Ground-state properties of fermionic mixtures confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice are studied numerically within the spinless Falicov-Kimball model with a harmonic trap. A number of remarkable results are found. i) At low particle filling the system exhibits phase separation with heavy atoms in the center of the trap and light atoms in the surrounding regions. ii) Insulating phases always coexist with metallic phases. iii) Atomic-density waves are observed in the insulating regions for all particle fillings near the half-filled lattice case. iv) The variance of the local density exhibits universal behavior (independent of the particle filling, the Coulomb interaction and the strength of a confining potential) over the whole region of the local density values.
Ground-state properties of fermionic mixtures confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice are studied numerically within the spinless Falicov-Kimball model with a harmonic trap. A number of remarkable results are found. i) At low particle filling the system exhibits phase separation with heavy atoms in the center of the trap and light atoms in the surrounding regions. ii) Insulating phases always coexist with metallic phases. iii) Atomic-density waves are observed in the insulating regions for all particle fillings near the half-filled lattice case. iv) The variance of the local density exhibits universal behavior (independent of the particle filling, the Coulomb interaction and the strength of a confining potential) over the whole region of the local density values.
Abstract We study ground-state properties of ultracold fermionic mixtures with strong mass imbalance in one and two-dimensional optical lattices through large scale numerical simulations of the attractive Falicov-Kimball model in harmonic confining potentials. In the one-dimensional case, we observe a formation of insulating atomic-density-wave domains at low particle fillings and a coexistence of insulating and metallic domains at intermediate and large particle fillings. Moreover, we show how the formation of metallic regions is reflected in the momentum distribution of the light atoms. In two dimensions, we find a rich spectrum of density-wave patterns including the homogeneous distributions, the axial striped distributions, the labyrinthine phases as well as the segregated phases.
We investigate the ground-state properties of fermions trapped in a one-dimensional double-well optical lattice by means of the density-matrix renormalization group method. A weak harmonic confinement potential inherent in real experiments, which makes the system inhomogeneous, is also considered. Under certain conditions for interactions, we find that two kinds of insulating regions coexist at half-filling and three-quarters filling due to the double-well structure and the system inhomogeneity. We further study the dynamical properties of the system by employing the adaptive time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group method. When the double-well lattice is suddenly changed into a normal single-well lattice, the two insulating regions gradually disappear under time evolution, which is accompanied by oscillating behavior of the local density characteristic of many-body fermionic systems.
We study the ground state properties of ultracold fermions trapped in a one-dimensional double-well optical lattice by using the density-matrix renormalization group method. The system is described by an extended Hubbard model with alternating hopping integrals and an external harmonic confining potential. We clarify the characteristic features of the metal–insulator phase transition originating from the double-well structure of the lattices. Several different types of insulating regions coexist when the number of atoms at each site is an integer or a half integer. We found that each insulating phase except for a band insulator exhibits rather large local density fluctuations, reflecting the strong dimerization of atoms within the unit cells of double-well lattices. The phase characteristics are elucidated in detail by investigating the profiles of the local density of atoms, the local density (spin) fluctuations, the double-occupancy probability and the spatially extended sp in correlations.
We study the ground-state properties of spin-1/2 fermionic atoms confined in a one-dimensional optical superlattice with harmonic confinement by using the density-matrix renormalization group method. For this purpose, we consider an ionic Hubbard model that has superlattice potentials with two-site periodicity. We find that several different types of insulating regimes coexist even if the number of atoms at each site is not an integer, but its average within the unit cell is an integer or half integer. This is contrasted to the coexisting phase of the metallic and Mott-insulating regimes known for the ordinary Hubbard model in an optical lattice. The phase characteristics are elucidated by investigating the profiles of the atom density, the local density (spin) fluctuations, the double occupation probability, and the spin correlations in detail.
