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arXiv:cond-mat/0605699 · Physical Review A

Theory of vortex-lattice melting in a one-dimensional optical lattice

Michiel Snoek, Henk T. C. Stoof

Published Sep 21, 2006• 14 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate quantum and temperature fluctuations of a vortex lattice in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We discuss in particular the Bloch bands of the Tkachenko modes and calculate the correlation function of the vortex positions along the direction of the optical lattice. Because of the small number of particles in the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates at every site of the optical lattice, finite-size effects become very important. Moreover, the fluctuations in the vortex positions are inhomogeneous due to the inhomogeneous density. As a result, the melting of the lattice occurs from the outside inwards. However, tunneling between neighboring pancakes substantially reduces the inhomogeneity as well as the size of the fluctuations. On the other hand, nonzero temperatures increase the size of the fluctuations dramatically. We calculate the crossover temperature from quantum melting to classical melting. We also investigate melting in the presence of a quartic radial potential, where a liquid can form in the center instead of at the outer edge of the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.74.033615

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arXiv:cond-mat/0405182•Physical Review A•Sep 2, 2004•22 citations
We investigate quantum and temperature fluctuations of a vortex lattice in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We discuss in particular the Bloch bands of the Tkachenko modes and calculate the correlation function of the vortex positions along the direction of the optical lattice. Because of the small number of particles in the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates at every site of the optical lattice, finite-size effects become very important. Moreover, the fluctuations in the vortex positions are inhomogeneous due to the inhomogeneous density. As a result, the melting of the lattice occurs from the outside inwards. However, tunneling between neighboring pancakes substantially reduces the inhomogeneity as well as the size of the fluctuations. On the other hand, nonzero temperatures increase the size of the fluctuations dramatically. We calculate the crossover temperature from quantum melting to classical melting. We also investigate melting in the presence of a quartic radial potential, where a liquid can form in the center instead of at the outer edge of the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates.
We investigate quantum fluctuations of a vortex lattice in a one-dimensional optical lattice for realistic numbers of particles and vortices. Our method gives full access to all the modes of the vortex lattice and we discuss in particular the Bloch bands of the Tkachenko modes. Because of the small number of particles in the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates at every site of the optical lattice, finite-size effects become very important. Therefore, the fluctuations in the vortex positions are inhomogeneous and the melting of the lattice occurs from the outside inwards. By looking into correlations between neighboring vortices, we identify new solid and liquid phases. Tunneling between neighboring pancakes substantially reduces the inhomogeneity as well as the size of the fluctuations.
The combination of a rotating cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate with a one-dimensional optical lattice gives rise to very interesting physics. The one-dimensional optical lattice splits the Bose-Einstein condensate into two-dimensional pancake-condensates, each containing a small number of particles and coupled by tunneling processes. The rotation gives rise to the appearance of quantized vortices. The quantum fluctuations of these vortex lines are strongly enhanced because of the small number of particles in each pancake-condensate. For slow rotation the system contains a single vortex-line. The transverse fluctuations of this vortex-line are bosonic modes and obey the same equations as a non-relativistic bosonic string in four dimensions. When fermionic atoms are bound to the vortex-core, it is possible to tune the system parameters such that the dispersions of the fermionic and bosonic modes are identical and the system is supersymmetric. This is called the ultracold superstring and it corresponds to the non-relativistic limit of a four-dimensional superstring. The supersymmetry is experimentally observable by performing density measurements. Moreover, it stabilizes the vortex-line from dissipation. Dissipation means that the vortex-line moves out of the center of the condensate. Since this is directly visible experimentally, this system allows for the investigation of the dynamics of sypersymmetry breaking. For fast rotation a vortex lattice appears. Because of the optical lattice, the modes of the optical lattice get a dispersion in the axial direction of the condensate. When the ratio of the number of particles to the number of vortices is small enough, the vortex lattice melts. Because of the small number of particles in each pancake-condensate, the particle density is inhomogeneous. Therefore also the vortex-lattice melting occurs homogeneous and phase coexistence between a vortex crystal and a vortex liquid occurs. By looking into the correlation functions between the vortex positions, it is possible to distinguish different phases within the vortex crystal and within the vortex liquid.
