Induced interactions and bound states of charge carriers immersed in a quantum medium are crucial for the investigation of quantum transport. Ultracold atom-ion systems can provide a convenient platform for studying this problem. Here, we investigate the static properties of one and two ionic impurities in a bosonic bath using quantum Monte Carlo methods. We identify three bipolaronic regimes depending on the strength of the atom-ion potential and the number of its two-body bound states: a perturbative regime resembling the situation of a pair of neutral impurities, a non-perturbative regime that loses the quasi-particle character of the former, and a many-body bound state regime that can arise only in the presence of a bound state in the two-body potential. We further reveal strong bath-induced interactions between the two ionic polarons. Our findings show that numerical simulations are indispensable for describing highly correlated impurity models.
Induced interactions and bound states of charge carriers immersed in a quantum medium are crucial for the investigation of quantum transport. Ultracold atom-ion systems can provide a convenient platform for studying this problem. Here, we investigate the static properties of one and two ionic impurities in a bosonic bath using quantum Monte Carlo methods. We identify three bipolaronic regimes depending on the strength of the atom-ion potential and the number of its two-body bound states: a perturbative regime resembling the situation of a pair of neutral impurities, a non-perturbative regime that loses the quasi-particle character of the former, and a many-body bound state regime that can arise only in the presence of a bound state in the two-body potential. We further reveal strong bath-induced interactions between the two ionic polarons. Our findings show that numerical simulations are indispensable for describing highly correlated impurity models.
Abstract The presence of strong interactions in a many-body quantum system can lead to a variety of exotic effects. Here we show that even in a comparatively simple setup consisting of a charged impurity in a weakly interacting bosonic medium the competition of length scales gives rise to a highly correlated mesoscopic state. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we unravel its vastly different polaronic properties compared to neutral quantum impurities. Moreover, we identify a transition between the regime amenable to conventional perturbative treatment in the limit of weak atom-ion interactions and a many-body bound state with vanishing quasi-particle residue composed of hundreds of atoms. In order to analyze the structure of the corresponding states, we examine the atom-ion and atom-atom correlation functions which both show nontrivial properties. Our findings are directly relevant to experiments using hybrid atom-ion setups that have recently attained the ultracold regime.
We investigate the properties of a dilute gas of impurities embedded in an ultracold gas of bosons that forms a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). This work focuses mainly on the equation of state (EoS) of the impurity gas at zero temperature and the induced interaction between impurities mediated by the host bath. We use perturbative field-theory approaches, such as Hugenholtz–Pines formalism, in the weakly interacting regime. In turn, for strong interactions, we aim at non-perturbative techniques such as quantum–Monte Carlo (QMC) methods. Our findings agree with experimental observations for an ultra dilute gas of impurities, modeled in the framework of the single impurity problem; however, as the density of impurities increases, systematic deviations are displayed with respect to the one-body Bose polaron problem.
Abstract Charged impurities in quantum fluids have unveiled new classes of strongly correlated many-body states across condensed matter, ultracold gases, and hybrid atom–ion platforms. While previous studies have primarily focused on their ground-state and static properties, much less is known about their finite-momentum behavior, which governs transport, dissipation, and quasiparticle stability. Here, we investigate the momentum-dependent properties of a charged Bose polaron using a diagrammatic approach within second-order perturbation theory, explicitly accounting for the finite-range nature of the ion–atom interaction. We show that the interaction range introduces a characteristic momentum scale at which many-body dressing and dissipation are maximized, leading to a non-monotonic behavior of the damping rate and quasiparticle energy. In the high-momentum regime, we uncover a scaling law Γ p ∼ 1 / p , signaling the suppression of many-body dressing and the recovery of quasi-free impurity dynamics, in stark contrast to the divergent behavior predicted by contact-interaction perturbative treatments.
In this thesis we investigate the properties of impurities immersed in a dilute Bose gas at zero temperature using quantum Monte-Carlo methods. The interactions between bosons are modeled by a hard sphere potential with scattering length a, whereas the interactions between the impurity and the bosons are modeled by a short-range, square-well potential where both the sign and the strength of the scattering length b can be varied by adjusting the well depth. We calculate the binding energy, the effective mass and the pair correlation functions of a impurity along the attractive and the repulsive polaron branch. In particular, at the unitary limit of the impurity-bosons interaction, we find that the binding energy is much larger than the chemical potential of the bath signaling that many bosons dress the impurity thereby lowering its energy and increasing its effective mass. We characterize this state by calculating the bosons-boson pair correlation function and by investigating the dependence of the binding energy on the gas parameter of the bosonic bath. We also investigate the ground-state properties of M impurities in a Bose gas at T=0. In particular, the energy and the phase diagram by using both quantum Monte-Carlo and mean field methods.
We present a theoretical study based upon quantum Monte Carlo methods of the Bose polaron in one-dimensional systems with contact interactions. In this instance of the problem of a single impurity immersed in a quantum bath, the medium is a Lieb-Liniger gas of bosons ranging from the weakly interacting to the Tonks-Girardeau regime, whereas the impurity is coupled to the bath via a different contact potential, producing both repulsive and attractive interactions. Both the case of a mobile impurity, having the same mass as the particles in the medium, and the case of a static impurity with infinite mass are considered. We make use of numerical techniques that allow us to calculate the ground-state energy of the impurity, its effective mass, and the contact parameter between the impurity and the bath. These quantities are investigated as a function of the strength of interactions between the impurity and the bath and within the bath. In particular, we find that the effective mass rapidly increases to very large values when the impurity gets strongly coupled to an otherwise weakly repulsive bath. This heavy impurity hardly moves within the medium, thereby realizing the ``self-localization'' regime of the Landau-Pekar polaron. Furthermore, we compare our results with predictions of perturbation theory valid for weak interactions and with exact solutions available when the bosons in the medium behave as impenetrable particles.
Impurities immersed in hard-core Bose gases offer exciting opportunities to explore polaron and bipolaron physics. We investigate the ground state properties of a single and a pair of impurities throughout the superfluid and insulating (charge density wave) phases of the bosonic environment. In the superfluid phase, the impurity exhibits polaron-like behavior, forming a dressed quasiparticle. In contrast, in the insulating phase, the impurity regains its particle-like character, moving through a potential landscape shaped by the charge density wave order. Moreover, we show that two impurities can form a bound state even in the absence of an explicit impurity-impurity coupling. We establish the stability of this bound state within both the superfluid and insulating phases. Our results offer valuable insights for ongoing lattice polaron experiments with ultracold gases.