is studied by quantum Monte Carlo methods. We demonstrate that besides the CDW phase and the Mott insulator phase, the supersolid phase emerges due to the presence of the superlattice potential, which reflects the competition with the hopping term. We also study the densities of sublattices and have a clear idea about the distribution of the bosons on the lattice.     

Supersolid order from disorder: hard-core bosons on the triangular lattice

We study the interplay of Mott localization, geometric frustration, and superfluidity for hard-core bosons with nearest-neighbor repulsion on the triangular lattice. For this model at half filling, we demonstrate that superfluidity survives for arbitrarily large repulsion, and that diagonal solid order emerges in the strongly correlated regime from an order-by-disorder mechanism. This is thus an unusual example of a stable supersolid phase of hard-core lattice bosons at a commensurate filling.     

Entropy of isolated quantum systems after a quench

A diagonal entropy, which depends only on the diagonal elements of the system's density matrix in the energy representation, has been recently introduced as the proper definition of thermodynamic entropy in out-of-equilibrium quantum systems. We study this quantity after an interaction quench in lattice hard-core bosons and spinless fermions, and after a local chemical potential quench in a system of hard-core bosons in a superlattice potential. The former systems have a chaotic regime, where the diagonal entropy becomes equivalent to the equilibrium microcanonical entropy, coinciding with the onset of thermalization. The latter system is integrable. We show that its diagonal entropy is additive and different from the entropy of a generalized Gibbs ensemble, which has been introduced to account for the effects of conserved quantities at integrability.     

Generalized thermalization in an integrable lattice system

After a quench, observables in an integrable system may not relax to the standard thermal values, but can relax to the ones predicted by the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) [M. Rigol et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 050405 (2007)]. The GGE has been shown to accurately describe observables in various one-dimensional integrable systems, but the origin of its success is not fully understood. Here we introduce a microcanonical version of the GGE and provide a justification of the GGE based on a generalized interpretation of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, which was previously introduced to explain thermalization of nonintegrable systems. We study relaxation after a quench of one-dimensional hard-core bosons in an optical lattice. Exact numerical calculations for up to 10 particles on 50 lattice sites (≈10(10) eigenstates) validate our approach.     

Anyon-fermion mapping and applications to ultracold gases in tight waveguides

The Fermi-Bose mapping method for one-dimensional Bose and Fermi gases with zero-range interactions is generalized to an anyon-fermion mapping and applied to exact solution of several models of ultracold gases with anyonic exchange symmetry in tight waveguides: anyonic Calogero-Sutherland model, anyons with point hard-core interaction (anyonic Tonks-Girardeau gas), and spin-aligned anyon gas with infinite zero-range odd-wave attractions (attractive anyonic Tonks-Girardeau, or AATG, gas). It is proved that for even N>or=4 there are states of the AATG gas on a ring, with anyonic phase slips which are odd integral multiples of pi/(N-1), of energy lower than that of the corresponding fermionic ground state. A generalization to a spinor Fermi gas state with anyonic symmetry under purely spatial exchange enables energy lowering by the same mechanism.     

Emergence of quasicondensates of hard-core bosons at finite momentum

An exact treatment of the nonequilibrium dynamics of hard-core bosons on one-dimensional lattices shows that, starting from a pure Fock-state, quasi-long-range correlations develop dynamically, and lead to the formation of quasicondensates at finite momenta. Scaling relations characterizing the quasicondensate and the dynamics of its formation are obtained. The relevance of our findings for atom lasers with full control of the wavelength by means of a lattice is discussed.     

Uniqueness of one-dimensional continuum Gibbs states

We investigate one-dimensional continuum grandcanonical Gibbs states corresponding to finite range superstable many-body potentials. Absence of phase transitions in the sense of uniqueness of the tempered Gibbs state is proved for potentials without hard-core by first proving uniqueness of the Gibbs measures for related hard-core potentials and then taking an appropriate limit of those Gibbs measures.     

Exponentially decaying correlations in a gas of strongly interacting spin-polarized 1D fermions with zero-range interactions

We consider the single-particle correlations and momentum distributions in a gas of strongly interacting, spinless 1D fermions with zero-range interactions. This system represents a fermionic version of the Tonks-Girardeau gas of impenetrable bosons as it can be mapped to a system of noninteracting 1D bosons. We use this duality to show that the T = 0, single-particle correlations exhibit an exponential decay with distance. This strongly interacting system is experimentally accessible using ultracold atoms and has a Lorentzian momentum distribution at large momenta whose width is given by the linear density.     

Superfluid to Mott-insulator transition in a one-dimensional optical lattice

Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of sodium atoms are transferred into one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice potentials, formed by two laser beams with a wavelength of 1064 nm, in a shallow optical trap. The phase coherence of the condensate in the lattice potential is studied by changing the lattice depth. A qualitative change in behavior of the BEC is observed at a lattice depth of ～ 13.7 E_r, where the quantum gas undergoes a transition from a superfluid state to a state that lacks well-to-well phase coherence.     

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.     

Irregular dynamics in a one-dimensional Bose system

We study many-body quantum dynamics of delta-interacting bosons confined in a one-dimensional ring. Main attention is paid to the transition from the mean-field to the Tonks-Girardeau regime using an approach developed in the theory of interacting particles. We analyze, both analytically and numerically, how the Shannon entropy of the wave function and the momentum distribution depend on time for weak and strong interactions. We show that the transition from regular (quasiperiodic) to irregular ("chaotic") dynamics coincides with the onset of the Tonks-Girardeau regime. In the latter regime, the momentum distribution of the system reveals a statistical relaxation to a steady state distribution. The transition can be observed experimentally by studying the interference fringes obtained after releasing the trap and letting the boson system expand ballistically.     

One-dimensional interacting anyon gas: low-energy properties and Haldane exclusion statistics

The low-energy properties of the one-dimensional anyon gas with a delta-function interaction are discussed in the context of its Bethe ansatz solution. It is found that the anyonic statistical parameter and the dynamical coupling constant induce Haldane exclusion statistics interpolating between bosons and fermions. Moreover, the anyonic parameter may trigger statistics beyond Fermi statistics for which the exclusion parameter alpha is greater than one. The Tonks-Girardeau and the weak coupling limits are discussed in detail. The results support the universal role of alpha in the dispersion relations.     

Dynamical Gibbs–Non-Gibbs Transitions in Lattice Widom–Rowlinson Models with Hard-Core and Soft-Core Interactions

Journal of Statistical Physics - We consider the Widom–Rowlinson model on the lattice $${\mathbb {Z}}^d$$ in two versions, comparing the cases of a hard-core repulsion and of a soft-core...     

Collective oscillations of strongly correlated one-dimensional bosons on a lattice

We study the dipole oscillations of strongly correlated 1D bosons, in the hard-core limit, on a lattice, by an exact numerical approach. We show that far from the regime where a Mott insulator appears in the system, damping is always present and increases for larger initial displacements of the trap, causing dramatic changes in the momentum distribution, n(k). When a Mott insulator sets in the middle of the trap, the center of mass barely moves after an initial displacement, and n(k) remains very similar to the one in the ground state. We also study changes introduced by the damping in the natural orbital occupations, and the revival of the center-of-mass oscillations after long times.