Theory for slightly doped antiferromagnetic mott insulators

New trial wave functions, constructed explicitly from the unique Mott insulating state with antiferromagnetic order, are proposed to describe the ground state of a Mott insulator slightly doped with holes or electrons. A rigid band is observed as charged quasiparticles with well-defined momenta being realized in these states. These states have much less superconducting correlations than previously studied ones. Small Fermi patches obtained are consistent with recent experiments on high T(c) cuprates doped lightly with holes or electrons.     

Fragile Mott insulators

We prove that there exists a class of crystalline insulators, which we call "fragile Mott insulators," which are not adiabatically connected to any sort of band insulator provided time-reversal and certain point-group symmetries are respected, but which are otherwise unspectacular in that they exhibit no topological order nor any form of fractionalized quasiparticles. Different fragile Mott insulators are characterized by different nontrivial one-dimensional representations of the crystal point group. We illustrate this new type of insulators with two examples: the d Mott insulator discovered in the checkerboard Hubbard model at half-filling and the Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki insulator on the square lattice.     

Microscopic study of a spin-orbit-induced Mott insulator in Ir oxides

Motivated by recent experiments of a novel 5d Mott insulator in Sr2IrO4, we have studied the two-dimensional three-orbital Hubbard model with a spin-orbit coupling λ. The variational Monte Carlo method is used to obtain the ground state phase diagram with varying an on-site Coulomb interaction U as well as λ. It is found that the transition from a paramagnetic metal to an antiferromagnetic insulator occurs at a finite U=U(MI), which is greatly reduced by a large λ, characteristic of 5d electrons, and leads to the "spin-orbit-induced" Mott insulator. It is also found that the Hund's coupling induces the anisotropic spin exchange and stabilizes the in-plane antiferromagnetic order. We have further studied the one-particle excitations by using the variational cluster approximation and revealed the internal electronic structure of this novel Mott insulator. These findings are in agreement with experimental observations on Sr2IrO4.     

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.     

Breakdown of Luttinger's theorem in two-orbital Mott insulators

An analysis of Luttinger's theorem shows that – contrary to recent claims – it is not valid for a generic Mott insulator. For a two-orbital Hubbard model with two electrons per site the crossover from a non-magnetic correlated insulating phase (Mott or Kondo insulator) to a band insulator is investigated. Mott insulating phases are characterized by poles of the self-energy and corresponding zeros in the Greens functions defining a “Luttinger surface” which is absent for band insulators. Nevertheless, the ground states of such insulators with two electrons per unit cell are adiabatically connected.     

Gossamer superconductivity near antiferromagnetic Mott insulator in layered organic conductors

Layered organic superconductors are on the verge of the Mott insulator. We use the Gutzwiller variational method to study a two-dimensional Hubbard model including a spin exchange coupling term as a minimal model for the compounds. The ground state is found to be a Gossamer superconductor at small on-site Coulomb repulsion U and an antiferromagnetic Mott insulator at large U, separated by a first order phase transition. Our theory is qualitatively consistent with major experiments reported in organic superconductors.     

A review of Monte Carlo simulations for the Bose–Hubbard model with diagonal disorder

We review the physics of the Bose–Hubbard model with disorder in the chemical potential focusing on recently published analytical arguments in combination with quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Apart from the superfluid and Mott insulator phases that can occur in this system without disorder, disorder allows for an additional phase, called the Bose glass phase. The topology of the phase diagram is subject to strong theorems proving that the Bose Glass phase must intervene between the superfluid and the Mott insulator and implying a Griffiths transition between the Mott insulator and the Bose glass. The full phase diagrams in 3d and 2d are discussed, and we zoom in on the insensitivity of the transition line between the superfluid and the Bose glass in the close vicinity of the tip of the Mott insulator lobe. We briefly comment on the established and remaining questions in the 1d case, and give a short overview of numerical work on related models.     

Quantum Monte Carlo study of an interaction-driven band-insulator-to-metal transition

We study the transitions from band insulator to metal to Mott insulator in the ionic Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice using determinant quantum Monte Carlo. Evaluation of the temperature dependence of the conductivity demonstrates that the metallic region extends for a finite range of interaction values. The Mott phase at strong coupling is accompanied by antiferromagnetic order. Inclusion of these intersite correlations changes the phase diagram qualitatively compared to dynamical mean field theory.     

