The disorder-free localization that occurred in the study of relaxation dynamics in far-from-equilibrium quantum systems has been widely explored. Here we investigate the interplay between the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI) and disorder in the hard-core polar bosons in a one-dimensional lattice. We find that the localized dynamics will eventually thermalize in the clean gas but can be stabilized with the existence of a small disorder proportional to the inverse of DDI strength. From the effective dimer Hamiltonian, we show that the effective second-order hopping of quasiparticles between nearest-neighbor sites is suppressed by the disorder with strength similar to the effective hopping amplitude. The significant gap between the largest two eigenvalues of the entanglement spectrum indicates the dynamical confinement. We also find that the disorder related sample-to-sample fluctuation is suppressed by the DDI. Finally, we extend our research from the uncorrelated random disorder to the correlated quasiperiodic disorder and from the two-dimer model to the half-filling system, obtaining similar results.
The disorder-free localization that occurred in the study of relaxation dynamics in far-from-equilibrium quantum systems has been widely explored. Here we investigate the interplay between the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI) and disorder in the hard-core polar bosons in a one-dimensional lattice. We find that the localized dynamics will eventually thermalize in the clean gas but can be stabilized with the existence of a small disorder proportional to the inverse of DDI strength. From the effective dimer Hamiltonian, we show that the effective second-order hopping of quasiparticles between nearest-neighbor sites is suppressed by the disorder with strength similar to the effective hopping amplitude. The significant gap between the largest two eigenvalues of the entanglement spectrum indicates the dynamical confinement. We also find that the disorder related sample-to-sample fluctuation is suppressed by the DDI. Finally, we extend our research from the uncorrelated random disorder to the correlated quasiperiodic disorder and from the two-dimer model to the half-filling system, obtaining similar results.
This thesis is devoted to the study of dipolar lattice gases, i.e. many-body quantum systems of particles with a strong magnetic or electric dipole moment in optical lattices. Such systems are adequately described by the extended Hubbard model, which accounts for inter-site dipole-dipole interactions (DDI). These interactions, due to their long-range and anisotropic character, result in rich groundstate physics and intriguing dynamics as we illustrate in this thesis for the particular case of bosons in one- and quasi-one-dimensional lattices. We start by focusing on the non-trivial role played by the transversal confinement in one-dimensional dipolar lattice gases. We show that weakening the transversal confinement enhances beyond-nearest-neighbor interactions. Then, we analyze how this affects the ground-state physics of hard-core bosons with repulsive dipolar interactions and reveal quantitative differences to the standard case of the DDI falling off as 1/r^3 where r is the inter-particle distance. With attractive interactions, a new quantum liquid phase of self-bound lattice droplets emerges without the need for super-exchange processes. In the soft-core regime, proper consideration of the transversal confinement not only quantitatively shifts phase boundaries, but introduces novel phases with peculiar correlations in the site occupancies that may be either topological or topologically trivial. Furthermore, we study the effect of the transversal confinement on the dynamical properties of one-dimensional hard-core bosons at half-filling. We show in particular that the localization-to-delocalization transition induced by Hilbert space fragmentation resembles that of a system with an effective power-law decay different from 1/r^3 which can be controlled by the transversal confinement. To conclude this thesis, we analyze ground-state properties of hard-core dipolar bosons in a square ladder at unit rung filling with an energy bias between the two legs. We show that the interplay between the energy bias and the dipolar tail results in a peculiar topological quantum floating phase.
One-dimensional polar gases in deep optical lattices present a severely constrained dynamics due to the interplay between dipolar interactions, energy conservation, and finite bandwidth. The appearance of dynamically bound nearest-neighbor dimers enhances the role of the 1/r^{3} dipolar tail, resulting in the absence of external disorder, in quasi-localization via dimer clustering for very low densities and moderate dipole strengths. Furthermore, even weak dipoles allow for the formation of self-bound superfluid lattice droplets with a finite doping of mobile, but confined, holons. Our results, which can be extrapolated to other power-law interactions, are directly relevant for current and future lattice experiments with magnetic atoms and polar molecules.
Ultracold gases offer an unprecedented opportunity to engineer disorder and interactions in a controlled manner. In an effort to understand the interplay between disorder, dipolar interactions, and quantum degeneracy, we study two-dimensional hard-core dipolar lattice bosons in the presence of on-site bound disorder. Our results are based on large-scale path-integral quantum Monte Carlo simulations by the worm algorithm. We study the ground-state phase diagram at a fixed half-integer filling factor for which the clean system is either a superfluid at a lower dipolar interaction strength or a checkerboard solid at a larger dipolar interaction strength. We find that, even for weak dipolar interactions, superfluidity is destroyed in favor of a Bose glass at a relatively low disorder strength. Interestingly, in the presence of disorder, superfluidity persists for values of the dipolar interaction strength for which the clean system is a checkerboard solid. At a fixed disorder strength, as the dipolar interaction is increased, superfluidity is destroyed in favor of a Bose glass. As the interaction is further increased, the system eventually develops extended checkerboard patterns in the density distribution. Due to the presence of disorder, though, grain boundaries and defects, responsible for a finite residual compressibility, are present in the density distribution. Finally, we study the robustness of the superfluid phase against thermal fluctuations.
Emerging dynamical constraints resulting from intersite interactions severely limit particle mobility in polar lattice gases. Whereas in absence of disorder hard-core Hubbard models with only strong nearest-neighbor interactions present Hilbert space fragmentation but no many-body localization for typical states, the 1/r^{3} tail of the dipolar interaction results in Hilbert space shattering, as well as in a dramatically slowed down dynamics and eventual disorder-free localization. Our results show that the study of the intriguing interplay between disorder- and interaction-induced many-body localization is within reach of future experiments with magnetic atoms and polar molecules.
We investigate the coherence of correlated dipolar gas in the presence of disorder within a three-site Bose–Hubbard model. We show that the interplay between the on-site interaction, the inter-site dipole–dipole interactions (DDI) and the disorder exhibits new and interesting coherence characters that cannot take place in a non-dipolar system. The ratio between the on-site interaction and DDI plays a dominant role in the phase coherence. The resonance character of the coherence against both disorder and interactions emerges. DDI can enhance the coherence at certain values of the disorder and on-site interaction. In the coherence region, the enhancement of the coherence by disorder in a dipolar system is more significant than that in a non-dipolar system. In particular, the on-site interaction and DDI together can enhance the coherence even in the clean dipolar system (i.e. a dipolar system without disorder). However, without the on-site interaction, disorder, DDI or both together suppress the coherence. Furthermore, the relationship between the coherence and the energy gap and the compressibility of the system is also discussed.
Intersite dipolar interactions induce, even in absence of disorder, an intriguing nonergodic dynamics for dipolar bosons in an optical lattice. We show that the inherent dipole-induced density-dependent tunneling, typically neglected, plays a crucial role in this dynamics. For shallow-enough lattices, the delocalization stemming from the interaction-induced hopping overcomes the localization induced by intersite interactions. As a result, in stark contrast to the more studied case of hard-core bosons, delocalization is counterintuitively strengthened when the dipolar strength increases. Furthermore, the quasicancellation between bare and interaction-induced tunneling may lead, near a lattice-depth-dependent value of the dipole strength, to an exact decoupling of the Hilbert space between ergodic hard-core states and strongly nonergodic soft-core ones. Our results show that interaction-induced hopping should play a crucial role in future experiments on the dynamics of polar lattice gases.