We derive an approximate analytical solution of the self-consistency equations of the bosonic dynamical mean-field theory (B-DMFT) in the strong-coupling limit. The approach is based on a linked-cluster expansion in the hybridization function of normal bosons around the atomic limit. The solution is used to compute the phase diagram of the bosonic Hubbard model for different lattices. We compare our results with numerical solutions of the B-DMFT equations and numerically exact methods, respectively. The very good agreement with those numerical results demonstrates that our approach captures the essential physics of correlated bosons both in the Mott insulator and in the superfluid phase. Close to the transition into the superfluid phase the momentum distribution function at zero momentum is found to be strongly enhanced already in the normal phase. The linked-cluster expansion also allows us to compute dynamical properties such as the spectral function of bosons. The evolution of the spectral function across the transition from the normal to the superfluid phase is seen to be characteristically different for the interaction driven and density driven transition, respectively.
We derive an approximate analytical solution of the self-consistency equations of the bosonic dynamical mean-field theory (B-DMFT) in the strong-coupling limit. The approach is based on a linked-cluster expansion in the hybridization function of normal bosons around the atomic limit. The solution is used to compute the phase diagram of the bosonic Hubbard model for different lattices. We compare our results with numerical solutions of the B-DMFT equations and numerically exact methods, respectively. The very good agreement with those numerical results demonstrates that our approach captures the essential physics of correlated bosons both in the Mott insulator and in the superfluid phase. Close to the transition into the superfluid phase the momentum distribution function at zero momentum is found to be strongly enhanced already in the normal phase. The linked-cluster expansion also allows us to compute dynamical properties such as the spectral function of bosons. The evolution of the spectral function across the transition from the normal to the superfluid phase is seen to be characteristically different for the interaction driven and density driven transition, respectively.
We calculate the momentum dependent spectral function of the Bose-Hubbard model on a simple cubic lattice in three dimensions within the bosonic dynamical mean-field theory (B-DMFT). The continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method is used to solve the self-consistent B-DMFT equations together with the maximum entropy method for the analytic continuation to real frequencies. Results for weak, intermediate, and strong interactions are presented. In the limit of weak and strong interactions very good agreement with results obtained by perturbation theory is found. By contrast, at intermediate interactions the results differ significantly, indicating that in this regime perturbative methods fail to describe the dynamics of interacting bosons.
The dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), which is successful in the study of strongly correlated fermions, was recently extended to boson systems [K. Byczuk and D. Vollhardt, Phys. Rev. B 77, 235106 (2008)]. In this paper, we employ the bosonic DMFT to study the Bose-Hubbard model which describes on-site interacting bosons in a lattice. Using exact diagonalization as the impurity solver, we get the DMFT solutions for the Green's function, the occupation density, as well as the condensate fraction on a Bethe lattice. Various phases are identified: the Mott insulator, the Bose-Einstein condensed (BEC) phase, and the normal phase. At finite temperatures, we obtain the crossover between the Mott-type regime and the normal phase, as well as the BEC-to-normal phase transition. Phase diagrams on the $\ensuremath{\mu}/U\text{\ensuremath{-}}\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{t}/U$ plane and on the $T/U\text{\ensuremath{-}}\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{t}/U$ plane are produced ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{t}$ is the scaled hopping amplitude). We compare our results with the previous ones, and discuss the implication of these results to experiments.
We present a strong-coupling expansion of the Bose-Hubbard model which describes both the superfluid and the Mott phases of ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. By performing two successive Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations of the intersite hopping term, we derive an effective action which provides a suitable starting point to study the strong-coupling limit of the Bose-Hubbard model. This action can be analyzed by taking into account Gaussian fluctuations about the mean-field approximation as in the Bogoliubov theory of the weakly interacting Bose gas. In the Mott phase, we reproduce results of previous mean-field theories and also calculate the momentum distribution function. In the superfluid phase, we find a gapless spectrum and compare our results with the Bogoliubov theory.
