We calculated the phase diagram of a continuous system of hard spheres loaded in a quasi-one dimensional bichromatic optical lattice. The wavelengths of both lattice-defining lasers were chosen to model an incommensurate arrangement. Densities of one
particle and half a particle per potential well were considered. Our results can be compared directly to those of the experimental system [Fallani et al. PRL, {bf 98} 130404 (2007)] from which our initial parameters were taken. The phase diagrams for both densities are significatively different to those obtained by describing the same experimental setup with a Bose-Hubbard model.
We studied the appearance of Mott insulator domains of hard sphere bosons on quasi one-dimensional optical lattices when an harmonic trap was superimposed along the main axis of the system. Instead of the standard approximation represented by the Bos
e-Hubbard model, we described those arrangements by continuous Hamiltonians that depended on the same parameters as the experimental setups. We found that for a given trap the optical potential depth, $V_0$, needed to create a single connected Mott domain decreased with the number of atoms loaded on the lattice. If the confinement was large enough, it reached a minimum when, in absence of any optical lattice, the atom density at the center of the trap was the equivalent of one particle per optical well. For larger densities, the creation of that single domain proceeded via an intermediate shell structure in which Mott domains alternated with superfluid ones.
By means of diffusion Monte Carlo calculations, we investigated the quantum phase transition between a superfluid and a Mott insulator for a system of hard-sphere bosons in a quasi one-dimensional optical lattice. For this continuous hamiltonian, we
studied how the stability limits of the Mott phase changed with the optical lattice depth and the transverse confinement width. A comparison of these results to those of a one-dimensional homogeneous Bose-Hubbard model indicates that this last model describes accurately the phase diagram only in the limit of deep lattices. For shallow ones, our results are comparable to those of the sine-Gordon model in its limit of application. We provide an estimate of the critical parameters when none of those models are realistic descriptions of a quasi one-dimensional optical lattice.
We studied the superfluid-to-Mott insulator transition for bosonic hard spheres loaded in asymmetric three-dimensional optical lattices by means of diffusion Monte Carlo calculations. The onset of the transition was monitored through the change in th
e chemical potential around the density corresponding to one particle per potential well. With this method, we were able to reproduce the results given in the literature for three-dimensional symmetric lattices and for systems whose asymmetry makes them equivalent to a set of quasi-one dimensional tubes. The location of the same transition for asymmetric systems akin to a stack of quasi-two dimensional lattices will be also given. Our results were checked against those given by a Bose-Hubbard model for similar arrangements.
The n-d elastic and breakup cross sections are computed by solving the three-body Faddeev equations for realistic and semi-realistic Nucleon-Nucleon potentials. These cross sections are inserted in the Monte Carlo simulation of the nuclear processes
considered in the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments (ICSBEP). The results obtained using thes ab initio n-d cross sections are compared with those provided by the most renown international libraries.
Solution of the scattering problem turns to be very difficult task both from the formal as well as from the computational point of view. If the last two decades have witnessed decisive progress in ab initio bound state calculations, rigorous solution
of the scattering problem remains limited to A$leq$4 case. Therefore there is a rising interest to apply bound-state-like methods to handle non-relativistic scattering problems. In this article the latest theoretical developments in this field are reviewed. Five fully rigorous methods will be discussed, which address the problem of nuclear collisions in full extent (including the break-up problem) at the same time avoiding treatment of the complicate boundary conditions or integral kernel singularities. These new developments allows to use modern bound-state techniques to advance significantly rigorous solution of the scattering problem.