Mott transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

Spectral properties of the two-dimensional Hubbard model near the Mott transition are investigated by using cluster perturbation theory. The Mott transition is characterized by freezing of the charge degrees of freedom in a single-particle excitation that leads continuously to the magnetic excitation of the Mott insulator. Various anomalous spectral features observed in cuprate high-temperature superconductors are explained in a unified manner as properties near the Mott transition.     

Quench dynamics and nonequilibrium phase diagram of the bose-hubbard model

We investigate the time evolution of correlations in the Bose-Hubbard model following a quench from the superfluid to the Mott insulator. For large values of the final interaction strength the system approaches a distinctly nonequilibrium steady state that bears strong memory of the initial conditions. In contrast, when the final interaction strength is comparable to the hopping, the correlations are rather well approximated by those at thermal equilibrium. The existence of two distinct nonequilibrium regimes is surprising given the nonintegrability of the Bose-Hubbard model. We relate this phenomenon to the role of quasiparticle interactions in the Mott insulator.     

Mott-Hubbard transition versus Anderson localization in correlated electron systems with disorder

The phase diagram of correlated, disordered electron systems is calculated within dynamical mean-field theory using the geometrically averaged ("typical") local density of states. Correlated metal, Mott insulator, and Anderson insulator phases, as well as coexistence and crossover regimes, are identified. The Mott and Anderson insulators are found to be continuously connected.     

Boson Mott insulators at finite temperatures

We discuss the finite temperature properties of ultracold bosons in optical lattices in the presence of an additional, smoothly varying potential, as in current experiments. Three regimes emerge in the phase diagram: a low-temperature Mott regime similar to the zero-temperature quantum phase, an intermediate regime where Mott insulator features persist, but where superfluidity is absent, and a thermal regime where features of the Mott insulator state have disappeared. We obtain the thermodynamic functions of the Mott phase in the latter cases. The results are used to estimate the temperatures achieved by adiabatic loading in current experiments. We point out the crucial role of the trapping potential in determining the final temperature, and suggest a scheme for further cooling by adiabatic decompression.     

Probing number squeezing of ultracold atoms across the superfluid-Mott insulator transition

The evolution of on-site number fluctuations of ultracold atoms in optical lattices is experimentally investigated by monitoring the suppression of spin-changing collisions across the superfluid-Mott insulator transition. For low atom numbers, corresponding to an average filling factor close to unity, large on-site number fluctuations are necessary for spin-changing collisions to occur. The continuous suppression of spin-changing collisions is thus direct evidence for the emergence of number-squeezed states. In the Mott insulator regime, we find that spin-changing collisions are suppressed until a threshold atom number, consistent with the number where a Mott plateau with doubly occupied sites is expected to form.     

Imaging nanoscale electronic inhomogeneity in the lightly doped Mott insulator Ca(2-x)NaxCuO2Cl2

The spatial variation of electronic states was imaged in the lightly doped Mott insulator Ca(2-x)NaxCuO2Cl2 using scanning tunneling microscopy or spectroscopy. We observed nanoscale domains with a high local density of states within an insulating background. The observed domains have a characteristic length scale of 2 nm (approximately 4-5a, a: lattice constant) with preferred orientations along the tetragonal [100] direction. We argue that such spatially inhomogeneous electronic states are inherent to slightly doped Mott insulators and play an important role for the insulator to metal transition.     

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.     

Kondo proximity effect: how does a metal penetrate into a Mott insulator?

We consider a heterostructure of a metal and a paramagnetic Mott insulator using an adaptation of dynamical mean-field theory to describe inhomogeneous systems. The metal can penetrate into the insulator via the Kondo effect. We investigate the scaling properties of the metal-insulator interface close to the critical point of the Mott insulator. At criticality, the quasiparticle weight decays as 1/x;{2} with distance x from the metal within our mean-field theory. Our numerical results (using the numerical renormalization group as an impurity solver) show that the prefactor of this power law is extremely small.     

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.     

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.