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arXiv:0909.0976 · Physical Review A

Magnetic structure of an imbalanced Fermi gas in an optical lattice

Bernhard Wünsch, Lars Fritz, Nikolaj Thomas Zinner, Efstratios Manousakis, Eugene Demler

Published Jan 20, 2010• 16 citations
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Abstract

We analyze the repulsive fermionic Hubbard model on square and cubic lattices with spin imbalance and in the presence of a parabolic confinement. We analyze the magnetic structure as a function of the repulsive interaction strength and polarization. In the first part of the article, we perform unrestricted Hartree-Fock calculations for the two-dimensional (2D) case and find that above a critical interaction strength ${U}_{c}$ the system turns ferromagnetic at the edge of the trap, which is in agreement with the ferromagnetic Stoner instability of a homogeneous system away from half-filling. For $U<{U}_{c}$, we find a canted antiferromagnetic structure in the Mott region in the center and a partially polarized compressible edge. The antiferromagnetic order in the Mott plateau is perpendicular to the direction of the imbalance. In this regime, the same qualitative behavior is expected for 2D and three-dimensional (3D) systems. In the second part of the article, we give a general discussion of magnetic structures above ${U}_{c}$. We argue that spin conservation leads to nontrivial textures, both in the ferromagnetic polarization at the edge and for the N\'eel order in the Mott plateau. We discuss differences in magnetic structures for 2D and 3D cases.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.81.013616

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We analyze the repulsive fermionic Hubbard model on square and cubic lattices with spin imbalance and in the presence of a parabolic confinement. We analyze the magnetic structure as a function of the repulsive interaction strength and polarization. In the first part of the article, we perform unrestricted Hartree-Fock calculations for the two-dimensional (2D) case and find that above a critical interaction strength Uc{U}_{c}Uc​ the system turns ferromagnetic at the edge of the trap, which is in agreement with the ferromagnetic Stoner instability of a homogeneous system away from half-filling. For U<UcU<{U}_{c}U<Uc​, we find a canted antiferromagnetic structure in the Mott region in the center and a partially polarized compressible edge. The antiferromagnetic order in the Mott plateau is perpendicular to the direction of the imbalance. In this regime, the same qualitative behavior is expected for 2D and three-dimensional (3D) systems. In the second part of the article, we give a general discussion of magnetic structures above Uc{U}_{c}Uc​. We argue that spin conservation leads to nontrivial textures, both in the ferromagnetic polarization at the edge and for the N'eel order in the Mott plateau. We discuss differences in magnetic structures for 2D and 3D cases.
We investigate antiferromagnetic order of repulsively interacting fermionic atoms in an optical lattice by means of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). Special attention is paid to the case of an imbalanced mixture. We take into account the presence of an underlying harmonic trap, both in a local-density approximation and by performing full real-space DMFT calculations. We consider the case in which the particle density in the trap center is at half-filling, leading to an antiferromagnetic region in the center, surrounded by a Fermi liquid region at the edge. In the case of an imbalanced mixture, the antiferromagnetism is directed perpendicular to the ferromagnetic polarization and canted. We pay special attention to the boundary structure between the antiferromagnetic and the Fermi liquid phase. For the moderately strong interactions considered here, no Stoner instability toward a ferromagnetic phase is found. Phase separation is only observed for strong imbalance and sufficiently large repulsion.
Systems of fermions described by the three-dimensional (3D) repulsive Hubbard model on a cubic lattice have recently attracted considerable attention due to their possible experimental realization via cold atoms in an optical lattice. Analytical and numerical results are limited away from half-filling. We study the ground state of the doped system from weak to intermediate interaction strengths within the generalized Hartree-Fock approximation. The exact solution to the self-consistent-field equations in the thermodynamic limit is obtained and the ground state is shown to exhibit antiferromagnetic order and incommensurate spin-density waves (SDW). At low interaction strengths, the SDW has unidirectional character with a leading wavevector along the [100]-direction, and the system is metallic. As the interaction increases, the system undergoes a simultaneous structural and metal-to-insulator transition to a unidirectional SDW state along the [111]-direction, with a different wavelength. We systematically determine the real and momentum space properties of these states. The crossover from 3D to two dimensions (2D) is then studied by varying the inter-plane hopping amplitude, which can be experimentally realized by tuning the distance between a stack of square-lattice layers. Detailed comparisons are made between the exact numerical results and predictions from the pairing model, a variational ansatz based on the pairing of spins in the vicinity of the Fermi surface. Most of the numerical results can be understood quantitatively from the ansatz, which provides a simple picture for the nature of the SDW states.
We investigate effects of pseudospin population imbalance on Mott phases in one-dimensional trapped two-component atomic Fermi gases loaded on optical lattices based on the repulsive Hubbard model in harmonic traps. By using the density-matrix renormalization-group method, we numerically calculate density profiles of each component and clarify the pseudospin magnetism. Consequently, we find that all the features from weakly imbalance to fully polarized cases are well described by S=1/2S=1/2S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain under magnetic field. These results indicate that the Mott phases offer experimental stages for studying various interacting spin systems.
We study Fermi gases in a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice with five fermions per site, i.e., the sss band is completely filled and the ppp band with threefold degeneracy is half filled. We show that for repulsive interaction between fermions, the system will exhibit spin-3/2 antiferromagnetic order at low temperature. This conclusion is obtained both in strong interaction regime by strong coupling expansion and in weak interaction regime by the Hartree--Fock mean-field theory with analysis of the Fermi surface nesting. We also show that in the strongly correlated regime the N\'eel temperature for ppp band antiferromagnetism is 2 to 3 orders of magnitudes higher than that of sss band, which is much more promising to be attained in cold atom experiments.
Using continuous-space quantum Monte Carlo methods, we investigate the zero-temperature ferromagnetic behavior of a two-component repulsive Fermi gas under the influence of periodic potentials that describe the effect of a simple-cubic optical lattice. Simulations are performed with balanced and with imbalanced components, including the case of a single impurity immersed in a polarized Fermi sea (repulsive polaron). For an intermediate density below half filling, we locate the transitions between the paramagnetic, and the partially and fully ferromagnetic phases. As the intensity of the optical lattice increases, the ferromagnetic instability takes place at weaker interactions, indicating a possible route to observe ferromagnetism in experiments performed with ultracold atoms. We compare our findings with previous predictions based on the standard computational method used in material science, namely density functional theory, and with results based on tight-binding models.
The fermionic Hubbard model plays a fundamental role in the description of strongly correlated materials. We have realized this Hamiltonian in a repulsively interacting spin mixture of ultracold (40)K atoms in a three-dimensional (3D) optical lattice. Using in situ imaging and independent control of external confinement and lattice depth, we were able to directly measure the compressibility of the quantum gas in the trap. Together with a comparison to ab initio dynamical mean field theory calculations, we show how the system evolves for increasing confinement from a compressible dilute metal over a strongly interacting Fermi liquid into a band-insulating state. For strong interactions, we find evidence for an emergent incompressible Mott insulating phase. This demonstrates the potential to model interacting condensed-matter systems using ultracold fermionic atoms.