Mott Insulators : Physics and applications

Courtney Lannert, Smitha Vishveshwara

Brayden Ware, Itamar Kimchi, S. A. Parameswaran +1 more

Ankita Chakrabarti, Nicolas Laflorencie, Bertrand Georgeot +2 more

Interacting fermions in the presence of disorder pose one of the most challenging problems in condensed matter physics, primarily due to the absence of accurate numerical tools. Our investigation delves into the intricate interplay between interaction-induced Mott insulation and disorder-driven Anderson localization in the Hubbard model subjected to a random potential. On the Cayley tree, the application of statistical dynamical mean-field theory proves adept at discerning among a metal and the two distinct insulators, Anderson or Mott. Our comprehensive analysis, accounting for subtle yet potent finite-size effects and fluctuations, yields a noteworthy finding: in the presence of disorder, we consistently observe an intervening Anderson-localized regime between the metallic and Mott insulator states. This observation intriguingly mirrors scenarios witnessed in dirty Bosons, where an insulating Bose glass phase consistently emerges between the superfluid and Mott phases.

Sindhunil Barman Roy

B. H. Brandow

Tommaso Comparin

The Bose-Hubbard model describes the physics of a system of bosonic ultracold atoms in an optical lattice, in which a phase transition is present between a superfluid phase and a Mott insulator one. \nThe exact solution of this Hamiltonian is only feasible to find the ground-state of small systems, while other techniques (as mean-field schemes or quantum Monte Carlo) are necessary to study systems of larger size. \n \nAs a first application, we study the trapped model - relevant for the comparison with current experiments - through an inhomogeneous mean-field scheme. We describe some signatures of the phase crossover between superfluid and Mott insulator. In particular, the visibility of the quasimomentum distribution shows some kinks as a function of the lattice depth; we describe these features and we link them with the ones observed in other works in the literature. \n \nAs a second application, we use quantum Monte Carlo techniques to study the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model with long-range interactions and we focus on the appearance of the Haldane insulating phase, distinguishable from the Mott one through the presence of non-local hidden order. \nNon-local correlation functions are also used to describe the difference between the superfluid phase and the Mott insulator one.