We investigate the competition of various exotic superfluid states in a chain of spin-polarized ultracold fermionic atoms with hyperfine spin $F = 3/2$ and s-wave contact interactions. We show that the ground state is an exotic inhomogeneous mixture in which two distinct superfluid phases --- spin-carrying pairs and singlet quartets --- form alternating domains in an extended region of the parameter space.
We study spin liquid phases of spin-5/2 alkaline earth atoms on a honeycomb lattice at finite temperatures. Our analysis is based on a Gutzwiller projection variational approach recast to a path-integral formalism. In the framework of a saddle-point approximation we determine spin liquid phases with lowest free energy and study their temperature dependence. We identify a critical temperature, where all the spin liquid phases melt and the system goes to the paramagnetic phase. We also study the stability of the saddle-point solutions and show that a time-reversal symmetry breaking state, a so called chiral spin liquid phase is realized even at finite temperatures. We also determine the spin structure factor, which, in principle, is an experimentally measurable quantity and is the basic tool to map the spectrum of elementary excitations of the system.
The system of ultracold atoms with hyperfine spin $F=3/2$ might be unstable against the formation of quintet pairs if the interaction is attractive in the quintet channel. We have investigated the behavior of correlation functions in a model including only s-wave interactions at quarter filling by large-scale density-matrix renormalization-group simulations. We show that the correlations of quintet pairs become quasi-long-ranged, when the system is partially polarized, leading to the emergence of various mixed superfluid phases in which BCS-like pairs carrying different magnetic moment coexist.
We study Hubbard models for ultracold bosonic or fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice. The atoms carry a high spin $F>1/2$, and interact on site via strong repulsive Van der Waals forces. Making convenient rearrangements of the interaction terms, and exploiting their symmetry properties, we derive low energy effective models with nearest-neighbor interactions, and their properties. We apply our method to $F=3/2$, and 5/2 fermions on two-dimensional square lattice at quarter, and 1/6 fillings, respectively, and investigate mean-field equations for repulsive couplings. We find for $F=3/2$ fermions that the plaquette state appearing in the highly symmetric SU(4) case does not require fine tuning, and is stable in an extended region of the phase diagram. This phase competes with an SU(2) flux state, that is always suppressed for repulsive interactions in absence of external magnetic field. The SU(2) flux state has, however, lower energy than the plaquette phase, and stabilizes in the presence of weak applied magnetic field. For $F=5/2$ fermions a similar SU(2) plaquette phase is found to be the ground state without external magnetic field.
The commensurate $p/q$-filled $n$-component Hubbard chain was investigated by bosonization and high-precision density-matrix renormalization-group analysis. It was found that depending on the relation between the number of components $n$, and the filling parameter $q$, the system shows metallic or insulating behavior, and for special fillings bond-ordered (dimerized, trimerized, tetramerized etc.) ground state develops in the insulating phase. A mean-field analysis shows that this bond ordering is a direct consequence of the spin-exchange interaction, which plays a crucial role in the one-parameter Hubbard model -- not only for infinite Coulomb repulsion, but for intermediate values as well.
We investigate the half-filled Hubbard chain with additional nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor spin exchange, J1 and J2, using bosonization and the density-matrix renormalization group. For J2 = 0 we find a spin-density-wave phase for all positive values of the Hubbard interaction U and the Heisenberg exchange J1. A frustrating spin exchange J2 induces a bond-order-wave phase. For some values of J1, J2 and U, we observe a spin-gapped metallic Luther-Emery phase.
The one-dimensional repulsive SU$(n)$ Hubbard model is investigated analytically by bosonization approach and numerically using the density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) method for $n=3,4$, and 5 for commensurate fillings $f=p/q$ where $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime. It is shown that the behavior of the system is drastically different depending on whether $q>n$, $q=n$, or $q<n$. When $q>n$, the umklapp processes are irrelevant, the model is equivalent to an $n$-component Luttinger liquid with central charge $c=n$. When $q=n$, the charge and spin modes are decoupled, the umklapp processes open a charge gap for finite $U>0$, whereas the spin modes remain gapless and the central charge $c=n-1$. The translational symmetry is not broken in the ground state for any $n$. On the other hand, when $q<n$, the charge and spin modes are coupled, the umklapp processes open gaps in all excitation branches, and a spatially nonuniform ground state develops. Bond-ordered dimerized, trimerized or tetramerized phases are found depending on the filling.
