We consider a minimal model to describe the quantum phases of ultracold dipolar bosons in two-dimensional square optical lattices. The model is a variation of the extended Bose-Hubbard model and apt to study the quantum phases arising from the variation in the tilt angle $\ensuremath{\theta}$ of the dipolar bosons. At low tilt angles, ${0}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}\ensuremath{\leqslant}\ensuremath{\theta}\ensuremath{\lesssim}{25}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$, the ground states of the system are phases with checkerboard order, which can be either checkerboard supersolids or checkerboard density waves. For high tilt angles, ${35}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}\ensuremath{\theta}\ensuremath{\lesssim}{55}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$, phases with striped order of the supersolid or density wave are preferred. In the intermediate domain, ${25}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}\ensuremath{\theta}\ensuremath{\lesssim}{35}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$, an emulsion or superfluid phase intervenes the transition between the checkerboard and the striped phases. The attractive interaction dominates at $\ensuremath{\theta}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{55}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$, which renders the system unstable, and there is a density collapse. For our studies we use Gutzwiller mean-field theory to obtain the quantum phases and the phase boundaries. In addition, we calculate the phase boundaries between an incompressible and a compressible phase of the system by considering second-order perturbation analysis of the mean-field theory. The analytical results, where applicable, are in excellent agreement with the numerical results. In our study, the incompressible phases have an average occupancy per site $\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\le}1$, but the compressible phases can have $\ensuremath{\rho}>1$.
We study the ground-state properties of the extended Bose-Hubbard model in a one-dimensional dimerized optical lattice. In the limit of strong on-site repulsion, i.e., hardcore bosons, and strong nearest-neighbor interaction, a stable density-wave (DW) phase is obtained at half-filling as a function of lattice dimerization. Interestingly, at quarter-filling we obtain the signatures of an insulating phase which has the character of both the bond order (BO) and the DW insulators, which we call a bond-order density-wave (BODW) phase. Moreover, we show that for a fixed hopping dimerization there occurs a BO-DW phase crossover as a function of the nearest-neighbor interaction and the BODW phase is more robust when the hopping dimerization is stronger. We further examine the stability of the BODW phase in the limit of finite on-site interactions.
This work addresses the study of superfluid and supersolid phases of dipolar Fermi molecules lying in a two dimensional space. The prediction of these phases, performed within a mean field analysis, results from proposing a model in which interacting Fermi molecules are confined in a bilayer array of parallel lattices with square symmetry. As a result of the repulsive intralayer and attractive interlayer interactions between dipolar molecules, a checkerboard pattern and a paired superfluid regimes can emerge. The supersolid phase is identified as the spatial coexistence of density ordered and superfluid phases. The model here proposed can be implemented within the current experimental capabilities as a function of the interlayer separation and the application of an external electric field varying the dipolar interaction between molecules.
We analyse the ground-state quantum phase diagram of hardcore Bosons interacting with repulsive dipolar potentials. The bosons dynamics is described by the extended-Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian on a two-dimensional lattice. The ground state results from the interplay between the lattice geometry and the long-range interactions, which we account for by means of a classical spin mean-field approach limited by the size of the considered unit cells. This extended classical spin mean-field theory accounts for the long-range density-density interaction without truncation. We consider three different lattice geometries: square, honeycomb, and triangular. In the limit of zero hopping the ground state is always a devil’s staircase of solid (gapped) phases. Such crystalline phases with broken translational symmetry are robust with respect to finite hopping amplitudes. At intermediate hopping amplitudes, these gapped phases melt, giving rise to various lattice supersolid phases, which can have exotic features with multiple sublattice densities. At sufficiently large hoppings the ground state is a superfluid. The stability of phases predicted by our approach is gauged by comparison to the known quantum phase diagrams of the Bose-Hubbard model with nearest-neighbour interactions as well as quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the dipolar case on the square and triangular lattice. Our results are of immediate relevance for experimental realisations of self-organised crystalline ordering patterns in analogue quantum simulators, e.g., with ultracold dipolar atoms in an optical lattice.
Recent experiments have realized ultracold gases in twisted-bilayer optical lattices. We show that interacting bosons in these lattices present a highly nontrivial ground-state physics resulting from the interplay between inter- and intralayer hopping and interactions. This physics is crucially determined by site clusterization, which we properly take into account by developing a specifically tailored cluster Gutzwiller approach. Clusterization results in a large variety of different Mott-like phases characterized by typically different occupations of the clusters, and in the appearance of pockets of sites in between which particles can freely move, but which remain for any practical purposes disconnected from the rest of the sites. This peculiar phase, which resembles the well-known Bose glass phase, may occur even for commensurate twist angles and is further enhanced when the twisting is incommensurate. Moreover, in the incommensurate case, the formation of mobility islands may occur even without interlayer hopping solely due to interlayer interactions.
Recent advances in realizing nearly degenerate dipolar gases in optical lattices have enabled the study of quantum systems with long-range anisotropic interactions. Here, we investigate hard-core dipolar bosons on a two-dimensional square lattice described by an extended Bose--Hubbard model. Using path-integral quantum Monte Carlo simulations at fixed azimuthal angle
φ=45∘, we investigate density instabilities arising from first-order phase transitions. We start by mapping the ground-state phase diagram at half filling as a function of dipolar interaction strength and polar angle
θ. For weak interactions, the system remains superfluid for all
θ. Above a critical interaction strength, the superfluid phase becomes unstable and gives way to checkerboard, stripe, or incompressible phases depending on
θ. For
θ≳62∘, we find that half filling becomes unstable and only the empty state,
n=0, and the fully filled state,
n=1, are stable. Unlike recent experimental reports of a self-bound insulator at half filling, the homogeneous ground state does not support such a phase, but instead exhibits a direct first-order transition between
n=0 and
n=1. At finite temperature, thermal fluctuations shift the onset of density instabilities to larger
θ and stabilize intermediate fillings in the regime where half filling is unstable in the ground state. This leads to phase-separated states consisting of empty and fully filled regions that resemble the experimentally observed "self-bound insulator." In a harmonic trap, similar structures also emerge from phase coexistence associated with the underlying first-order transition.