We present a strong-coupling expansion of the Bose-Hubbard model based on a mean-field treatment of the hopping term, while onsite fluctuations are taken into account exactly. This random phase approximation describes the universal features of the generic Mott-insulator--superfluid transition (induced by a density change) and the superfluid state near the phase transition. The critical quasiparticles at the quantum critical point have a quadratic dispersion with an effective mass
m∗ and their mutual interaction is described by an effective
s-wave scattering length
a∗. The singular part of the pressure takes the same form as in a dilute Bose gas, provided we replace the boson mass
m and the scattering length in vacuum
a by
m∗ and
a∗, and the density
n by the excess density $|n\ensuremath{-}{n}_{\mathrm{MI}}|$ of particles (or holes) with respect to the Mott insulator. We define a universal two-body contact
Cuniv that controls the high-momentum tail $\ensuremath{\sim}1/{|\mathbf{k}|}^{4}$ of the singular part
nksing of the momentum distribution. We also apply the strong-coupling RPA to a lattice model of hard-core bosons and find that the high-momentum distribution is controlled by a universal contact, in complete agreement with the Bose-Hubbard model. Finally, we discuss a continuum model of bosons in an optical lattice and define two additional two-body contacts: a short-distance universal contact
Cunivsd which controls the high-momentum tail of
nksing at scales larger than the inverse lattice spacing, and a full contact
C, which controls the high-momentum tail of the full-momentum distribution
nk.
We present a strong-coupling expansion of the Bose-Hubbard model which describes both the superfluid and the Mott phases of ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. By performing two successive Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations of the intersite hopping term, we derive an effective action which provides a suitable starting point to study the strong-coupling limit of the Bose-Hubbard model. This action can be analyzed by taking into account Gaussian fluctuations about the mean-field approximation as in the Bogoliubov theory of the weakly interacting Bose gas. In the Mott phase, we reproduce results of previous mean-field theories and also calculate the momentum distribution function. In the superfluid phase, we find a gapless spectrum and compare our results with the Bogoliubov theory.
We present an analytical model for a cold bosonic gas on an optical lattice (with densities of the order of 1 particle per site), targeting the critical regime of the Bose-Einstein-condensate superfluid--Mott-insulator transition. We focus on the computation of the one-body density matrix and its Fourier transform, the momentum distribution which is directly obtainable from ``time-of-flight'' measurements. The expected number of particles with zero momentum may be identified with the condensate population if it is close to the total number of particles. Our main result is an analytic expression for this observable, interpolating between the known results valid for the two regimes separately: the standard Bogoliubov approximation valid in the superfluid regime and the strong-coupling perturbation theory valid in the Mott regime.
We study the thermodynamics near the generic (density-driven) superfluid--Mott-insulator transition in the three-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model using the nonperturbative renormalization-group approach. At low energy, the physics is controlled by the Gaussian fixed point and becomes universal. Thermodynamic quantities can then be expressed in terms of the universal scaling functions of the dilute Bose gas universality class while the microscopic physics enters only via two nonuniversal parameters, namely, the effective mass
m∗ and the ``scattering length''
a∗ of the elementary excitations at the quantum critical point between the superfluid and Mott-insulating phases. A notable exception is the condensate density in the superfluid phase which is proportional to the quasiparticle weight
Zqp of the elementary excitations. The universal regime is defined by ${m}^{*}{a}^{*}{}^{2}T\ensuremath{\ll}1$ and ${m}^{*}{a}^{*}{}^{2}|\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}|\ensuremath{\ll}1$ or, equivalently, $|\overline{n}\ensuremath{-}{\overline{n}}_{c}|{a}^{*}{}^{3}\ensuremath{\ll}1$, where $\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}=\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{c}$ is the chemical potential shift from the quantum critical point $(\ensuremath{\mu}={\ensuremath{\mu}}_{c},\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}T=0)$ and $\overline{n}\ensuremath{-}{\overline{n}}_{c}$ the doping with respect to the commensurate density
nc of the
T=0 Mott insulator. We compute
Zqp,
m∗, and
a∗ and find that they vary strongly with both the ratio
t/U between hopping amplitude and onsite repulsion and the value of the (commensurate) density
nc. Finally, we discuss the experimental observation of universality and the measurement of
Zqp,
m∗, and
a∗ in a cold-atomic gas in an optical lattice.
We derive the equation of state of bosons in an optical lattice in the framework of the Bose-Hubbard model. Near the density-driven Mott transition, the expression of the pressure $P(\ensuremath{\mu},T)$ versus chemical potential and temperature is similar to that of a dilute Bose gas but with renormalized mass
m∗ and scattering length
a∗. Here
m∗ is the mass of the elementary excitations at the quantum critical point governing the transition from the superfluid phase to the Mott-insulating phase, while
a∗ is related to their effective interaction at low energy. We use a nonperturbative renormalization-group approach to compute these parameters as a function of the ratio
t/U between hopping amplitude and on-site repulsion.