After delineating the physical regimes that vortex lattices encounter in rotating Bose-Einstein condensates as the rotation rate $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ increases, we derive the normal modes of the vortex lattice in two dimensions at zero temperature. Taking into account effects of the finite compressibility, we find an inertial mode of frequency $\ensuremath{\geqslant}2\ensuremath{\Omega}$, and a primarily transverse Tkachenko mode, whose frequency goes from being linear in the wave vector in the slowly rotating regime, where $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ is small compared with the lowest compressional mode frequency, to quadratic in the wave vector in the opposite limit. We calculate the correlation functions of vortex displacements and phase, density and superfluid velocities, and find that the zero-point excitations of the soft quadratic Tkachenko modes lead in a large system to a loss of long-range phase correlations, growing logarithmically with distance, and hence lead to a fragmented state at zero temperature. The vortex positional ordering is preserved at zero temperature, but the thermally excited Tkachenko modes cause the relative positional fluctuations to grow logarithmically with separation at finite temperature. The superfluid density, defined in terms of the transverse velocity autocorrelation function, vanishes at all temperatures. Finally we construct the long-wavelength single-particle Green's function in the rotating system and calculate the condensate depletion as a function of temperature.
We investigate a shift in the critical temperature of rotating Bose-Einstein condensates mediated by the melting of the vortex lattice. Numerical simulations reveal that this temperature exhibits contrasting behavior depending on the system configuration: a negative shift occurs for fixed trap potentials due to the expansion of the condensate, while a positive shift is observed for fixed volumes, where vortex-lattice rigidity suppresses thermal fluctuations. We introduce a vortex-energy model that captures the role of vortex interactions, the positional energy of the vortex lattice, as well as the phase transition and how the vortex lattice disappears. The findings provide insights into the thermodynamic properties of rotating condensates and the dynamics of vortex-lattice melting, offering potential parallels with other quantum systems such as type-II superconductors.
We present a classical field simulation study of the thermal melting of a two-dimensional vortex lattice in a rotating Bose gas, focusing on the role of finite-size effects on the melting temperature. This work constitutes a numerical continuation of the recent experimental investigation reported in [Physical Review Letters 133, 143401 (2024)], which addressed the thermal melting of a vortex lattice in a quasi-two-dimensional Bose gas. Using the stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation in a harmonic plus quartic trap, we simulate the finite-temperature equilibrium state and extract vortex configurations from density snapshots. Clear signatures of the two-step Kosterlitz--Thouless--Halperin--Nelson--Young melting scenario are identified. Our simulations enable a detailed characterization of the crystalline, hexatic, and liquid phases through correlation functions quantifying the translational and orientational order and through defect statistics. Finite-size effects are shown to play a crucial role at lower rotation frequencies, affecting the proliferation of lattice defects.
We establish the general equations of motion for the modes of a vortex lattice in a rapidly rotating Bose-Einstein condensate in three dimensions, taking into account the elastic energy of the lattice and the vortex line bending energy. As in two dimensions, the vortex lattice supports Tkachenko and gapped sound modes. In contrast, in three dimensions the Tkachenko mode frequency at long wavelengths becomes linear in the wave vector for any propagation direction out of the transverse plane. We compute the correlation functions of the vortex displacements and the superfluid order parameter for a homogeneous Bose gas of bounded extent in the axial direction. At zero temperature the vortex displacement correlations are convergent at large separation, but at finite temperatures, they grow with separation. The growth of the vortex displacements should lead to observable melting of vortex lattices at higher temperatures and somewhat lower particle number and faster rotation than in current experiments. At zero temperature a system of large extent in the axial direction maintains long range order-parameter correlations for large separation, but at finite temperatures the correlations decay with separation.