We study Hubbard models for ultracold bosonic or fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice. The atoms carry a high spin F> 1/2, and interact on site via strong repulsive Van der Waals forces. Making convenient rearrangements of the interaction terms, and exploiting their symmetry properties, we derive low-energy effective models with nearest-neighbor interactions, and their properties. We apply our method to F =3/2, and 5/2 fermions on two-dimensional square lattice at quarter, and 1/6 fillings, respectively, and investigate mean-field equations for repulsive couplings. We find for F =3/2 fermions that the plaquette state appearing in the highly symmetric SU (4) case does not require fine tuning, and is stable in an extended region of the phase diagram. This phase competes with an SU (2) flux state, that is always suppressed for repulsive interactions in the absence of external magnetic field. The SU (2) flux state has, however, lower energy than the plaquette phase, and stabilizes in the presence of weak applied magnetic field. For F =5/2 fermions a similar SU (2) plaquette phase is found to be the ground state without external magnetic field.
We study Hubbard models for ultracold bosonic or fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice. The atoms carry a high spin F> 1/2, and interact on site via strong repulsive Van der Waals forces. Making convenient rearrangements of the interaction terms, and exploiting their symmetry properties, we derive low-energy effective models with nearest-neighbor interactions, and their properties. We apply our method to F =3/2, and 5/2 fermions on two-dimensional square lattice at quarter, and 1/6 fillings, respectively, and investigate mean-field equations for repulsive couplings. We find for F =3/2 fermions that the plaquette state appearing in the highly symmetric SU (4) case does not require fine tuning, and is stable in an extended region of the phase diagram. This phase competes with an SU (2) flux state, that is always suppressed for repulsive interactions in the absence of external magnetic field. The SU (2) flux state has, however, lower energy than the plaquette phase, and stabilizes in the presence of weak applied magnetic field. For F =5/2 fermions a similar SU (2) plaquette phase is found to be the ground state without external magnetic field.
We study fermionic superfluidity in an ultracold Bose-Fermi mixture loaded into a square optical lattice subjected to a staggered flux. While the bosons form a Bose-Einstein condensate at very low temperature and weak interaction, the interacting fermions experience an additional long-ranged attractive interaction mediated by phonons in the bosonic condensate. This leads us to consider a generalized Hubbard model with on-site and nearest-neighbor attractive interactions, which give rise to two competing pairing channels. We use the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory to determine the regimes where distinct fermionic superfluids are stabilized and find that the nonlocal pairing channel favors a superfluid state which breaks both the gauge and the lattice symmetries, similar to unconventional superconductivity occurring in some strongly correlated systems. Furthermore, the particular structure of the single-particle spectrum leads to unexpected consequences, for example, a dome-shaped superfluid region in the temperature versus filing fraction phase diagram, with a normal phase that contains much richer physics than a Fermi liquid. Notably, the relevant temperature regime and coupling strength are readily accessible in state of the art experiments with ultracold trapped atoms.
We investigate the fermionic SU(N) Hubbard model on the two-dimensional square lattice for weak to moderate interactions using renormalization group and mean-field methods. For the repulsive case U>0 at half filling and small N the dominant tendency is towards breaking of the SU(N) symmetry. For N>6 staggered flux order takes over as the dominant instability, in agreement with the large-N limit. Away from half filling for N=3 two flavors remain half filled by cannibalizing the third flavor. For U<0 and odd N a full Fermi surface coexists with a superconductor. These results may be relevant to future experiments with cold fermionic atoms in optical lattices.
Based on a generalized one-band Hubbard model, we study magnetic properties of Mott insulating states for ultracold spin-23 fermionic atoms in optical lattices. When the s-wave scattering lengths for the total spin S=2,0 satisfy conditions a2>a0>0, we apply a functional integral approach to the half filled case, where the spin-quadrupole fluctuations dominate. On a two-dimensional square lattice, the saddle-point solution yields a staggered spin-quadrupole ordering at zero temperature with symmetry breaking from SO(5) to SO(4). Both spin and spin-quadrupole static structure factors are calculated, displaying highly anisotropic spin antiferromagnetic fluctuations and antiferroquadrupole long-range correlations, respectively. When Gaussian fluctuations around the saddle point are taken into account, spin-quadrupole density waves with a linear dispersion are derived. Compared with the spin-density waves in the half filled spin-21 Hubbard model, the quadrupole density wave velocity is saturated in the strong-coupling limit, and there are no transverse spin-quadrupole mode couplings, as required by the SO(4) invariance of the effective action. Finally, in the strong-coupling limit of the model Hamiltonian, we derive the effective hyperfine spin-exchange interactions for the Mott insulating phases in the quarter filled and half filled cases, respectively.
We study various Mott insulating phases of interacting spin-23 fermionic ultracold atoms in two-dimensional square optical lattices at half filling. Using a generalized one-band Hubbard model with hidden SO(5) symmetry, we identify two distinct symmetry breaking phases: the degenerate antiferromagnetic spin-dipole--spin-octupole ordering and spin-quadrupole ordering, depending on the sign of the spin-dependent interaction. These two competing orders exhibit very different symmetry properties, low energy excitations, and topological characterizations. Near the SU(4) symmetric point, a quantum critical state with a $\ensuremath{\pi}$-flux phase may emerge due to strong quantum fluctuations, leading to spin algebraic correlations and gapless excitations.
