Supersolid Bose-Fermi Mixtures in Optical Lattices

We study a mixture of strongly interacting bosons and spinless fermions with on-site repulsion in a three-dimensional optical lattice. For this purpose we develop and apply a generalized DMFT scheme, which is exact in infinite dimensions and reliably describes the full range from weak to strong coupling. We restrict ourselves to half filling. For weak Bose-Fermi repulsion a supersolid forms, in which bosonic superfluidity coexists with charge-density wave order. For stronger interspecies repulsion the bosons become localized while the charge density wave order persists. The system is unstable against phase separation for weak repulsion among the bosons.Comment: 4 pages, 5 pictures, Published versio

N\'{e}el transition of lattice fermions in a harmonic trap: a real-space DMFT study

We study the magnetic ordering transition for a system of harmonically trapped ultracold fermions with repulsive interactions in a cubic optical lattice, within a real-space extension of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). Using a quantum Monte Carlo impurity solver, we establish that antiferromagnetic correlations are signaled, at strong coupling, by an enhanced double occupancy. This signature is directly accessible experimentally and should be observable well above the critical temperature for long-range order. Dimensional aspects appear less relevant than naively expected.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Magnetically Stabilized Nematic Order I: Three-Dimensional Bipartite Optical Lattices

We study magnetically stabilized nematic order for spin-one bosons in optical lattices. We show that the Zeeman field-driven quantum transitions between non-nematic Mott states and quantum spin nematic states in the weak hopping limit are in the universality class of the ferromagnetic XXZ (S=1/2) spin model. We further discuss these transitions as condensation of interacting magnons. The development of O(2) nematic order when external fields are applied corresponds to condensation of magnons, which breaks a U(1) symmetry. Microscopically, this results from a coherent superposition of two non-nematic states at each individual site. Nematic order and spin wave excitations around critical points are studied and critical behaviors are obtained in a dilute gas approximation. We also find that spin singlet states are unstable with respect to quadratic Zeeman effects and Ising nematic order appears in the presence of any finite quadratic Zeeman coupling. All discussions are carried out for states in three dimensional bipartite lattices.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Generalized Dynamical Mean-Field Theory for Bose-Fermi Mixtures in Optical Lattices

We give a detailed discussion of the recently developed Generalized Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (GDMFT) for a mixture of bosonic and fermionic particles. We show that this method is non-perturbative and exact in infinite dimensions and reliably describes the full range from weak to strong coupling. Like in conventional Dynamical Mean-Field Theory, the small parameter is 1/z, where z is the lattice coordination number. We apply the GDMFT scheme to a mixture of spinless fermions and bosons in an optical lattice. We investigate the ossibility of a supersolid phase, focussing on the case of 1/2 filling for the fermions and 3/2 filling for the bosons.Comment: 12+ pages 6 figure

Online Meta-learning by Parallel Algorithm Competition

The efficiency of reinforcement learning algorithms depends critically on a few meta-parameters that modulates the learning updates and the trade-off between exploration and exploitation. The adaptation of the meta-parameters is an open question in reinforcement learning, which arguably has become more of an issue recently with the success of deep reinforcement learning in high-dimensional state spaces. The long learning times in domains such as Atari 2600 video games makes it not feasible to perform comprehensive searches of appropriate meta-parameter values. We propose the Online Meta-learning by Parallel Algorithm Competition (OMPAC) method. In the OMPAC method, several instances of a reinforcement learning algorithm are run in parallel with small differences in the initial values of the meta-parameters. After a fixed number of episodes, the instances are selected based on their performance in the task at hand. Before continuing the learning, Gaussian noise is added to the meta-parameters with a predefined probability. We validate the OMPAC method by improving the state-of-the-art results in stochastic SZ-Tetris and in standard Tetris with a smaller, 10$\times$10, board, by 31% and 84%, respectively, and by improving the results for deep Sarsa($\lambda$) agents in three Atari 2600 games by 62% or more. The experiments also show the ability of the OMPAC method to adapt the meta-parameters according to the learning progress in different tasks.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1702.0311

Resonant Superfluidity in an Optical Lattice

We study a system of ultracold fermionic Potassium (40K) atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice in the vicinity of an s-wave Feshbach resonance. Close to resonance, the system is described by a multi-band Bose-Fermi Hubbard Hamiltonian. We derive an effective lowest-band Hamiltonian in which the effect of the higher bands is incorporated by a self-consistent mean-field approximation. The resulting model is solved by means of Generalized Dynamical Mean-Field Theory. In addition to the BEC/BCS crossover we find a phase transition to a fermionic Mott insulator at half filling, induced by the repulsive fermionic background scattering length. We also calculate the critical temperature of the BEC/BCS-state and find it to be minimal at resonance.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

Antiferromagnetic Order of Strongly Interacting Fermions in a Trap: Real-Space Dynamical Mean-Field Analysis

We apply Dynamical Mean-Field Theory to strongly interacting fermions in an inhomogeneous environment. With the help of this Real-Space Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (R-DMFT) we investigate antiferromagnetic states of repulsively interacting fermions with spin 1/2 in a harmonic potential. Within R-DMFT, antiferromagnetic order is found to be stable in spatial regions with total particle density close to one, but persists also in parts of the system where the local density significantly deviates from half filling. In systems with spin imbalance, we find that antiferromagnetism is gradually suppressed and phase separation emerges beyond a critical value of the spin imbalance.Comment: 4 pages 5 figures, published versio