We investigate the zero-temperature phase diagram of interacting Bose gases in the presence of a simple cubic optical lattice, going beyond the regime where the mapping to the single-band Bose-Hubbard model is reliable. Our computational approach is a new hybrid quantum Monte Carlo method which combines algorithms used to simulate homogeneous quantum fluids in continuous space with those used for discrete lattice models of strongly correlated systems. We determine the critical interaction strength and optical lattice intensity where the superfluid-to-insulator transition takes place, considering also the regime of shallow optical lattices and strong interatomic interactions. The implications of our findings for the supersolid state of matter are discussed.
By means of diffusion Monte Carlo calculations, we investigated the quantum phase transition between a superfluid and a Mott insulator for a system of hard-sphere bosons in a quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice. For this continuous Hamiltonian, we studied how the stability limits of the Mott phase changed with the optical lattice depth and the transverse confinement width. A comparison of these results to those of a one-dimensional homogeneous Bose-Hubbard model indicates that this last model describes accurately the phase diagram only in the limit of deep lattices. For shallow ones, our results are comparable to those of the sine-Gordon model in its limit of application. We provide an estimate of the critical parameters when none of those models are realistic descriptions of a quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice.
We analyze interacting one-dimensional bosons in the continuum, subject to a periodic sinusoidal potential of arbitrary depth. Variation of the lattice depth tunes the system from the Bose-Hubbard limit for deep lattices, through the sine-Gordon regime of weak lattices, to the complete absence of a lattice. Using the Bose-Fermi mapping between strongly interacting bosons and weakly interacting fermions, we derive the phase diagram in the parameter space of lattice depth and chemical potential. This extends previous knowledge from tight-binding (Bose-Hubbard) studies in a direction which is important because the lattice depth is a readily adjustable experimental parameter. Several other results (equations of state, energy gaps, profiles in harmonic trap) are presented as corollaries to the physics contained in this phase diagram. Generically, both incompressible (gapped) and compressible phases coexist in a trap; this has implications for experimental measurements.
Bosonic atoms confined in optical lattices are described by the Bose-Hubbard model and can exist in two different phases, Mott insulator or superfluid, depending on the strength of the system parameters. In the vicinity of the phase boundary, there are degeneracies that occur between every two adjacent Mott lobes. Because of this, nondegenerate perturbation theory fails to give meaningful results for the condensate density: it predicts a phase transition in a point of the phase diagram where no transition occurs. Motivated by this, we develop two different degenerate perturbative methods to solve the degeneracy-related problems. Moreover, we study the one-dimensional repulsively interacting Bose gas under harmonic confinement, with special attention to the asymptotic behavior of the momentum distribution, which is a universal
k−4 decay characterized by the Tan's contact. The latter constitutes a direct signature of the short-range correlations in such an interacting system and provides valuable insights about the role of the interparticle interactions. We investigate the system constituted of
N interacting particles in the strongly interacting limit. In such a regime, the strong interparticle interaction makes the bosons behave similarly to the ideal Fermi gas. Because of the difficulty in analytically solving the system for
N particles at finite interaction, the Tonks-Girardeau regime provides a favorable scenario to probe the contact. Therefore, we are able to provide an analytical formula for the Tan's contact. Furthermore, we analyze the scaling properties of the Tan's contact in terms of
N in the high-temperature regime as well as in the strongly interacting regime. Finally, we compare our analytical calculations of the Tan's contact to quantum Monte Carlo simulations and discuss some fundamental differences between the canonical and the grand-canonical ensembles.
In this dissertation I present results for lattice boson systems based on quantum Monte Carlo simulations by the Worm algorithm. Lattice bosons can be realized by ultracold gases in optical lattices and, under certain conditions, they are described by the Bose-Hubbard model. I will discuss the ground state, i.e. the phase diagram and properties of elementary excitations, as well as finite temperature thermodynamic properties of the two- and three-dimensional systems. These results provide bench-marks and guidance for experimentalists. I will also discuss the phase diagram of the one-dimensional hard-core Bose-Hubbard model with three-body interactions. The model is realized by cold polar molecules in optical lattices. The ground state presents a novel solid phase at unconventional filling, characterized by coexisting charge density wave and bond orders. Such phase has not been predicted by the preexisting mean field theory.