The progress of ultracold atoms renders numerous possibilities to investigate exotic magnetism and superfluidity, which are rarely observed in solid state systems. In this thesis, we will introduce two novel physical descriptions: "frustrated Cooper pairing" and "large-hyperfine spin physics". Geometric frustration in quantum magnetism refers to which magnetic interactions on different bonds cannot be simultaneously minimized, and usually Cooper pairing favors uniform phases among different lattice sites. Here, we introduce "frustration" in Cooper pairing in a fermionic p-orbital model. By mean- field calculations, we show that the system exhibits behavior analogous to frustrated magnetism, and an unconventional supersolid state with the f-wave symmetry. Next, we introduce large-spin physics. In usual condensed matter systems, large spin is not intriguing because large values of spin suppress quantum fluctuations. In contrast, in ultracold fermion systems, large-hyperfine spin enhances quantum fluctuations and brings exotic quantum magnetism. Here the simplest large-spin fermionic system, a spin-3/2 exchange system is proposed, which can be characterized by an Sp(4)/SO(5) symmetry. In one dimension, the ground states exhibit either a dimerized state with a finite spin gap or a gapless spin liquid state by means of the density matrix renormalization group method. In the latter case, the spin-spin correlation functions are identified to have 4-site periodicities, which behaves similarly to the SU(4) chain. In two dimension, we infer that there exist three competing phases: Neel ordering, columnar dimerization and 2 x 2 plaquette formation, in the thermodynamic limit by exact diagonalization calculation on small sizes. Finally we perform the projector Quantum Monte Carlo method to study another large-spin system: the half-filled SU(N) Hubbard model. We show that at half-filling there is no sign problem such that our simulations are accurate. By finite size scaling, it is clearly found that the magnetic Neel ordering can exist not only for N = 2 but also in the N = 4 case at strong interactions. For N ̲> 6 or N = 4 at small U, the numerical results do not have any prominent signal that the long-range ordering exists in the thermodynamic limit. Due to strong finite size effects and finite numerical accuracy, however, we are unable to make any conclusion to identify the physics in the regimes
In this thesis, the Hubbard model with hopping amplitude, t, and on-site interaction, U, in the Mott-insulating regime is explored for unconventional magnetic phases at T = 0 K. These phases are captured within effective low-energy descriptions, and are triggered by quantum fluctuations due to finite hopping. We aim for unconventional phases from two mechanisms, an increased symmetry SU(N) with N > 2 compared to the most common SU(2), and highly frustrated interactions. For SU(N)-symmetric fermions in artificial gauge fields, chiral spin liquid phases (CSLs) are investigated. They are determined within effective spin models, which we derive in order six in t/U for the honeycomb lattice for general values of N, and study in detail for the triangular lattice up to order five in t/U for SU(3) and SU(7) by exact diagonalisations and variational Monte Carlo simulations. On the triangular lattice, the third-order effective model is the J -K model with nearest-neighbour coupling, J ∈ R, and ring exchange, K ∈ C. For SU(3) and Im K = 0, the three-sublattice long-range ordered phase is ruled out by a spontaneously time-reversal symmetry breaking π/3-flux CSL through � nite hopping. Further, for Im K = 0, a lattice nematic, a 120◦ long-ranged ordered, and the ferromagnetically ordered phase occur. The CSL is found to be extended to Re K = 0. It is also present in the fourth- and fifth-order model in the most relevant π-flux case, where time-reversal symmetry is spontaneously broken. Together with the estimated metal-insulator transition point at larger hoppings, this CSL is therefore expected to be realised in the SU(3) Hubbard model. The analogous CSL is also predicted for SU(7)-symmetric fermions. Experimental realisations with ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices are described. SrCu2(BO3)2 is a highly frustrated quantum magnet. At ambient pressure it is captured by the spin-1/2 Shastry-Sutherland model, which yields the effective strong-coupling description of the associated SU(2) Hubbard model. To describe SrCu2(BO3)2 under higher pressure, we extend the Shastry-Sutherland model by asymmetric coupling strengths, and find that asymmetries of a few percent are sufficient to replace the empty plaquette singlet phase (EPP) of the Shastry-Sutherland model with the filled plaquette singlet phase (FPP) that is found to be identical to a quasi one-dimensional Haldane phase. These results are achieved by series expansions and infinite projected entangled-pair states. The dispersions and dynamic structure factors of both plaquette phases are derived. The EPP naturally hosts one low-lying triplon, whereas the FPP has two. Therefore, the FPP appears to be the likely candidate for SrCu2(BO3)2 under pressure. The excitations of both phases show some agreement with experimental data if the exchange amplitudes change more than expected. Further measurements are suggested. At last, an orthogonal-plaquette model of spins-1/2 is introduced and proven to host two exact valence bond crystals based on plaquette singlets with an extensive degeneracy at the phase transition. This model exhibits an extensive number of conserved quantities, which is used for further investigations of the phase diagram.