No Arabic abstract
Recent experiments on quantum degenerate gases give an opportunity for simulating strongly-correlated electronic systems in optical lattices. It may shed light on some long-standing puzzles in condensed-matter physics, like the nature of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates that had baffled people over two decades. It is believed that the two-dimensional fermionic Hubbard model, or t-J model, contains the key to this problem; but the difficulty of unveiling the mystery of a strongly-interacting fermionic system is also generally acknowledged. Here, as a substitute, we systematically analyze the property of bosonic t-J model simulated in optical superlattices near unit-filling. In particular, we show the emergence of a strange topological Fermi liquid with Fermi surfaces from a purely bosonic system. We also discuss the possibility of observing these phenomena in ultracold atom experiments. The result may provide some crucial insights into the origin of high-T_{c} superconductivity.
Using the adaptive time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group method, we study the time evolution of strongly correlated spinless fermions on a one-dimensional lattice after a sudden change of the interaction strength. For certain parameter values, two different initial states (e.g., metallic and insulating), lead to observables which become indistinguishable after relaxation. We find that the resulting quasi-stationary state is non-thermal. This result holds for both integrable and non-integrable variants of the system.
We report on angle-dependent measurements of the sheet resistances and Hall coefficients of electron liquids in SmTiO3/SrTiO3/SmTiO3 quantum well structures, which were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (001) DyScO3. We compare their transport properties with those of similar structures grown on LSAT [(La0.3Sr0.7)(Al0.65Ta0.35)O3]. On DyScO3, planar defects normal to the quantum wells lead to a strong in-plane anisotropy in the transport properties. This allows for quantifying the role of defects in transport. In particular, we investigate differences in the longitudinal and Hall scattering rates, which is a non-Fermi liquid phenomenon known as lifetime separation. The residuals in both the longitudinal resistance and Hall angle were found to depend on the relative orientations of the transport direction to the planar defects. The Hall angle exhibited a robust T2 temperature dependence along all directions, whereas no simple power law could describe the temperature dependence of the longitudinal resistances. Remarkably, the degree of the carrier lifetime separation, as manifested in the distinctly different temperature dependences and diverging residuals near a critical quantum well thickness, was completely insensitive to disorder. The results allow for a clear distinction between disorder-induced contributions to the transport and intrinsic, non-Fermi liquid phenomena, which includes the lifetime separation.
Controlling quantum critical phenomena in strongly correlated electron systems, which emerge in the neighborhood of a quantum phase transition, is a major challenge in modern condensed matter physics. Quantum critical phenomena are generated from the delicate balance between long-range order and its quantum fluctuation. So far, the nature of quantum phase transitions has been investigated by changing a limited number of external parameters such as pressure and magnetic field. We propose a new approach for investigating quantum criticality by changing the strength of quantum fluctuation that is controlled by the dimensional crossover in metallic quantum well (QW) structures of strongly correlated oxides. With reducing layer thickness to the critical thickness of metal-insulator transition, crossover from a Fermi liquid to a non-Fermi liquid has clearly been observed in the metallic QW of SrVO$_3$ by textit{in situ} angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Non-Fermi liquid behavior with the critical exponent ${alpha} = 1$ is found to emerge in the two-dimensional limit of the metallic QW states, indicating that a quantum critical point exists in the neighborhood of the thickness-dependent Mott transition. These results suggest that artificial QW structures provide a unique platform for investigating novel quantum phenomena in strongly correlated oxides in a controllable fashion.
Our goal is to understand the phenomena arising in optical lattice fermions at low temperature in an external magnetic field. Varying the field, the attraction between any two fermions can be made arbitrarily strong, where composite bosons form via so-called Feshbach resonances. By setting up strong-coupling equations for fermions, we find that in spatial dimension $d>2$ they couple to bosons which dress up fermions and lead to new massive composite fermions. At low enough temperature, we obtain the critical temperature at which composite bosons undergo the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), leading to BEC-dressing massive fermions. These form tightly bound pair states which are new bosonic quasi-particles producing a BEC-type condensate. A quantum critical point is found and the formation of condensates of complex quasi-particles is speculated over.
Discontinuous quantum phase transitions and the associated metastability play central roles in diverse areas of physics ranging from ferromagnetism to false vacuum decay in the early universe. Using strongly-interacting ultracold atoms in an optical lattice, we realize a driven many-body system whose quantum phase transition can be tuned from continuous to discontinuous. Resonant shaking of a one-dimensional optical lattice hybridizes the lowest two Bloch bands, driving a novel transition from a Mott insulator to a $pi$-superfluid, i.e., a superfluid state with staggered phase order. For weak shaking amplitudes, this transition is discontinuous (first-order) and the system can remain frozen in a metastable state, whereas for strong shaking, it undergoes a continuous transition toward a $pi$-superfluid. Our observations of this metastability and hysteresis are in good quantitative agreement with numerical simulations and pave the way for exploring the crucial role of quantum fluctuations in discontinuous transitions.