We analyze theoretically the emergence of different superfluid phases of spin-1 bosons in a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice by generalizing the recently developed Ginzburg–Landau theory for the Bose–Hubbard model to a spinor Bose gas. In particular at zero temperature, our theory distinguishes within its validity range between various superfluid phases for an anti-ferromagnetic interaction with an external magnetic field. In addition, we determine that the superfluid–Mott insulator phase transition is of second order and that the transitions between the respective superfluid phases with anti-ferromagnetic interaction can be both of first and second order.
We analyze theoretically the emergence of different superfluid phases of spin-1 bosons in a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice by generalizing the recently developed Ginzburg–Landau theory for the Bose–Hubbard model to a spinor Bose gas. In particular at zero temperature, our theory distinguishes within its validity range between various superfluid phases for an anti-ferromagnetic interaction with an external magnetic field. In addition, we determine that the superfluid–Mott insulator phase transition is of second order and that the transitions between the respective superfluid phases with anti-ferromagnetic interaction can be both of first and second order.
We analyze theoretically a spinor Bose gas loaded into a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice. In order to account for different superfluid phases of spin-1 bosons in the presence of an external magnetic field, we work out a Ginzburg-Landau theory for the underlying spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model. In particular at zero temperature, we determine both the Mott and the superfluid phases for the competition between the anti-ferromagnetic interaction and the linear Zeeman effect within the validity range of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. Moreover, we find that the phase transition between the superfluid and Mott insulator phases is of second order and that the transitions between the respective superfluid phases for anti-ferromagnetic interaction can be both of first and second order.
In recent years the quantum simulation of condensed-matter physics problems has resulted from ex- citing experimental progress in the realm of ultracold atoms and molecules in optical lattices. In this thesis we analyze theoretically a spinor Bose gas loaded into a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice. In order to account for different superfluid phases of spin-1 bosons with a linear Zeeman effect, we work out a Ginzburg-Landau theory for the underlying spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model. To this end we add artificial symmetry- breaking currents to the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian in order to break the global U (1) symmetry. With this we determine a diagrammatic expansion of the grand-canonical free energy up to fourth order in the symmetry-breaking currents and up to the leading non-trivial order in the hopping strength which is of first order. As a cross-check we demonstrate that the resulting grand- canonical free energy allows to recover the mean-field theory. Applying a Legendre transfor- mation to the grand-canonical free energy, where the symmetry-breaking currents are transformed to order parameters, we obtain the effective Ginzburg-Landau action. With this we calculate in detail at zero temperature the Mott insulator-superfluid quantum phase boundary as well as condensate and particle number density in the superfluid phase. We find that both mean-field and Ginzburg-Landau theory yield the same quantum phase transition between the Mott insulator and superfluid phases, but the range of validity of the mean-field theory turns out to be smaller than that of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. Due to this finding we expect that the Ginzburg-Landau theory gives better results for the superfluid phase and, thus, we restrict ourselves to extremize only the effective Ginzburg-Landau action with respect to the order parameters. With- out external magnetic field the superfluid phase is a polar (ferromagnetic) state for anti-ferromagnetic (ferromagnetic) interactions, i.e. only the hyperfine spin 0 (1) is macroscopically occupied, in accor- dance with previous mean-field results. On the other hand, in the presence of the external magnetic field for ferromagnetic interaction, the superfluid phase does not change as the minimization of the energy implies the maximal spin value. However, when an anti-ferromagnetic interaction competes with the linear Zeeman effect, we can distinguish various ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic su- perfluid phases within the range of validity of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. Increasing the external magnetic field yields a breaking of spin singlet pairs and a subsequent alignment of spins, thus anti- ferromagnetic phases decrease until only a ferromagnetic superfluid phase prevails. In addition, we find that the superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition is always of second order for both ferromag- netic and anti- ferromagnetic interactions. However, the transitions between different superfluid phases for an anti-ferromagnetic interaction can be both of first and second order depending on whether the respective macroscopic occupation of hyperfine spin states changes discontinuously or continuously. The established Ginzburg-Landau theory for spin-1 bosons in optical lattices will certainly be the basis for many further applications as, for instance, time-of-flight absorption pictures or collective excitations, which are of experimental importance.
Since the experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in 1995, the field of ultracold atoms has expanded rapidly, and has become an important arena for exploring diverse quantum many-body physics, as highlighted by the experimental observation of quantum phase transitions in the system of bosons in a periodic potential, which is described by the Bose-Hubbard model.Recently, ultracold atoms with spin degrees of freedom are actively studied because the coupling between the internal spin degrees of freedom and the spatial degrees of freedom can give rise to novel and interesting physics.A minimal model for studying such physics is the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model, which describes spin-1 bosons in a periodic potential.The model has a spin-dependent interaction, which can be ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic, and it is known that although the ferromagnetic model resembles the spinless counterpart, the antiferromagnetic model exhibits totally different features, which make the model much more intensively studied compared with the ferromagnetic one.However, the presence of an external magnetic field can change the situation, because the positive quadratic Zeeman energy competes with the ferromagnetic interaction, which can give rise to rich phases.In this thesis, we explore the ground-state and nonzero-temperature phase diagrams of the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model under an external magnetic field.To analyze the model, we use an approximation method called the decoupling approximation, or equivalently, the Gutzwiller variational ansatz.It is shown that, in addition to the Mott insulator phase, the model possesses two superfluid phases.Moreover, for large values of a spin-dependent interaction, the phase transitions between the two superfluid phases can be discontinuous.Such discontinuous phase transitions are shown to survive at nonzero but sufficiently low temperature.The discontinuous phase transitions are in clear contrast to the mean-field theory of weakly interacting spin-1 bosons without a lattice, which predicts that the corresponding phase transition is continuous, signifying the importance of the effect of strong interactions on the interplay between the spatial and spinor degrees of freedom. 4.1.2The grand Hamiltonian . . . . . . . . .
We study the superfluid–Mott insulator (SF–MI) transition of a spin-1 boson system in an optical lattice, especially the responce of the system to an external magnetic field. Using the mean field theory, we obtain the phase diagram of SF–MI transition at zero temperature. For antiferromagnetic bosons, the Mott insulator region is stabilized when the number of particles per site is even. We find that only by changing the external magnetic field, the SF–MI transition is realized. On the other hand, the ferromagnetic case perfectly recovers the spin frozen case, that is already performed in experiments.
We generalize the mean-field theory for the spinless Bose-Hubbard model to account for the different types of superfluid phases that can arise in the spin-1 case. In particular, our mean-field theory can distinguish polar and ferromagnetic superfluids, Mott insulator, that arise at integer fillings at zero temperature, and normal Bose liquids into which the Mott insulators evolve at finite temperatures. We find, in contrast to the spinless case, that several of the superfluid-Mott insulator transitions are of first order at finite temperatures. Our systematic study yields rich phase diagrams that include first-order and second-order transitions and a variety of tricritical points. We discuss the possibility of realizing such phase diagrams in experimental systems.