We study the interplay between the Hofstadter butterfly, strong interactions, and the Zeeman field within the mean-field Bogoliubov--de Gennes theory in real space, and explore the ground states of the attractive single-band Hofstadter-Hubbard Hamiltonian on a square lattice, including the exotic possibility of imbalanced vector potentials. We find that the cooperation between the vector potential and superfluid order breaks the spatial symmetry of the system, and stripe-ordered Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov--like superfluid and supersolid phases occur that can be distinguished and characterized according to their coexisting pair-density-, charge-density-, and spin-density-wave orders. We also discuss confined systems and comment on the likelihood of observing such stripe-ordered phases by loading neutral atomic Fermi gases on laser-induced optical lattices under laser-generated artificial gauge fields.
We study the ground-state phase diagram of the hard-core extended boson Hubbard model on the square lattice with both nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hoppings and repulsions, using Gutzwiller mean-field theory and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We observe the formation of supersolid states with checkerboard, striped, and quarter-filled crystal structures when the system is doped away from commensurate fillings. In the striped supersolid phase, a strong anisotropy in the superfluid density is obtained from the simulations; however, the transverse component remains finite, indicating a true two-dimensional superflow. We find that upon doping, the striped supersolid transitions directly into the supersolid with quarter-filled crystal structure, via a first-order stripe melting transition.
We study
s-wave superconductivity in the two-dimensional square-lattice attractive Hubbard Hamiltonian for various inhomogeneous patterns of interacting sites. Using the Bogoliubov--de Gennes mean-field approximation, we obtain the phase diagram for inhomogeneous patterns in which the on-site attractive interaction
Ui between the electrons takes on two values
Ui=0 and $\ensuremath{-}U∕(1\ensuremath{-}f)$ (with
f the concentration of noninteracting sites) as a function of average electron occupation per site,
n, and study the evolution of the phase diagram as
f varies. In certain regions of the phase diagram, inhomogeneity results in a larger zero-temperature average pairing amplitude (order parameter) and also a higher superconducting critical temperature
Tc, relative to a uniform system with the same mean interaction strength (${U}_{i}=\ensuremath{-}U$ on all sites). These effects are observed for stripes, checkerboard, and even random patterns of the attractive centers, suggesting that the pattern of inhomogeneity is unimportant. The phase diagrams also include regions where superconductivity is obliterated due to the formation of various charge-ordered phases. The enhancement of
Tc due to inhomogeneity is robust as long as the electron doping per site,
n, is less than twice the fraction of interacting sites $[2(1\ensuremath{-}f)]$ regardless of the pattern. We also show that for certain inhomogeneous patterns, when $n=2(1\ensuremath{-}f)$, increasing temperature can work against the stability of existing charge-ordered phases for large
f and, as a result, enhance
Tc.
Despite the multi-band spectrum of the widely-known Hofstadter butterfly, it turns out that the pairing correlations of the time-reversal-symmetric Hofstadter-Hubbard model are well-described by a single order parameter that is uniform in real space. By exploiting a BCS mean-field theory for the nearly-flat butterfly-bands regime of low magnetic-flux limit, here we reveal a number of unusual superfluid properties both in the ground state and at finite temperatures. Our thorough analysis includes but is not limited to the order parameter, condensate and superfluid fractions, and the critical BCS and BKT transition temperatures.
Since the discovery of the quantum Hall effect, the lattice geometry's influence on charged particles in magnetic fields has been the subject of extensive research. Prototypical models such as the non-interacting Harper-Hofstadter model (HHm) exhibit fractionalization of the Bloch bands with non-trivial topology, manifesting in quantum (spin) Hall phases. Ultracold atomic gases with artificial magnetic fields enabled the experimental study of the non-interacting model, while the effect of strong interactions on the band properties remains an open problem. In this work we study the strongly-interacting bosonic Harper-Hofstadter-Mott model (HHMm) using a reciprocal cluster mean-field (RCMF) method. We obtain a rich groundstate phase diagram featuring striped superfluid, supersolid, and symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases. At filling
ν=2 (in contrast to fillings
ν=1,3) the SPT phase has no fermionic counterpart. Incompressible metastable states at fractional filling are also observed. The SPT phases in the HHMm are promising candidates for realizing strongly-correlated topological phases using cold atoms.
Despite the multiband spectrum of the widely known Hofstadter butterfly, it turns out that the pairing correlations of the time-reversal-symmetric Hofstadter-Hubbard model are well described by a single order parameter that is uniform in real space. By exploiting a BCS mean-field theory for the nearly flat butterfly-bands regime of low magnetic-flux limit, here we reveal a number of unusual superfluid properties both in the ground state and at finite temperatures. Our thorough analysis includes but is not limited to the order parameter, condensate, and superfluid fractions, and the critical BCS and Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperatures.