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arXiv:0903.3867 · Physical Review Letters

Absence of a Direct Superfluid to Mott Insulator Transition in Disordered Bose Systems

Lode Pollet, Nikolay V. Prokof'ev, Boris V. Svistunov, Matthias Troyer

Published Sep 28, 2009• 142 citations
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Abstract

We prove the absence of a direct quantum phase transition between a superfluid and a Mott insulator in a bosonic system with generic, bounded disorder. We also prove the compressibility of the system on the superfluid-insulator critical line and in its neighborhood. These conclusions follow from a general theorem of inclusions, which states that for any transition in a disordered system, one can always find rare regions of the competing phase on either side of the transition line. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the disordered Bose-Hubbard model show an even stronger result, important for the nature of the Mott insulator to Bose glass phase transition: the critical disorder bound Delta(c) corresponding to the onset of disorder-induced superfluidity, satisfies the relation Delta(c)>Eg/2, with Eg/2 the half-width of the Mott gap in the pure system.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.103.140402

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We prove the absence of a direct quantum phase transition between a superfluid and a Mott insulator in a bosonic system with generic, bounded disorder. We also prove the compressibility of the system on the superfluid-insulator critical line and in its neighborhood. These conclusions follow from a general theorem of inclusions, which states that for any transition in a disordered system, one can always find rare regions of the competing phase on either side of the transition line. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the disordered Bose-Hubbard model show an even stronger result, important for the nature of the Mott insulator to Bose glass phase transition: the critical disorder bound Delta(c) corresponding to the onset of disorder-induced superfluidity, satisfies the relation Delta(c)>Eg/2, with Eg/2 the half-width of the Mott gap in the pure system.
The phase diagrams and phase transitions of bosons with short-ranged repulsive interactions moving in periodic and/or random external potentials at zero temperature are investigated with emphasis on the superfluid-insulator transition induced by varying a parameter such as the density. Bosons in periodic potentials (e.g., on a lattice) at T=0 exhibit two types of phases: a superfluid phase and Mott insulating phases characterized by integer (or commensurate) boson densities, by the existence of a gap for particle-hole excitations, and by zero compressibility. Generically, the superfluid onset transition in d dimensions from a Mott insulator to superfluidity is ``ideal,'' or mean field in character, but at special multicritical points with particle-hole symmetry it is in the universality class of the (d+1)-dimensional XY model. In the presence of disorder, a third, ``Bose glass'' phase exists. This phase is insulating because of the localization effects of the randomness and analogous to the Fermi glass phase of interacting fermions in a strongly disordered potential.The Bose glass phase is characterized by a finite compressibility, no gap, but an infinite superfluid susceptibility. In the presence of disorder the transition to superfluidity is argued to occur only from the Bose glass phase, and never directly from the Mott insulator. This zero-temperature superfluid-insulator transition is studied via generalizations of the Josephson scaling relation for the superfluid density at the ordinary \ensuremath{\lambda} transition, highlighting the crucial role of quantum fluctuations. The transition is found to have a dynamic critical exponent z exactly equal to d and correlation length and order-parameter correlation exponents \ensuremath{\nu} and \ensuremath{\eta} which satisfy the bounds \ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\ge}2/d and \ensuremath{\eta}\ensuremath{\le}2-d, respectively. It is argued that the superfluid-insulator transition in the presence of disorder may have an upper critical dimension dc{d}_{c}dc​ which is infinite, but a perturbative renormalization-group calculation wherein the critical exponents have mean-field values for weak disorder above d=4 is also discussed. Many of these conclusions are verified by explicit calculations on a model of one-dimensional bosons in the presence of both random and periodic potentials. The general results are applied to experiments on 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He absorbed in porous media such as Vycor. Some measurable properties of the superfluid onset are predicted exactly [e.g., the exponent x relating the \ensuremath{\lambda} transition temperature to the zero-temperature superfluid density is found to be d/2(d-1)], while stringent bounds are placed on others. Analysis of preliminary data is consistent with these predictions.
We investigate the Bose glass phase and the insulator-to-superfluid transition in the two-dimensional disordered Boson Hubbard model in the Villain representation via Monte Carlo simulations. In the Bose glass phase the probability distribution of the local susceptibility is found to have a 1χ2 tail and the imaginary time Green's function decays algebraically C(τ) ≈ τ−1 giving rise to a divergent global susceptibility. By considering the participation ratio it is shown that the excitations in the Bose glass phase are fully localized and a scaling law is established. For commensurate Boson densities we find direct Mott insulator to superfluid transition without an intervening Bose glass phase for weak disorder. For this transition we obtain the critical exponents z = 1, v = 0.7 ± 0.1 and η = 0.1 ± 0.1, which agree with those for the classical three-dimensional XY model without disorder. This indicates that disorder is irrelevant at the tip of the Mott-lobes and that here the inequality v⩾2d is violated.
We establish the phase diagram of the disordered three-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model at unity filling which has been controversial for many years. The theorem of inclusions, proven by Pollet et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 140402 (2009)] states that the Bose-glass phase always intervenes between the Mott insulating and superfluid phases. Here, we note that assumptions on which the theorem is based exclude phase transitions between gapped (Mott insulator) and gapless phases (Bose glass). The apparent paradox is resolved through a unique mechanism: such transitions have to be of the Griffiths type when the vanishing of the gap at the critical point is due to a zero concentration of rare regions where extreme fluctuations of disorder mimic a regular gapless system. An exactly solvable random transverse field Ising model in one dimension is used to illustrate the point. A highly nontrivial overall shape of the phase diagram is revealed with the worm algorithm. The phase diagram features a long superfluid finger at strong disorder and on-site interaction. Moreover, bosonic superfluidity is extremely robust against disorder in a broad range of interaction parameters; it persists in random potentials nearly 50 (!) times larger than the particle half-bandwidth. Finally, we comment on the feasibility of obtaining this phase diagram in cold-atom experiments, which work with trapped systems at finite temperature.
The phase diagram of the Bose-Hubbard model in the presence of off-diagonal disorder is determined using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. A sequence of quantum glass phases intervene at the interface between the Mott insulating and the superfluid phases of the clean system. In addition to the standard Bose glass phase, the coexistence of gapless and gapped regions close to the Mott insulating phase leads to a novel Mott glass regime which is incompressible yet gapless. Numerical evidence for the properties of these phases is given in terms of global (compressibility, superfluid stiffness) and local (compressibility, momentum distribution) observables.
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.
We study the two-dimensional disordered boson Hubbard model via quantum Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that the probability distribution of the local susceptibility has a 1/${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\chi}}}^{2}$ tail in the Bose-glass phase. This gives rise to a divergence although particles are completely localized here as we prove with the help of the participation ratio. We demonstrate the presence of an incompressible Mott lobe within the Bose-glass phase and show that a direct Mott-insulator-to-superfluid transition happens at the tip of the lobe. Here we find critical exponents z=1, \ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\sim}0.7 and \ensuremath{\eta}\ensuremath{\sim}0.1, which agree with those of the pure three-dimensional classical XY model.