Interacting cold-atomic gases in optical lattices offer an experimental approach to outstanding problems of many body physics. One important example is the interplay of interaction and topology which promises to generate a variety of exotic phases such as the fractionalized Chern insulator or the topological Mott insulator. Both theoretically understanding these states of matter and finding suitable systems that host them have proven to be challenging problems. Here we propose a cold-atom setup where Hubbard on-site interactions give rise to spin liquid-like phases: weak and strong topological Mott insulators. They represent the celebrated paradigm of an interacting and topological quantum state with fractionalized spinon excitations that inherit the topology of the non-interacting system. Our proposal shall help to pave the way for a controlled experimental investigation of this exotic state of matter in optical lattices. Furthermore, it allows for the investigation of a dimensional crossover from a two-dimensional quantum spin Hall insulating phase to a three-dimensional strong topological insulator by tuning the hopping between the layers.
Interacting cold-atomic gases in optical lattices offer an experimental approach to outstanding problems of many body physics. One important example is the interplay of interaction and topology which promises to generate a variety of exotic phases such as the fractionalized Chern insulator or the topological Mott insulator. Both theoretically understanding these states of matter and finding suitable systems that host them have proven to be challenging problems. Here we propose a cold-atom setup where Hubbard on-site interactions give rise to spin liquid-like phases: weak and strong topological Mott insulators. They represent the celebrated paradigm of an interacting and topological quantum state with fractionalized spinon excitations that inherit the topology of the non-interacting system. Our proposal shall help to pave the way for a controlled experimental investigation of this exotic state of matter in optical lattices. Furthermore, it allows for the investigation of a dimensional crossover from a two-dimensional quantum spin Hall insulating phase to a three-dimensional strong topological insulator by tuning the hopping between the layers.
Interacting cold-atomic gases in optical lattices offer an experimental approach to outstanding problems of many body physics. One important example is the interplay of interaction and topology which promises to generate a variety of exotic phases such as the fractionalized Chern insulator or the topological Mott insulator. Both theoretically understanding these states of matter and finding suitable systems that host them have proven to be challenging problems. Here we propose a cold-atom setup where Hubbard on-site interactions give rise to spin liquid-like phases: weak and strong topological Mott insulators. They represent the celebrated paradigm of an interacting and topological quantum state with fractionalized spinon excitations that inherit the topology of the non-interacting system. Our proposal shall help to pave the way for a controlled experimental investigation of this exotic state of matter in optical lattices. Furthermore, it allows for the investigation of a dimensional crossover from a two-dimensional quantum spin Hall insulating phase to a three-dimensional strong topological insulator by tuning the hopping between the layers.
In recent years, topology has become increasingly prevalent in condensed matter physics. It has allowed us to understand, and even predict, a variety of striking and remarkable physical phenomena. The study of strongly interacting systems has similarly lavished us with a diverse range of exotic phases and unconventional transitions, many of which are still poorly understood. In this thesis we will explore the interplay between topology and interactions in an effort to uncover new and novel phases. First we study how interactions impact the quantum phase transition between a topologically non-trivial phase and a trivial phase. The combination of interactions and the low-energy degrees of freedom associated with the transition leads to the emergence of a dome of lattice-symmetry breaking nematic order. Such behaviour is reminiscent of a number of strongly correlated electronic systems. We move on to study the strongly interacting limit of one of the earliest and best-known non-interacting topological phases, Haldane's model of a Chern insulator. Recently realized with ultracold atoms in a shaken optical lattice, the model has a non-trivial topological invariant associated with its band structure. In the strongly interacting limit the spin degrees of freedom are all that survive and we find a rich phase diagram of magnetically ordered phases, using a combination of both classical and quantum techniques. Supplementing the model with an additional term we can `quantum-melt' one of these ordered states to produce a disordered, liquid state that we positively identify as a chiral spin liquid, a highly entangled state of matter with fractionalised excitations. We generalise this mechanism to other two dimensional lattices, uncovering a possible unifying framework with which to understand the emergence of chiral spin liquids in lattice spin models. Finally, motivated by groundbreaking experiments in the ultracold atoms community, we investigate a model of two-component bosons with an artificial spin-orbit coupling. The interplay between the lattice, interactions and spin-orbit coupling produces a variety of unusual superfluid phases. Using a novel Monte Carlo technique we reveal the finite temperature phase diagram that appears close to the Mott transition.
