Repulsively bound pairs of particles in a lattice governed by the Bose-Hubbard model can form stable incompressible clusters of dimers corresponding to finite-size $n=2$ Mott insulators. Here we study the dynamics of hole defects in such clusters corresponding to unpaired particles which can resonantly tunnel out of the cluster into the lattice vacuum. Due to bosonic statistics, the unpaired particles have different effective mass inside and outside the cluster, and ``evaporation'' of hole defects from the cluster boundaries is possible only when their quasimomenta are within a certain transmission range. We show that quasithermalization of hole defects occurs in the presence of catalyzing particle defects which thereby purify the Mott-insulating clusters. We study the dynamics of a one-dimensional system using analytical techniques and numerically exact time-dependent density-matix renormalization-group simulations. We derive an effective strong-interaction model that enables simulations of the system dynamics for much longer times. We also discuss a more general case of two bosonic species which reduces to the fermionic Hubbard model in the strong interaction limit.
Repulsively bound pairs of particles in a lattice governed by the Bose-Hubbard model can form stable incompressible clusters of dimers corresponding to finite-size n=2 Mott insulators. Here we study the dynamics of hole defects in such clusters corresponding to unpaired particles which can resonantly tunnel out of the cluster into the lattice vacuum. Due to bosonic statistics, the unpaired particles have different effective mass inside and outside the cluster, and ``evaporation'' of hole defects from the cluster boundaries is possible only when their quasimomenta are within a certain transmission range. We show that quasithermalization of hole defects occurs in the presence of catalyzing particle defects which thereby purify the Mott-insulating clusters. We study the dynamics of a one-dimensional system using analytical techniques and numerically exact time-dependent density-matix renormalization-group simulations. We derive an effective strong-interaction model that enables simulations of the system dynamics for much longer times. We also discuss a more general case of two bosonic species which reduces to the fermionic Hubbard model in the strong interaction limit.
We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a dilute, lattice-confined Bose-Fermi mixture initialized in a highly excited state consisting of boson-fermion pairs (doublons) occupying single lattice sites. This system represents a paradigmatic case for studying relaxation dynamics in strongly correlated systems, and provides a versatile platform for studying thermalization and localization phenomena. We provide analytical expressions for the short-time decay of isolated doublons and small doublon clusters due to the competition between tunneling and interparticle interactions. We also discuss a mechanism for long-time decay that crucially depends on the quantum statistics of the particles constituting the doublon, namely, the conversion of pairs of neighboring doublons into an unpaired fermion and a site with a fermion and two bosons. Building on these insights, we develop a cluster expansion method to describe the dynamics in extended systems and compare it to numerically exact matrix product state simulations in one dimension. Finally, we discuss how our predictions can be observed in experiments with ultracold heteronuclear molecules.
We use the density-matrix renormalization group method to investigate ground-state and dynamic properties of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, the effective model of ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. For fixed maximum site occupancy n b = 5, we calculate the phase boundaries between the Mott insulator and the "superfluid" phase for the lowest two Mott lobes. We extract the Tomonaga-Luttinger parameter from the density-density correlation function and determine accurately the critical interaction strength for the Mott transition. For both phases, we study the momentum distribution function in the homogeneous system, and the particle distribution and quasi-momentum distribution functions in a parabolic trap. With our zero-temperature method we determine the photoemission spectra in the Mott insulator and in the "superfluid" phase of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. In the insulator, the Mott gap separates the quasi-particle and quasi-hole dispersions. In the "superfluid" phase the spectral weight is concentrated around zero momentum.
The first reliable analytic calculation of the phase diagram of the bose gas on a d-dimensional lattice with on-site repulsion is presented. In one dimension, the analytic calculation is in excellent agreement with the numerical Monte Carlo results. In higher dimensions, the deviations from the Monte Carlo calculations are larger, but the correct shape of the Mott insulator lobes is still obtained. Explicit expressions for the energy of the Mott and the “defect” phase are given in a strong-coupling expansion. Typeset using REVTEX 1 Strongly interacting quantum systems continue to challenge theoretical physics. Fermionic examples of strong correlations include high temperature superconductors, heavy fermion materials and metal-insulator transitions. The study of these systems has been confined to either numerical simulations which are plagued by finite-size effects (with the notable exception of the infinite-dimensional expansion) or uncontrollable approximations. Similar problems arise in strongly interacting bosonic systems which have attracted a lot of
We study the zero-temperature superfluid-insulator transition for a two-dimensional model of interacting, lattice bosons in the presence of quenched disorder and particle-hole symmetry. We follow the approach of a recent series of papers by Altman, Kafri, Polkovnikov, and Refael, in which the strong disorder renormalization group is used to study disordered bosons in one dimension. Adapting this method to two dimensions, we study several different species of disorder and uncover universal features of the superfluid-insulator transition. In particular, we locate an unstable finite disorder fixed point that governs the transition between the superfluid and a gapless, glassy insulator. We present numerical evidence that this glassy phase is the incompressible Mott glass and that the transition from this phase to the superfluid is driven by a percolation-type process. Finally, we provide estimates of the critical exponents governing this transition.
We study the ground-state properties of ultracold bosons in an optical lattice in the regime of strong interactions. The system is described by a non-standard Bose–Hubbard model with both occupation-dependent tunneling and on-site interaction. We find that for sufficiently strong coupling, the system features a phase transition from a Mott insulator with one particle per site to a superfluid of spatially extended particle pairs living on top of the Mott background—instead of the usual transition to a superfluid of single particles/holes. Increasing the interaction further, a superfluid of particle pairs localized on a single site (rather than being extended) on top of the Mott background appears. This happens at the same interaction strength where the Mott-insulator phase with two particles per site is destroyed completely by particle–hole fluctuations for arbitrarily small tunneling. In another regime, characterized by weak interaction but high occupation numbers, we observe a dynamical instability in the superfluid excitation spectrum. The new ground state is a superfluid, forming a two-dimensional (2D) slab, localized along one spatial direction that is chosen spontaneously.
We investigate the expansion of bosons and fermions in a homogeneous lattice after a sudden removal of the trapping potential using exact numerical methods. As a main result, we show that in one dimension, both bosonic and fermionic Mott insulators expand with the same velocity, irrespective of the interaction strength, provided the expansion starts from the ground state of the trapped gas. Furthermore, their density profiles become identical during the expansion; the asymptotic density dynamics is identical to that of initially localized, noninteracting particles, and the asymptotic velocity distribution is flat. The expansion velocity for initial correlated Mott insulating states is therefore independent of the interaction strength and particle statistics. Interestingly, this nonequilibrium dynamics is sensitive to the interaction driven quantum phase transition in the Bose-Hubbard model; while being constant in the Mott phase, the expansion velocity decreases in the superfluid phase and vanishes for large systems in the noninteracting limit. These results are compared to the setup of a recent experiment [Ronzheimer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 205301 (2013)], where the trap opening was combined with an interaction quench from infinitely strong interactions to finite values. In the latter case, the interaction quench breaks the universal dynamics in the asymptotic regime and the expansion depends on the interaction strength. We carry out an analogous analysis for a two-component Fermi gas, with similar observations. In addition, we study the effect of breaking the integrability of hard-core bosons in different ways; while the fast ballistic expansion from the ground state of Mott insulators in one dimension remains unchanged for finite interactions, we observe strong deviations from this behavior on a two-leg ladder even in the hard-core case. This change in dynamics bares similarities with the dynamics in the dimensional crossover from one to two dimensions observed in the aformentioned experimental study.