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arXiv:0803.2708 · Physical Review A

Metanematic, smectic, and crystalline phases of dipolar fermions in an optical lattice

Jorge Quintanilla, Sam T. Carr, Joseph J. Betouras

Published Mar 26, 2009• 49 citations
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Abstract

It has been suggested that some strongly correlated matter might be understood qualitatively in terms of liquid crystalline phases intervening between the Fermi gas and the Wigner crystal or Mott insulator. We propose a tunable realization of this soft quantum matter physics in an ultracold gas. It uses optical lattices and dipolar interactions to realize a particularly simple model. Our analysis reveals a rich phase diagram featuring a metanematic transition where the Fermi liquid changes dimensionality; a smectic phase (stripes) and a crystalline ``checkerboard'' phase.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.031601

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It has been suggested that some strongly correlated matter might be understood qualitatively in terms of liquid crystalline phases intervening between the Fermi gas and the Wigner crystal or Mott insulator. We propose a tunable realization of this soft quantum matter physics in an ultracold gas. It uses optical lattices and dipolar interactions to realize a particularly simple model. Our analysis reveals a rich phase diagram featuring a metanematic transition where the Fermi liquid changes dimensionality; a smectic phase (stripes) and a crystalline ``checkerboard'' phase.
We describe a simple model of fermions in quasi-one dimension that features interaction-induced deconfinement (a phase transition where the effective dimensionality of the system increases as interactions are turned on) and which can be realised using dipolar fermions in an optical lattice1. The model provides a relisation of a "soft quantum matter" phase diagram of strongly-correlated fermions, featuring meta-nematic, smectic and crystalline states, in addition to the normal Fermi liquid. In this paper we review the model and discuss in detail the mechanism behind each of these transitions on the basis of bosonization and detailed analysis of the RPA susceptibility.
Motivated by the search for quantum liquid crystal phases in a gas of ultracold atoms and molecules, we study the density-wave and nematic instabilities of dipolar fermions on the two-dimensional square lattice (in the $x\text{\ensuremath{-}}y$ plane) with dipoles pointing to the zzz direction. We determine the phase diagram using two complementary methods, the Hartree-Fock mean-field theory and the linear-response analysis of compressibility. Both give consistent results. In addition to the staggered $(\ensuremath{\pi},\ensuremath{\pi})$ density wave, over a finite range of densities and hopping parameters, the ground state of the system first becomes nematic and then smectic, when the dipolar interaction strength is increased. Both phases are characterized by the same broken fourfold (C4)({C}_{4})(C4​) rotational symmetry. The difference is that the nematic phase has a closed Fermi surface but the smectic does not. The transition from the nematic to the smectic phase is associated with a jump in the nematic order parameter. This jump is closely related to the Van Hove singularities. We derive the kinetic equation for collective excitations in the normal isotropic phase and find that the zero sound mode is strongly Landau damped and thus is not a well-defined excitation. Experimental implications of our results are discussed.
We study instabilities of single-species fermionic atoms in the ppp-orbital bands in two-dimensional optical lattices at noninteger filling against interactions. Charge density wave and orbital density wave orders with stripe or checkerboard patterns are found for attractive and repulsive interactions, respectively. The superfluid phase, usually expected of attractively interacting fermions, is strongly suppressed. We also use field theory to analyze the possible phase transitions from orbital stripe order to liquid-crystal phases and obtain the phase diagram. The condition of nearly-perfect Fermi-surface nesting, which is key to the above results, is shown robustly independent of fermion fillings in such ppp-orbital systems, and the $(2{k}_{F},\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2{k}_{F})$ momentum of density wave oscillation is highly tunable. Such remarkable features show the promise of making those exotic orbital phases, which are of broad interest in condensed-matter physics, experimentally realizable with optical lattice gases.
We investigate the quantum phase diagram of Bose-Fermi mixtures of ultracold dipolar particles trapped in one-dimensional optical lattices in the thermodynamic limit. With the presence of nearest-neighbor (NN) interactions, a long-ranged ordered crystalline phase (Bose-Fermi solid) is found stabilized in the limit of weak intersite tunneling (JJJ). When JJJ is increased, such a Bose-Fermi solid can be quantum melted into a Bose-Fermi liquid through different procedures, depending on whether the crystalline order is dominated by the NN interaction between fermions or bosons. These properties are qualitatively different from the classical picture of solid-liquid phase transition.
We study a gas of strongly polarized cold fermions in an optical lattice when the excited ppp bands are populated. We derive the relevant Hamiltonian and discuss the expected phase diagram for both repulsive and attractive interactions. In the parameter regime covered here, checkerboard antiferromagnetic ordering is found to be possible for repulsive interactions, while for attractive interactions, transitions between different types of paired phases are predicted.
A mixture of ultracold bosons and fermions placed in an optical lattice constitutes a novel kind of quantum gas, and leads to phenomena, which so far has been discussed neither in atomic physics, nor in condensed matter physics. We discuss the phase diagram at low temperatures, and in the limit of strong atom-atom interactions, and predict the existence of quantum phases that involve pairing of fermions with one or more bosons, or, respectively, bosonic holes. The resulting composite fermions may form, depending on the system parameters, a normal Fermi liquid, a density wave, a superfluid liquid, or an insulator with fermionic domains. We discuss the feasibility for observing such phases in current experiments.