This paper presents a method based on the Gutzwiller approximation for accessing quantum fluctuations in the Bose-Hubbard model. The scheme shows a semi-analytical expression for the superfluid stiffness and compares the density correlations with numerical results close to the Mott-superfluid criticality.
We study the effects of quantum fluctuations in the two-component Bose-Hubbard model generalizing to mixtures the quantum Gutzwiller approach introduced recently in [Phys. Rev. Research 2, 033276 (2020)]. As a basis for our study, we analyze the mean-field ground-state phase diagram and spectrum of elementary excitations, with particular emphasis on the quantum phase transitions of the model. Within the quantum critical regimes, we address both the superfluid transport properties and the linear response dynamics to density and spin probes of direct experimental relevance. Crucially, we find that quantum fluctuations have a dramatic effect on the drag between the superfluid species of the system, particularly in the vicinity of the paired and antipaired phases absent in the usual one-component Bose-Hubbard model. Additionally, we analyse the contributions of quantum corrections to the one-body coherence and density/spin fluctuations from the perspective of the collective modes of the system, providing results for the few-body correlations in all the regimes of the phase diagram.
Taking inspiration from the state-of-the art knowledge of the Bose-Hubbard (BH) model and recent methodological developments in its fermionic counterpart, this work deals with the study of the collective dynamics of a lattice Bose gas beyond the mean-field picture through a quantum description of its elementary excitations. The Hamiltonian quantization, performed via a Bogoliubov quadratization of the BH action within the Gutzwiller approach, allows to expand the effective action of the theory up to second order in the fluctuations around the mean-field solution, as well as to prefigure the possibility of identifying the main decay vertices of the collective modes and other effects that are not evident at the second-order level. This quantum description extends the standard Bogoliubov approach to the study of superfluid Bose systems for comprising higher excitation branches, including the Higgs mode in the superfluid phase, and identifies their physical meaning together with appropriate observables which could be taken into consideration for their experimental characterization. The ultimate aim of the quantization procedure is the determination of fundamental quantities as the depletion of the condensate and the effective superfluid fraction, which are not accessible by a mean-field description or not completely characterized in the regime of strong interactions.
The present Thesis aims to deepen the understanding of the physics of strongly-correlated systems along diverse directions with a common denominator, namely a focus on the physical role played by the collective modes shaping quantum many-body correlations. This investigation has been mostly led through the heuristic application of the Quantum Gutzwiller Approach, a recently developed theory of the quantised excitations above the Gutzwiller approximation for strongly-interacting systems on a lattice. In the first place, the intertwining between quantum correlations and collective effects is explored in the context of Bose-Hubbard models, intended both as simple yet highly non-trivial realisations of complex many-body scenarios, and as controllable environments for the quantum simulation of impurity problems. In particular, we are able to provide a comprehensive and semi-analytical description of quantum fluctuations across the critical regimes induced by the proximity of a Mott transition (Mottness), ranging from accurate predictions for the superfluid density and pair correlations across quantum critical regimes to the Andreev-Bashkin effect in a two-component bosonic mixture. As case studies for the effectiveness and flexibility of our approach, we give a detailed account of the rich behaviours of a quantum impurity, either fixed or itinerant, immersed in a Bose-Hubbard environment, showing that both the decoherence dynamics of spinful particle and the resulting Bose polaron in the second case are extremely sensitive probes of the type of critical fluctuations experienced by the surrounding system. Additionally, we extend our analysis of quantum fluctuations to the Fermi-Hubbard model, where we uncover the interplay between low-energy quasiparticles and bosonic elementary excitations in determining two-particle correlations. A more complex physical scenario addressed in this Thesis is represented by driven-dissipative interacting systems, which find a state-of-the-art technological implementation in circuit QED platforms, among others. Inspired by the experimental interest in these systems as a potential toolbox for the generation of exotic quantum states of light, we consider a strongly-correlated fluid of photons on a lattice stabilised via incoherent drive and dissipation, and examine its collective fluctuations across the out-of-equilibrium insulator-to-superfluid transition of the system. Specifically, establishing a conceptual parallelism with our approach to fluctuations at equilibrium, we develop a linear-response theory of the excitations on top of the Gutzwiller stationary state of the Lindblad dynamics, and characterise their physical role in quantum observables and response functions. Taking advantage of our formalism, we describe also dynamical instabilities and novel physical regimes arising in the ultrastrong coupling limit of the superfluid phase. Among the most remarkable results, we bring to light the paradoxical nature of the Mott-like insulating phase of the system, whose peculiar one-body dynamical fluctuations are shown to echo the behaviour of a lasing state. Encompassing diverse modern domains of many-body physics, our investigation goes in the direction of solidifying the interpretation of collective modes as fundamental actors in correlation-induced phenomena under a unified physical picture.
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.
We present a simple scheme to evaluate linear response functions including quantum fluctuation corrections on top of the Gutzwiller approximation. The method is derived for a generic multiband lattice Hamiltonian without any assumption about the dynamics of the variational correlation parameters that define the Gutzwiller wavefunction, and which thus behave as genuine dynamical degrees of freedom that add on those of the variational uncorrelated Slater determinant. We apply the method to the standard half-filled single-band Hubbard model. We are able to recover known results, but, as by-product, we also obtain few novel ones. In particular, we show that quantum fluctuations can reproduce almost quantitatively the behaviour of the uniform magnetic susceptibility uncovered by dynamical mean field theory, which, though enhanced by correlations, is found to be smooth across the paramagnetic Mott transition. By contrast, the simple Gutzwiller approximation predicts that susceptibility to diverge at the transition.
A systematic extension of the model of almost localized fermions to finite temperatures is presented. It consists in accounting for the quantum fluctuations beyond the Gutzwiller approximation (GA). We use the slave-boson formulation of the Hubbard model which has been proved to be equivalent at the saddle-point level to the GA. We determine the values of the Lagrange multipliers introduced to enforce the constraints, and show how they involve a Mott gap at nearly half filling for U>Uc (localization edge). The results of the GA for the correlation functions are reproduced at the saddle point when taking into account the implicit dependence of the boson fields with the external excitation. The Gaussian fluctuations are then considered in a renormalized basis of the boson fields which brings out two distinct channels (symmetric s and antisymmetric a). We show how the free energy and the correlation functions can be simply expressed as a function of the same Landau parameters F0s and F0a defined in the GA.