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Physical Review Letters

Superfluid-insulator transition in disordered boson systems

Werner Krauth, Nandini Trivedi, David M. Ceperley

Published Oct 1, 1991• 298 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present results of path-integral Monte Carlo simulations of bosons on a two-dimensional square lattice in a random potential of average strength V and with on-site repulsion U. We find that the superfluid density ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{s}}$ is enhanced by increasing V and U in certain regions of parameter space. By combining the results of ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{s}}$, with the behavior of the density-density correlation function on lattices of size up to 10\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}10, we study the superfluid--to--Mott-insulator transition and the transition from a superfluid to a disorder-localized (``Bose glass'') phase.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.67.2307

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We present results of path-integral Monte Carlo simulations of bosons on a two-dimensional square lattice in a random potential of average strength V and with on-site repulsion U. We find that the superfluid density \ensuremathρs{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{s}}\ensuremathρs​ is enhanced by increasing V and U in certain regions of parameter space. By combining the results of \ensuremathρs{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{s}}\ensuremathρs​, with the behavior of the density-density correlation function on lattices of size up to 10\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}10, we study the superfluid--to--Mott-insulator transition and the transition from a superfluid to a disorder-localized (``Bose glass'') phase.
The phase diagrams and phase transitions of bosons with short-ranged repulsive interactions moving in periodic and/or random external potentials at zero temperature are investigated with emphasis on the superfluid-insulator transition induced by varying a parameter such as the density. Bosons in periodic potentials (e.g., on a lattice) at T=0 exhibit two types of phases: a superfluid phase and Mott insulating phases characterized by integer (or commensurate) boson densities, by the existence of a gap for particle-hole excitations, and by zero compressibility. Generically, the superfluid onset transition in d dimensions from a Mott insulator to superfluidity is ``ideal,'' or mean field in character, but at special multicritical points with particle-hole symmetry it is in the universality class of the (d+1)-dimensional XY model. In the presence of disorder, a third, ``Bose glass'' phase exists. This phase is insulating because of the localization effects of the randomness and analogous to the Fermi glass phase of interacting fermions in a strongly disordered potential.The Bose glass phase is characterized by a finite compressibility, no gap, but an infinite superfluid susceptibility. In the presence of disorder the transition to superfluidity is argued to occur only from the Bose glass phase, and never directly from the Mott insulator. This zero-temperature superfluid-insulator transition is studied via generalizations of the Josephson scaling relation for the superfluid density at the ordinary \ensuremath{\lambda} transition, highlighting the crucial role of quantum fluctuations. The transition is found to have a dynamic critical exponent z exactly equal to d and correlation length and order-parameter correlation exponents \ensuremath{\nu} and \ensuremath{\eta} which satisfy the bounds \ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\ge}2/d and \ensuremath{\eta}\ensuremath{\le}2-d, respectively. It is argued that the superfluid-insulator transition in the presence of disorder may have an upper critical dimension dc{d}_{c}dc​ which is infinite, but a perturbative renormalization-group calculation wherein the critical exponents have mean-field values for weak disorder above d=4 is also discussed. Many of these conclusions are verified by explicit calculations on a model of one-dimensional bosons in the presence of both random and periodic potentials. The general results are applied to experiments on 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He absorbed in porous media such as Vycor. Some measurable properties of the superfluid onset are predicted exactly [e.g., the exponent x relating the \ensuremath{\lambda} transition temperature to the zero-temperature superfluid density is found to be d/2(d-1)], while stringent bounds are placed on others. Analysis of preliminary data is consistent with these predictions.
We investigate the Bose glass phase and the insulator-to-superfluid transition in the two-dimensional disordered Boson Hubbard model in the Villain representation via Monte Carlo simulations. In the Bose glass phase the probability distribution of the local susceptibility is found to have a 1χ2 tail and the imaginary time Green's function decays algebraically C(τ) ≈ τ−1 giving rise to a divergent global susceptibility. By considering the participation ratio it is shown that the excitations in the Bose glass phase are fully localized and a scaling law is established. For commensurate Boson densities we find direct Mott insulator to superfluid transition without an intervening Bose glass phase for weak disorder. For this transition we obtain the critical exponents z = 1, v = 0.7 ± 0.1 and η = 0.1 ± 0.1, which agree with those for the classical three-dimensional XY model without disorder. This indicates that disorder is irrelevant at the tip of the Mott-lobes and that here the inequality v⩾2d is violated.
We study the superfluid-insulator transition of the 2-D boson system on random surfaces. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulation and grand-canonical ensemble, we investigate the random Hubbard model and study the phase transition between the superfluid phase and the Bose glass insulator phase. Changing the chemical potential µ, we observe the transition from the superfluid phase to the insulator phase. We show the dimensional dependence of the transition by comparing the results of 2-D and 1-D boson systems. To study the localization of the boson paths, we perform the simulation on the anisotropic surfaces, and discuss the crossover from 2-D system to 1-D system.
We study the zero-temperature phase transition of a two-dimensional disordered boson Hubbard model. The phase diagram is constructed in terms of the disorder strength and the chemical potential. Via Monte Carlo simulations, we find a multicritical line separating the weak-disorder regime, where the Mott-insulator-to-superfluid transition occurs, from the strong-disorder regime, where the Bose-glass-to-superfluid transition occurs. On the multicritical line, the insulator-to-superfluid transition has the dynamical critical exponent $z\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1.35\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.05$ and the correlation length critical exponent $\ensuremath{\nu}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0.67\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03$. We suggest that the proliferation of the particle-hole pairs screens out the weak-disorder effects.
We study the zero-temperature phase transitions of a two-dimensional disordered boson Hubbard model at incommensurate boson densities. Via matrix diagonalization and quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we construct the phase diagram and evaluate the correlation length exponent $\ensuremath{\nu}.$ In the presence of weak disorder, we obtain $\ensuremath{\nu}=0.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.1,$ the same value as that in the pure model, near the tip of a Mott insulator lobe, using the dynamical critical exponent z=2.z=2.z=2. As the strength of disorder is increased beyond a certain value, however, the value of $\ensuremath{\nu}$ is found to change to $0.9\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.1.$ This result strongly suggests that there exist direct Mott insulator-to-superfluid transitions around the tip of a Mott insulator lobe in the weak disorder regime.