Density of States and Magnetic Correlations at a Metal-Mott Insulator Interface

The possibility of novel behavior at interfaces between strongly and weakly correlated materials has come under increased study recently. In this paper, we use determinant Quantum Monte Carlo to determine the inter-penetration of metallic and Mott insulator physics across an interface in the two dimensional Hubbard Hamiltonian. We quantify the behavior of the density of states at the Fermi level and the short and long range antiferromagnetism as functions of the distance from the interface and with different interaction strength, temperature and hopping across the interface. Induced metallic behavior into the insulator is evident over several lattice spacings, whereas antiferromagnetic correlations remain small on the metallic side. At large interface hopping, singlets form between the two boundary layers, shielding the two systems from each other.

Pairing in population imbalanced Fermion systems

We use Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations to study the pairing mechanism in a one-dimensional fermionic system governed by the Hubbard model with attractive contact interaction and with imbalance between the two spin populations. This is done for the uniform system and also for the system confined in a harmonic trap to compare with experiments on confined ultra-cold atoms. In the uniform case we determine the phase diagram in the polarization-temperature plane and find that the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase is robust and persists to higher temperature for higher polarization. In the confined case, we also find that the FFLO phase is stabilized by higher polarization and that it is within the range of detection of experiments currently underway.

Pair formation and collapse in imbalanced Fermion populations with unequal masses

We present an exact Quantum Monte Carlo study of the effect of unequal masses on pair formation in Fermionic systems with population imbalance loaded into optical lattices. We have considered three forms of the attractive interaction and find in all cases that the system is unstable and collapses as the mass difference increases and that the ground state becomes an inhomogeneous collapsed state. We also address the question of canonical vs grand canonical ensemble and its role, if any, in stabilizing certain phases.

State diagrams for harmonically trapped bosons in optical lattices

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to obtain zero-temperature state diagrams for strongly correlated lattice bosons in one and two dimensions under the influence of a harmonic confining potential. Since harmonic traps generate a coexistence of superfluid and Mott insulating domains, we use local quantities such as the quantum fluctuations of the density and a local compressibility to identify the phases present in the inhomogeneous density profiles. We emphasize the use of the characteristic density to produce a state diagram that is relevant to experimental optical lattice systems, regardless of the number of bosons or trap curvature and of the validity of the local-density approximation. We show that the critical value of U/t at which Mott insulating domains appear in the trap depends on the filling in the system, and it is in general greater than the value in the homogeneous system. Recent experimental results by Spielman et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 120402 (2008)] are analyzed in the context of our two-dimensional state diagram, and shown to exhibit a value for the critical point in good agreement with simulations. We also study the effects of finite, but low (T<t/2), temperatures. We find that in two dimensions they have little influence on our zero-temperature results, while their effect is more pronounced in one dimension.

Supersolids in one dimensional Bose Fermi mixtures

Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we study a mixture of bosons and fermions loaded on an optical lattice. With simple on-site repulsive interactions, this system can be driven into a solid phase. We dope this phase and, in analogy with pure bosonic systems, identify the conditions under which the bosons enter a supersolid phase, i.e., exhibiting at the same time charge density wave and superfluid order. We perform finite size scaling analysis to confirm the presence of a supersolid phase and discuss its properties, showing that it is a collective phase that also involve phase coherence of the fermions.