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Physical Review A

Ground-state phase diagram of a spin-orbit-coupled bosonic superfluid in an optical lattice

Zhu Chen, Zhaoxin Liang

Published Jan 5, 2016• 31 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In recent experiments, spin-orbit-coupled (SOC) bosonic gases in an optical lattice have been successfully prepared into any Bloch band [Hamner et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 070401 (2015)], which promises a viable contender in the competitive field of simulating gauge-related phenomena. However, the ground-state phase diagram of such systems in the superfluid regime is still lacking. Here we present a detailed study of the phase diagram in an optically trapped Bose gas with equal-weight Rashba and Dresselhaus SO coupling. We identify four different quantum phases, which include three normal phases and a mixed phase, by considering the wave vector ${k}_{1}$, the longitudinal $\ensuremath{\langle}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{z}\ensuremath{\rangle}$, and the transverse $\ensuremath{\langle}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}\ensuremath{\rangle}$ spin polarizations as three order parameters. The ground state of normal phases is a Bloch wave with a single wave vector ${k}_{1}$, which can position in arbitrary regions in the Brillouin zone. By contrast, the ground state of the mixed phase is a superposition of two Bloch waves with opposite ${k}_{1}$, which, remarkably, may lack periodicity even though the system's Hamiltonian is periodic. This mixed phase in the lattice setting can be seen as the counterpart of the stripe phase associated with the uniform SOC gas. Furthermore, due to the lattice-renormalized SOC, the phase diagram of the model system becomes significantly different from the uniform case when the lattice strength grows. Finally, a scheme for experimentally probing the mixed phase using Bragg spectroscopy is proposed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.93.013601

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We use a variational order method to explore the ground state phase diagrams of spin–orbit coupled Bose atoms in optical lattices. By properly parameterizing the order with an ansatz function for each possible phase and comparing their energies which are minimized with respect to the variational parameters, we can effectively identify the lowest energy states and depict the phase diagram. While the Mott-insulator-superfluid phase boundary is computed by the usual Gutzwiller method, the spin-ordered phase structures of the deep Mott regime as well as the superfluid regime are studied by the variational order method. For the isotropic spin–orbit coupling, the phase diagram in the deep Mott insulator regime is qualitatively similar to results derived by the classical Monte-Carlo simulations or other numerical methods. The spiral phases with different spatial periods are discussed in detail. We find three new spin-ordered phases in the deep Mott insulator regime with anisotropic spin–orbit coupling. We also identify the uniform superfluid, stripe and checkerboard supersolid phases with exotic spin orders in the superfluid regime.
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