No Arabic abstract
The superfluid--Mott-insulator phase transition of ultracold spin-1 bosons with ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions in an optical lattice is theoretically investigated. Two counterpropagating linearly polarized laser beams with the angle $theta$ between the polarization vectors (lin-$theta$-lin configuration), driving an $F_g=1$ to $F_e=1$ internal atomic transition, create the optical lattice and at the same time couple atomic ground states with magnetic quantum numbers $m=pm 1$. Due to the coupling the system can be described as a two-component one. At $theta=0$ the system has a continuous isospin symmetry, which can be spontaneously broken, thereby fixing the number of particles in the atomic components. The phase diagram of the system and the spectrum of collective excitations, which are density waves and isospin waves, are worked out. In the case of ferromagnetic interactions, the superfluid--Mott-insulator phase transition is always second order, but in the case of antiferromagnetic interactions for some values of system parameters it is first order and the superfluid and Mott phases can coexist. Varying the angle $theta$ one can control the populations of atomic components and continuously turn on and tune their asymmetry.
We investigate the superfluid--Mott-insulator quantum phase transition of spin-1 bosons in an optical lattice created by pairs of counterpropagating linearly polarized laser beams, driving an $F_g=1$ to $F_e=1$ internal atomic transition. The whole parameter space of the resulting two-component Bose-Hubbard model is studied. We find that the phase transition is not always second order as in the case of spinless bosons, but can be first order in certain regions of the parameter space. The calculations are done in the mean-field approximation by means of exact numerical diagonalization as well as within the framework of perturbaton theory.
In this work we investigate the different states of a system of spin-1 bosons in two potential wells connected by tunneling, with spin-dependent interaction. The model utilizes the well-known Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, adding a local interaction term that depends on the modulus of the total spin in a well, favoring a high- or low-spin state for different signs of the coupling constant. We employ the concept of fidelity to detect critical values of parameters for which the ground state undergoes significant changes. The nature of the states is investigated through evaluation of average occupation numbers in the wells and of spin correlations. A more detailed analysis is done for a two-particle system, but a discussion of the three-particle case and some results for larger numbers are also presented.
We investigate the properties of strongly interacting heteronuclear boson-boson mixtures loaded in realistic optical lattices, with particular emphasis on the physics of interfaces. In particular, we numerically reproduce the recent experimental observation that the addition of a small fraction of K induces a significant loss of coherence in Rb, providing a simple explanation. We then investigate the robustness against the inhomogeneity typical of realistic experimental realizations of the glassy quantum emulsions recently predicted to occur in strongly interacting boson-boson mixtures on ideal homogeneous lattices.
We study the two-body bound and scattering states of two particles in a one dimensional optical lattice in the presence of a coherent coupling between two internal atomic levels. Due to the interplay between periodic potential, interactions and coherent coupling, the internal structure of the bound states depends on their center of mass momentum. This phenomenon corresponds to an effective momentum-dependent magnetic field for the dimer pseudo-spin, which could be observed in a chirping of the precession frequency during Bloch oscillations. The essence of this effect can be easily interpreted in terms of an effective bound state Hamiltonian. Moreover for indistinguishable bosons, the two-body eigenstates can present simultaneously attractive and repulsive bound-state nature or even bound and scattering properties.
We theoretically investigate the enhanced localization of bosonic atoms by fermionic atoms in three-dimensional optical lattices and find a self-trapping of the bosons for attractive boson-fermion interaction. Because of this mutual interaction, the fermion orbitals are substantially squeezed, which results in a strong deformation of the effective potential for bosons. This effect is enhanced by an increasing bosonic filling factor leading to a large shift of the transition between the superfluid and the Mott-insulator phase. We find a nonlinear dependency of the critical potential depth on the boson-fermion interaction strength. The results, in general, demonstrate the important role of higher Bloch bands for the physics of attractively interacting quantum gas mixtures in optical lattices and are of direct relevance to recent experiments with 87Rb - 40K mixtures, where a large shift of the critical point has been found.