The superfluid-to-Anderson-insulator transition of a strongly repulsive Bose gas is studied in a one-dimensional incommensurate optical lattice. In the hard-core limit, the Bose-Fermi mapping allows us to deal with the system using the exact numerical method. Based on the Aubry-Andr'e model, we exploit the phase transition of the hard-core boson system from the superfluid phase with all single-particle states extended to the Bose-glass phase with all the single-particle states being Anderson localized as the strength of the incommensurate potential increases relative to the hopping amplitude. We evaluate the superfluid fraction, one-particle density matrices, momentum distributions, the natural orbitals, and their occupations. All of these quantities show that there exists a superfluid-to-insulator phase transition in the system.
We study properties of the strongly repulsive Bose gas on one-dimensional incommensurate optical lattices with a harmonic trap, which can be dealt with by use of an exact numerical method through Bose-Fermi mapping. We first exploit the phase transition of hard-core bosons in optical lattices from the superfluid to the Bose-glass phase as the strength of the incommensurate potential increases. Then we study the dynamical properties of the system after suddenly switching off the harmonic trap. We calculate the one-particle density matrices, the momentum distributions, and the natural orbitals and their occupations for both the static and dynamic systems. Our results indicate that the Bose-glass and superfluid phases display quite different properties and expansion dynamics.
Using the exact Bose-Fermi mapping, we study universal properties of ground-state density distributions and finite-temperature quantum critical behavior of one-dimensional hard-core bosons in trapped incommensurate optical lattices. Through the analysis of universal scaling relations in the quantum critical regime, we demonstrate that the superfluid-to-Bose-glass transition and the general phase diagram of disordered hard-core bosons can be uniquely determined from finite-temperature density distributions of the trapped disordered system.
We investigate the properties of impenetrable bosons confined in a one-dimensional lattice at finite temperature in the presence of an additional incommensurate periodic potential. Relying on the exact Fermi-Bose mapping, we study the effects of temperature on the one-particle density matrix and related quantities such as the momentum distribution function and the natural orbitals. We found evidence of a finite-temperature crossover related to the zero-temperature superfluid-to-Bose-glass-transition that induces a delocalization of the lowest natural orbitals.
We determine the phase diagram and the momentum distribution for a one-dimensional Bose gas with repulsive short-range interactions in the presence of a two-color lattice potential, with an incommensurate ratio among the respective wavelengths, by using a combined numerical (density matrix renormalization group) and analytical (bosonization) analysis. The system displays a delocalized (superfluid) phase at small values of the intensity of the secondary lattice
V2 and a localized (Bose-glasslike) phase at larger intensity
V2. We analyze the localization transition as a function of the height
V2 beyond the known limits of free and hard-core bosons. We find that weak repulsive interactions disfavor the localized phase, i.e., they increase the critical value of
V2 at which localization occurs. In the case of integer filling of the primary lattice, the phase diagram at fixed density displays, in addition to a transition from a superfluid to a Bose glass phase, a transition to a Mott-insulating state for not too large
V2 and large repulsion. We also analyze the emergence of a Bose-glass phase by looking at the evolution of the Mott-insulator lobes when increasing
V2. The Mott lobes shrink and disappear above a critical value of
V2. Finally, we characterize the superfluid phase by the momentum distribution, and show that it displays a power-law decay at small momenta typical of Luttinger liquids, with an exponent depending on the combined effect of the interactions and of the secondary lattice. In addition, we observe two side peaks that are due to the diffraction of the Bose gas by the second lattice. This latter feature could be observed in current experiments as characteristics of pseudo-random Bose systems.
We compute the phase diagram of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model with a quasiperiodic potential by means of the density-matrix renormalization group technique. This model describes the physics of cold atoms loaded in an optical lattice in the presence of a superlattice potential whose wavelength is incommensurate with the main lattice wavelength. After discussing the conditions under which the model can be realized experimentally, the study of the density vs the chemical potential curves for a nontrapped system unveils the existence of gapped phases at incommensurate densities interpreted as incommensurate charge-density-wave phases. Furthermore, a localization transition is known to occur above a critical value of the potential depth
V2 in the case of free and hard-core bosons. We extend these results to soft-core bosons for which the phase diagrams at fixed densities display new features compared with the phase diagrams known for random box distribution disorder. In particular, a direct transition from the superfluid phase to the Mott-insulating phase is found at finite
V2. Evidence for reentrances of the superfluid phase upon increasing interactions is presented. We finally comment on different ways to probe the emergent quantum phases and most importantly, the existence of a critical value for the localization transition. The latter feature can be investigated by looking at the expansion of the cloud after releasing the trap.
We investigate numerically the zero-temperature physics of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model in an incommensurate cosine potential, recently realized in experiments with cold bosons in optical superlattices [L. Fallani et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 130404 (2007)]. An incommensurate cosine potential has intermediate properties between a truly periodic and a fully random potential, displaying a characteristic length scale (the quasiperiod) which is shown to set a finite lower bound to the excitation energy of the system at special incommensurate fillings. This leads to the emergence of gapped incommensurate band-insulator (IBI) phases along with gapless Bose-glass (BG) phases for strong quasiperiodic potential for both hard-core and soft-core bosons. Enriching the spatial features of the potential by the addition of a second incommensurate component appears to remove the IBI regions, stabilizing a continuous BG phase over an extended parameter range. Moreover, we discuss the validity of the local-density approximation in the presence of a parabolic trap, clarifying the notion of a local BG phase in a trapped system; we investigate the behavior of first- and second-order coherence upon increasing the strength of the quasiperiodic potential; and we discuss the ab initio derivation of the Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian with quasiperiodic potential starting from the microscopic Hamiltonian of bosons in an incommensurate superlattice.