Mottness and magnetism of fermions in a double-well optical lattice
Xin Wang, Qi Zhou, S. Das Sarma
We theoretically investigate, using non-perturbative strong correlation techniques, Mott insulating phases and magnetic ordering of two-component fermions in a two-dimensional double-well optical lattice. At filling of two fermions per site, there are two types of Mott insulators, one of which is characterized by spin-1 antiferromagnetism below the Neel temperature. The super-exchange interaction in this system is induced by the interplay between the inter-band interaction and the spin degree of freedom. A great advantage of the double-well optical lattice is that the magnetic quantum phase diagram and the Neel temperature can be easily controlled by tuning the orbital energy splitting of the two-level system. Particularly, the Neel temperature can be one order of magnitude larger than that in standard optical lattices, facilitating the experimental search for magnetic ordering in optical lattice systems.
•Aug 22, 2011•0 citations