Several perspectives of the cluster Gutzwiller method are briefly discussed. I show that the cluster mean-field method can be used for large inhomogeneous lattices, for computing local excitations, and for the time evolution of correlated quantum systems.
A versatile and numerically inexpensive method is presented allowing the accurate calculation of phase diagrams for bosonic lattice models. By treating clusters within the Gutzwiller theory, a surprisingly good description of quantum fluctuations beyond the mean-field theory is achieved approaching quantum Monte Carlo predictions for large clusters. Applying this powerful method to the Bose-Hubbard model, we demonstrate that it yields precise results for the superfluid to Mott-insulator transition in square, honeycomb, and cubic lattices. Due to the exact treatment within a cluster, the method can be effortlessly adapted to more complicated Hamiltonians in the fast progressing field of optical lattice experiments. This includes state- and site-dependent superlattices, large confined atomic systems, and disordered potentials, as well as various types of extended Hubbard models. Furthermore, the approach allows an excellent treatment of systems with arbitrary filling factors. We discuss the perspectives that allow for the computation of large, spatially varying lattices, low-lying excitations, and time evolution.
These lecture notes provide an introduction to quantum cluster methods for strongly correlated systems. Cluster Perturbation Theory (CPT), the Variational Cluster Approximation (VCA) and Cellular Dynamical Mean Field Theory (CDMFT) are described, as well as the exact diagonalization solver for the cluster. Potthoff's self-energy functional formalism is reviewed. Some numerical procedures, in particular regarding the exact diagonalization method and the frequency-momentum integrals needed in VCA, are discussed in detail.
We present a cluster Gutzwiller mean-field study for ground states and time-evolution dynamics in the Bose-Hubbard ladder (BHL), which can be realized by loading Bose atoms in double-well optical lattices. In our cluster mean-field approach, we treat each double-well unit of two lattice sites as a coherent whole for composing the cluster Gutzwiller ansatz, which may remain some residual correlations in each two-site unit. For an unbiased BHL, in addition to conventional superfluid phase and integer Mott insulator phases, we find that there are exotic fractional insulator phases if the interchain tunneling is much stronger than the intrachain one. The fractional insulator phases cannot be found by using a conventional mean-field treatment based upon the single-site Gutzwiller ansatz. For a biased BHL, we find there appear single-atom tunneling and interaction blockade if the system is dominated by the interplay between the on-site interaction and the interchain bias. In the many-body Landau-Zener process, in which the interchain bias is linearly swept from negative to positive or vice versa, our numerical results are qualitatively consistent with the experimental observation [Nat. Phys. 7, 61 (2011)]. Our cluster bosonic Gutzwiller treatment is of promising perspectives in exploring exotic quantum phases and time-evolution dynamics of bosonic particles in superlattices.
In this work, we study the quench dynamics of quantum phases of ultracold neutral bosons trapped in optical lattices. We investigate the validity of the Kibble-Zurek (KZ) scaling laws with the single-site Gutzwiller mean-field (SGMF) and cluster Gutzwiller mean-field (CGMF) theory. With CGMF, we note the evolution of the dynamical wavefunction in the ``impulse" regime of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. We obtain the power law scalings for the crossover time and defect density with the quench rate predicted by KZ scaling laws. The critical exponents obtained from dynamics are close to their equilibrium values. Furthermore, it is observed that the obtained dynamical critical exponent z improves towards the equilibrium value with increasing cluster sizes in CGMF.