We study a versatile structurally favorable periodic $sp^2$-bonded carbon atomic planar sheet with $C_{4v}$ symmetry by means of the first-principles calculations. This carbon allotrope is composed of carbon octagons and squares with two bond lengths
and is thus dubbed as octagraphene. It is a semimetal with the Fermi surface consisting of one hole and one electron pocket, whose low-energy physics can be well described by a tight-binding model of $pi$-electrons. Its Youngs modulus, breaking strength and Poissons ratio are obtained to be 306 $N/m$, 34.4 $N/m$ and 0.13, respectively, which are close to those of graphene. The novel sawtooth and armchair carbon nanotubes as well as unconventional fullerenes can also be constructed from octagraphene. It is found that the Ti-absorbed octagraphene can be allowed for hydrogen storage with capacity around 7.76 wt%.
We present the global phase diagram of the extended boson Hubbard model on a simple cubic lattice by quantum Monte Carlo simulation with worm update algorithm. Four kinds of phases are supported by this model, including superfluid, supersolid, Mott,
and charge density wave (CDW) states, which are identified in the phase diagram of chemical potential $mu$ versus nearest neighbor interaction V . By changing the chemical potential, a continuous transition is found from the Mott phase to a superfluid phase without breaking the translational symmetry. For an insulating CDW state, adding particles to it gives rise to a continuous transition to a supersolid phase, while removing particles usually leads to a first-order one to either supersolid or superfluid phase. By tuning the nearest neighbor interaction, one can realize the transition between two insulating phases, Mott and CDW with the same particle density, which turns out to be of the first-order. We also demonstrate that a supersolid phase with average particle density less than 1/2 can exist in a small region of $mu$ - V phase diagram.
The imbalanced superfluid state of spin-1/2 fermions with s-wave pairing is numerically studied by solving the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes equation at zero temperature in an annular disk geometry with narrow radial width. Two distinct types of systems are c
onsidered. The first case may be relevant to heavy fermion superconductors, where magnetic field causes spin imbalance via Zeeman interaction and the system is studied in a grand canonical ensemble. As the magnetic field increases, the system is transformed from the uniform superfluid state to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state, and finally to the spin polarized normal state. The second case may be relevant to cold fermionic systems, where the numbers of fermions of each species are fixed as in a canonical ensemble. In this case, the groundstate depends on the pairing strength. For weak pairing, the order parameter exhibits a periodic domain wall lattice pattern with a localized spin distribution at low spin imbalance, and a sinusoidally modulated pattern with extended spin distribution at high spin imbalance. For strong pairing, the phase separation between superfluid state and polarized normal state is found to be more preferable, while the increase of spin imbalance simply changes the ratio between them.