The realization and detection of topological phases with ultracold atomic gases is at the frontier of current theoretical and experimental research. Here, we identify cold atoms in optical ladders subjected to synthetic magnetic fields as readily realizable bridges between one-dimensional spin-orbit (time-reversal) topological insulators and two-dimensional quantum Hall insulators. We reveal three instances of their promising potential: (i) they realize spin-orbit coupling, with the left-right leg degree of freedom playing the role of an effective spin, (ii) their energy bands and eigenstates exactly reproduce the topological chiral edge modes of two-dimensional Chern insulators, and (iii) they can be tailored to realize a topological phase transition from a trivial to a topological insulating phase. We propose realistic schemes to observe the chiral and topological properties of ladder systems with current optical lattice-based experiments. Our findings open a door to the exploration of the physics of the edges of quantum Hall insulators and to the realization of spin-orbit coupling and topological superfluid phases with ultracold atomic gases.
We study quantum phases and transitions in ultra-cold quantum gases, beyond the scope of conventional condensed matter systems. The study focuses on three major thrusts. The first thrust is the study of cold ensembles of bosonic or fermionic atoms in the higher orbital bands of optical lattices. Orbital and topological quantum physics is systematically explored for various lattice geometries, to be outlined below. The second is the low dimensional spin-imbalanced fermions in the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase. We analyze its thermal instability towards Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transitions driven by different topological defects at finite temperature. The third is the theoretical search for a mechanism to achieve a Bose-Einstein crystal phase for bosons in the ground state. A new class of two-body interactions characterized by strong momentum-dependence is found to give rise to such a quantum state. It is different than but related to the long-debated concept of supersolidity. The first thrust forms the main part of the dissertation. Meta-stable phases of high orbital bosons and fermions have been explored for different lattice geometries such as square and bipartite lattices. Exotic Mott and superfluid phases are studied in both one and two dimensions. Quantum and thermal phase transitions, associated with time reversal symmetry breaking and their experimental signatures are discussed. In particular a quantum ``disordered" superfluid phase, beyond the mean field description, is found in one dimension. The challenging problem of probing time reversal symmetry breaking is solved. Besides, a one-dimensional fermionic optical ladder with coupled s- and p-orbitals is shown to mimic spin-orbit interactions and exhibit topological insulator and topological superconducting phases. Charge fractionalization is shown to be realizable in such an sp-orbital ladder.
We design an interaction-driven topological insulator for fermionic cold atoms in an optical lattice; that is, we pose the question of whether we can realize in a continuous space a spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by the interatom interaction into a topological Chern insulator. Such a state, sometimes called a "topological Mott insulator," has yet to be realized in solid-state systems, since this requires, in the tight-binding model, large off-site interactions on top of a small on-site interaction. Here, we overcome the difficulty by introducing a spin-dependent potential, where a spin-selective occupation of fermions in A and B sublattices makes the on-site interaction Pauli forbidden, while a sizeable intersite interaction is achieved by a shallow optical potential with a large overlap between neighboring Wannier orbitals. This puts the system away from the tight-binding model, so that we adopt density functional theory for cold atoms, here extended to accommodate noncollinear spin structures emerging in the topological regime, to quantitatively demonstrate the phase transition to the topological Mott insulator.
Weyl semimetals are three-dimensional, topologically protected, gapless phases which show exotic phenomena such as Fermi arc surface states or negative magnetoresistance. It is an open question whether interparticle interactions can turn the topological semimetal into a topologically nontrivial Mott-insulating phase. We investigate an experimentally motivated model for Weyl physics of cold atoms in optical lattices, with the main focus on interaction effects and topological properties, by means of dynamical mean-field theory. We characterize topological phases by numerically evaluating the Chern number via the Ishikawa-Matsuyama formula for interacting phases. Within our studies, we find that the Chern numbers become trivial when interactions lead to insulating behavior. For a deeper understanding of the Weyl-semimetal-to-Mott-insulator topological phase transition, we evaluate the topological properties of quasiparticle bands as well as so-called blind bands. Finally, we consider a system with an open boundary along one spatial direction in order to study correlation effects of surface states. In a narrow regime close to the topological phase transition, we find a correlation-induced state in which the surface becomes metallic while the bulk is semimetallic.