We study properties of ultracold quantum gases trapped in 1D and under the influence of an underlying optical lattice. We analyze both fermionic and bosonic systems following different numerically exact approaches, like quantum Monte Carlo for soft-core bosons and two-species fermions, and a recently developed exact approach for HCB. The exposition is organized as follows. In Chap. 2, we study single species degenerated fermions on 1D lattices. We show that a splitting of the system takes place in a region of the spectrum with eigenstates that have a non-vanishing weight only in a fraction of the system. We also show that if on top of the lattice an alternating potential is introduced, doubling the original periodicity, an additional slicing' of the system can be achieved. The width and number of such regions can be controlled in a given energy range by the amplitude of the new modulation. By filling these systems the ground state may exhibit insulating regions due to the presence of local gaps, which can be observed in the local density of states. As a complement to these 1D results we present in Appendix A results obtained in 2D lattices. In Chap. 3 we review in some detail the two quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) techniques that are relevant to our study of confined soft-core bosons and two-species fermions on optical lattices, the worldline QMC and the zero temperature projector QMC, respectively. The basis of the classical Monte Carlo method are also presented, included a proof of the Central Limit theorem (Appendix B) that establishes its foundations. Properties of soft-core bosons confined on optical lattices are presented in Chap. 4. QMC simulations show that due to the presence of the slowly varying confining potential the concept of commensurability, typical for periodic systems, loses its meaning. Mott domains appears for a continuous range of fillings and always coexist with superfluid phases, as it was mentioned before. The latter feature is reflected by the behavior of the global compressibility, which never vanishes. A local compressibility, proportional to the variance of the local density, is defined in order to characterize the local Mott-insulating phases. Finally, a phase diagram for trapped systems is also presented. In Chap. 5 we study the ground state properties of two-components fermions confined on optical lattices. Like for the bosonic case, Mott domains also appear for a continuous range of fillings and always coexist with compressible phases. We define a local order parameter (that we denominate local compressibility), which characterizes the Mott insulating phases in an unambiguous way. By means of this local compressibility, we study in detail the interphase between the metallic and insulating region finding that critical behavior sets in revealing a new critical exponent. Furthermore, the behavior of the local compressibility and the variance of the density are found to be universal in this case, independently of the confining potential and the strength of the interaction, as usual in critical phenomena. We present in Chap. 6 a recently developed exact numerical approach that allows to study ground state properties of HCB confined on 1-D lattices. This exact treatment is applied to study the off-diagonal behavior of the one-particle density matrix (OPDM) and related quantities in the equilibrium case. We find that the OPDM decays as a power-law x^-1/2 for large-x, irrespective of the confining potential chosen. The power-law above is shown to determine the scaling of the occupation of the lowest natural orbital in the thermodynamic limit. This scaling and its finite size corrections are also studied for arbitrary powers of the confining potential. In addition, we find a power-law decay of the NO occupations at low densities, and show that its exponent is also universal. The low density limit in the lattice, equivalent to continuous systems, is also analyzed in detail. The approach above is generalized in Chap. 7 to study the non-equilibrium dynamics of HCB in 1-D configurations with an underlying lattice. The presence of the lattice enables the creation of pure Fock states of HCB (a HCB per lattice site) where there is no coherence in the system. We show that quasi-long range correlations develop in the equal-time-one-particle density matrix when such states are allowed to evolve freely, and that they lead to the formation of quasi-condensates of HCB at finite momentum. In addition,we obtain an universal power-law describing the population of the quasi-condensate as a function of time. Finally, we discuss how such systems can be used to create atom lasers with a wave-length that can be controlled through the lattice parameter.
Using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations we study the ground-state properties of the one-dimensional fermionic Hubbard model in traps with an underlying lattice. Since due to the confining potential the density is space dependent, Mott-insulating domains always coexist with metallic regions, such that global quantities are not appropriate to describe the system. We define a local compressibility that characterizes the Mott-insulating regions and analyze other local quantities. It is shown that the momentum distribution function, a quantity that is commonly considered in experiments, fails in giving a clear signal of the Mott-insulating transition. Furthermore, we analyze a mean-field approach to these systems and compare it with the numerically exact QMC results. Finally, we determine a generic form for the phase diagram that allows us to predict the phases to be observed in the experiments.