The study of geometrically frustrated many-body quantum systems is of central importance to uncover novel quantum mechanical effects. We design a scheme where ultracold bosons trapped in a one-dimensional state-dependent optical lattice are modeled by a frustrated Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian. A derivation of the Hamiltonian parameters based on Cesium atoms, further show large tunability of contact and nearest-neighbor interactions. For pure contact repulsion, we discover the presence of two phases peculiar to frustrated quantum magnets: the bond-order-wave insulator with broken inversion symmetry and a chiral superfluid. When the nearest-neighbor repulsion becomes sizable, a further density-wave insulator with broken translational symmetry can appear. We show that the phase transition between the two spontaneously symmetry-broken phases is continuous, thus representing a one-dimensional deconfined quantum critical point not captured by the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson symmetry-breaking paradigm. Our results provide a solid ground to unveil the novel quantum physics induced by the interplay of nonlocal interactions, geometrical frustration, and quantum fluctuations.
The study of geometrically frustrated many-body quantum systems is of central importance to uncover novel quantum mechanical effects. We design a scheme where ultracold bosons trapped in a one-dimensional state-dependent optical lattice are modeled by a frustrated Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian. A derivation of the Hamiltonian parameters based on Cesium atoms, further show large tunability of contact and nearest-neighbor interactions. For pure contact repulsion, we discover the presence of two phases peculiar to frustrated quantum magnets: the bond-order-wave insulator with broken inversion symmetry and a chiral superfluid. When the nearest-neighbor repulsion becomes sizable, a further density-wave insulator with broken translational symmetry can appear. We show that the phase transition between the two spontaneously symmetry-broken phases is continuous, thus representing a one-dimensional deconfined quantum critical point not captured by the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson symmetry-breaking paradigm. Our results provide a solid ground to unveil the novel quantum physics induced by the interplay of nonlocal interactions, geometrical frustration, and quantum fluctuations.
The recent experimental condensation of ultracold atoms in a triangular optical lattice with a negative effective tunneling parameter paves the way for the study of frustrated systems in a controlled environment. Here, we explore the critical behavior of the chiral phase transition in such a frustrated lattice in three dimensions. We represent the low-energy action of the lattice system as a two-component Bose gas corresponding to the two minima of the dispersion. The contact repulsion between the bosons separates into intra- and intercomponent interactions, referred to as V0 and V12, respectively. We first employ a Huang-Yang-Luttinger approximation of the free energy. For V12/V0=2, which corresponds to the bare interaction, this approach suggests a first-order phase transition, at which both the U(1) symmetry of condensation and the Z2 symmetry of the emergent chiral order are broken simultaneously. Furthermore, we perform a renormalization-group calculation at one-loop order. We demonstrate that the coupling regime $0<{V}_{12}/{V}_{0}\ensuremath{\le}1$ shares the critical behavior of the Heisenberg fixed point at V12/V0=1. For V12/V0>1 we show that V0 flows to a negative value, while V12 increases and remains positive. This results in a breakdown of the effective quartic-field theory due to a cubic anisotropy and, again, suggests a discontinuous phase transition.
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.
A density-dependent gauge field may induce density-induced geometric frustration, leading to a non-trivial interplay between density modulation and frustration, which we illustrate for the particular case of ultra-cold bosons in zig-zag optical lattices with a density-dependent hopping amplitude. We show that the density-induced frustration leads to a rich landscape of quantum phases, including Mott insulator, bond-order insulator, two-component superfluids, chiral superfluids, and partially paired superfluids. We show as well that the density-dependent hopping results in an effective repulsive or attractive interaction, and that for the latter case the vacuum may be destabilized leading to a strong compressibility. Finally, we discuss the characteristic momentum distribution of the predicted phases, which can be used to detect the phases in time-of-flight measurements.
Deconfined quantum critical points (DQCPs) are proposed as unconventional second-order phase transitions beyond the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson paradigm. The nature and experimental realizations of DQCPs are crucial issues of importance. We illustrate the potential for DQCPs between the valence bond solid state and the antiferromagnetic phase to arise in optical lattices containing frustrated dipolar bosons subject to hard-core constraints. The emergence of DQCPs is comprehended through the fusion of two Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transitions. The DQCPs and the BKTs are confirmed by the scaling of ground-state fidelity susceptibilities in finite systems and the analysis of order parameters obtained from infinite systems. The numerical analysis reveals varying critical exponents of the correlation length in DQCPs and the logarithmic scaling in BKTs, respectively. In this paper, we offer a promising platform for realizing DQCPs and provide valuable insights into their nature within the framework of topological phase transitions.
Understanding how frustration and symmetry breaking shape collective behavior is a central problem in quantum many-body systems. In this work, we investigate this problem in large one- and two-dimensional arrays of coupled Dicke models on a periodic lattice, where strong light-matter coupling gives rise to a superradiant phase and competition between neighboring order parameters induces spontaneous translational symmetry breaking. Such Dicke lattice models constitute a fundamentally new class of quantum many-body systems, as they simultaneously realize the thermodynamic limit associated with the lattice size and an intrinsic thermodynamic limit arising from collective on-site interactions with quantum emitters. We show that frustration drives photonic density-wave ordering, and that the resulting broken periodicity can be predicted from the excitation spectrum of the symmetric phase, without requiring computationally prohibitive thermodynamic energy minimization. Furthermore, we demonstrate that an emergent Nambu-Goldstone mode arises near the critical point in a one-dimensional chain despite the presence of only discrete symmetry, and uncover the mechanism that enables this otherwise forbidden gapless excitation. We also find quasi-periodic ordering in the superradiant phase, reminiscent of quasicrystals, and demonstrate that synthetic magnetic flux provides a powerful knob to control the nature of translational symmetry breaking. Our results establish a new direction in quantum many-body physics where the coexistence of local and global thermodynamic limits gives rise to unconventional symmetry breaking and emergent collective behavior.
Frustration and quantum entanglement are two exotic quantum properties in quantum many-body systems. However, despite several efforts, an exact relationship between them remains elusive. In this work, we explore the relationship between frustration and quantum entanglement in a physical model describing strongly correlated ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices. In particular, we consider the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model comprising both nearest-neighbor (t1) and frustrated next-nearest neighbor (t2) hoppings and examine how the interplay of on-site interaction (U) and hoppings results in different quantum correlations dominating the ground state of the system. We then analyze the behavior of quantum entanglement in the model. In particular, we compute genuine multipartite entanglement as quantified through the generalized geometric measure and make a comparative study with bipartite entanglement and other relevant order parameters. We observe that genuine multipartite entanglement has a very rich behavior throughout the considered parameter regime and frustration does not necessarily favor generating a high amount of it. Moreover, we show that in the region with strong quantum fluctuations, the particles remain highly delocalized in all momentum modes and share a very low amount of both bipartite and multipartite entanglement. Our work illustrates the necessity to give separate attention to dominating ordering behavior and quantum entanglement in the ground state of strongly correlated systems.