Phase diagram of the bosonic Kondo-Hubbard model
Michael Foss‐Feig, Ana María Rey
We study a bosonic version of the Kondo lattice model with an onsite repulsion in the conduction band, implemented with alkali-metal atoms in two bands of an optical lattice. Using both weak- and strong-coupling perturbation theory, we find that at unit filling of the conduction bosons the superfluid-to-Mott-insulator transition should be accompanied by a magnetic transition from a ferromagnet (in the superfluid) to a paramagnet (in the Mott insulator). Furthermore, an analytic treatment of Gutzwiller mean-field theory reveals that quantum spin fluctuations induced by the Kondo exchange cause the otherwise continuous superfluid-to-Mott-insulator phase transition to be first order. We show that lattice separability imposes a serious constraint on proposals to exploit excited bands for quantum simulations, and discuss a way to overcome this constraint in the context of our model by using an experimentally realized nonseparable lattice. A method to probe the first-order nature of the transition based on collapses and revivals of the matter-wave field is also discussed.
arXiv:1103.0245•Physical Review A•Nov 16, 2011•16 citations