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arXiv:cond-mat/0410433 · Physical Review Letters

Signature of Mott-Insulator Transition with Ultracold Fermions in a One-Dimensional Optical Lattice

Xia-Ji Liu, P. D. Drummond, Hui Hu

Published Apr 8, 2005• 54 citations
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Abstract

Using the exact Bethe ansatz solution of the Hubbard model and Luttinger liquid theory, we investigate the density profiles and collective modes of one-dimensional ultracold fermions confined in an optical lattice with a harmonic trapping potential. We determine a generic phase diagram in terms of a characteristic filling factor and a dimensionless coupling constant. The collective oscillations of the atomic mass density, a technique that is commonly used in experiments, provide a signature of the quantum phase transition from the metallic phase to the Mott-insulator phase. A detailed experimental implementation is proposed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.94.136406

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Using the exact Bethe ansatz solution of the Hubbard model and Luttinger liquid theory, we investigate the density profiles and collective modes of one-dimensional ultracold fermions confined in an optical lattice with a harmonic trapping potential. We determine a generic phase diagram in terms of a characteristic filling factor and a dimensionless coupling constant. The collective oscillations of the atomic mass density, a technique that is commonly used in experiments, provide a signature of the quantum phase transition from the metallic phase to the Mott-insulator phase. A detailed experimental implementation is proposed.
Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the one-dimensional fermionic Hubbard model in a harmonic potential displays quantum critical behavior at the boundaries of a Mott-insulating region. A local compressibility defined to characterize the Mott-insulating phase has a nontrivial critical exponent. Both the local compressibility and the variance of the local density show universality with respect to the confining potential. We determine a generic phase diagram, which allows the prediction of the phases to be observed in experiments with ultracold fermionic atoms trapped on optical lattices.
In this work we study ultracold fermions confined in a two-dimensional optical lattice and we explore the Mott-insulator transition with the Fermi-Hubbard model. On the basis of a mean-field approach, we study the phase diagrams in the presence of a harmonic trapping potential. Local Mott-insulator phases are shown to be generally situated in the center of the trap and correspond to a vanishing variance of the local density. We then study the effects induced by rotation on the Mott-insulator phase transition. In particular, we show that the phase boundary reproduces the edge of the Hofstadter butterfly.
Using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations we study the ground-state properties of the one-dimensional fermionic Hubbard model in traps with an underlying lattice. Since due to the confining potential the density is space dependent, Mott-insulating domains always coexist with metallic regions, such that global quantities are not appropriate to describe the system. We define a local compressibility that characterizes the Mott-insulating regions and analyze other local quantities. It is shown that the momentum distribution function, a quantity that is commonly considered in experiments, fails in giving a clear signal of the Mott-insulating transition. Furthermore, we analyze a mean-field approach to these systems and compare it with the numerically exact QMC results. Finally, we determine a generic form for the phase diagram that allows us to predict the phases to be observed in the experiments.
We study the ground state properties of ultracold fermions trapped in a one-dimensional double-well optical lattice by using the density-matrix renormalization group method. The system is described by an extended Hubbard model with alternating hopping integrals and an external harmonic confining potential. We clarify the characteristic features of the metal–insulator phase transition originating from the double-well structure of the lattices. Several different types of insulating regions coexist when the number of atoms at each site is an integer or a half integer. We found that each insulating phase except for a band insulator exhibits rather large local density fluctuations, reflecting the strong dimerization of atoms within the unit cells of double-well lattices. The phase characteristics are elucidated in detail by investigating the profiles of the local density of atoms, the local density (spin) fluctuations, the double-occupancy probability and the spatially extended sp in correlations.
We present an extensive numerical study of the ground-state properties of confined repulsively interacting fermions in one-dimensional optical lattices. Detailed predictions for the atom-density profiles are obtained from parallel Kohn-Sham density-functional calculations and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The density-functional calculations employ a Bethe ansatz based local-density approximation for the correlation energy that accounts for Luttinger-liquid and Mott-insulator physics. Semianalytical and fully numerical formulations of this approximation are compared with each other and with a cruder Thomas-Fermi-type local-density approximation for the total energy. Precise quantum Monte Carlo simulations are used to assess the reliability of the various local-density approximations, and in conjunction with these provide a detailed microscopic picture of the consequences of the interplay between particle-particle interactions and confinement in one-dimensional systems of strongly correlated fermions.
In the absence of a confining potential, the boson-Hubbard model exhibits a superfluid to Mott insulator quantum phase transition at commensurate fillings and strong coupling. We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the ground state of the one-dimensional bosonic Hubbard model in a trap. Some, but not all, aspects of the Mott insulating phase persist. Mott behavior occurs for a continuous range of incommensurate fillings, very different from the unconfined case, and the establishment of the Mott phase does not proceed via a traditional quantum phase transition. These results have important implications for interpreting experiments on ultracold atoms on optical lattices.