This thesis is dedicated to the derivation and benchmarking of self-consistent numerical methods that can be applied to interacting bosonic lattice models. The central goal is to derive methods with low numerical complexity but high accuracy, to be applied to complex systems which are out-of reach for established methods such as path integral quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) or the density matrix renormalization group. In the first part we derive the self-energy functional theory (SFT) for bosons. Building upon previous works on lattice systems without U(1)-symmetry-breaking, we systematically extend SFT to the possibility of a broken U(1)-symmetry and the presence of disorder. SFT incorporates bosonic dynamical mean-field theory as a certain limit, and represents a general non-perturbative framework, enabling the construction of diagrammatically sound approximations in the thermodynamical limit that are controlled in the number of optimization parameters. Using just three variational parameters, we are able to study the Bose-Hubbard model both in its clean version and in the presence of local disorder, showing excellent agreement with numerically exact QMC results. We systematically analyze the corresponding spectral functions, which cannot be fully captured by QMC. In particular, we find that in the presence of disorder the phase transition from the Bose glass to the superfluid phase at strong interactions is driven by the percolation of superfluid lakes which form around doubly occupied sites, leading to a small condensate fraction over a strongly-localized background. The second part is dedicated to the derivation of reciprocal cluster mean-field theory (RCMF) and its application to the strongly-interacting Harper-Hofstadter-Mott model (HHMm). In RCMF the full lattice in the thermodynamical limit is projected onto finite-size clusters, which are decoupled in reciprocal space through a mean-field decoupling approximation, crucially preserving the symmetries of the non-interacting dispersion. The resulting groundstate phase diagram of the HHMm exhibits band insulating, striped superfluid, and supersolid phases. Furthermore, we observe gapless uncondensed liquid phases at integer fillings, and a metastable competing fractional quantum Hall (fQH) phase. The fQH phase, predicted as the groundstate by other methods, is most likely underestimated by RCMF. We then show how a quasi-one-dimensional geometry stabilizes gapped topologically non-trivial groundstates in the HHMm. We observe quasi-one-dimensional analogues of fQH phases at fillings 1/2 and 3/2, and unconventional gapped non-degenerate groundstates at integer filling with quantized Hall responses. By systematically comparing results computed with RCMF and exact diagonalization (ED), we are able to give conclusive quantitative answers on the phase boundaries of the system, as the two methods approach the thermodynamical limit from opposite sides, since RCMF favours gapless and ED gapped phases.
A strong-coupling expansion for the Green's functions, self-energies, and correlation functions of the Bose-Hubbard model is developed. We illustrate the general formalism, which includes all possible (normal-phase) inhomogeneous effects in the formalism, such as disorder or a trap potential, as well as effects of thermal excitations. The expansion is then employed to calculate the momentum distribution of the bosons in the Mott phase for an infinite homogeneous periodic system at zero temperature through third order in the hopping. By using scaling theory for the critical behavior at zero momentum and at the critical value of the hopping for the Mott insulator--to--superfluid transition along with a generalization of the random-phase-approximation-like form for the momentum distribution, we are able to extrapolate the series to infinite order and produce very accurate quantitative results for the momentum distribution in a simple functional form for one, two, and three dimensions. The accuracy is better in higher dimensions and is on the order of a few percent relative error everywhere except close to the critical value of the hopping divided by the on-site repulsion. In addition, we find simple phenomenological expressions for the Mott-phase lobes in two and three dimensions which are much more accurate than the truncated strong-coupling expansions and any other analytic approximation we are aware of. The strong-coupling expansions and scaling-theory results are benchmarked against numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations in two and three dimensions and against density-matrix renormalization-group calculations in one dimension. These analytic expressions will be useful for quick comparison of experimental results to theory and in many cases can bypass the need for expensive numerical simulations.
We formulate a bosonic dynamical mean-field theory (B-DMFT) which provides a comprehensive, thermodynamically consistent framework for the theoretical investigation of correlated lattice bosons. The B-DMFT is applicable for arbitrary values of the coupling parameters and temperature and becomes exact in the limit of high spatial dimensions d or coordination number Z of the lattice. In contrast to its fermionic counterpart, the construction of the B-DMFT requires different scalings of the hopping amplitudes with Z depending on whether the bosons are in their normal state or in the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). A detailed discussion of how this conceptual problem can be overcome by performing the scaling in the action rather than in the Hamiltonian itself is presented. The B-DMFT treats normal and condensed bosons on equal footing and thus includes the effects caused by their dynamic coupling. It reproduces all previously investigated limits in parameter space, such as the Beliaev-Popov and Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approximations, and generalizes the existing mean-field theories of interacting bosons. The self-consistency equations of the B-DMFT are those of a bosonic single-impurity coupled to two reservoirs corresponding to bosons in the condensate and in the normal state, respectively. We employ the B-DMFT to solve a model of itinerant and localized, interacting bosons analytically. The local correlations are found to enhance the condensate density and the BEC transition temperature TBEC. This effect may be used experimentally to increase TBEC of bosonic atoms in optical lattices.