Superfluid and Mott Insulating shells of bosons in harmonically confined optical lattices

Weakly interacting atomic or molecular bosons in quantum degenerate regime and trapped in harmonically confined optical lattices, exhibit a wedding cake structure consisting of insulating (Mott) shells. It is shown that superfluid regions emerge between Mott shells as a result of fluctuations due to finite hopping. It is found that the order parameter equation in the superfluid regions is not of the Gross-Pitaeviskii type except near the insulator to superfluid boundaries. The excitation spectra in the Mott and superfluid regions are obtained, and it is shown that the superfluid shells posses low energy sound modes with spatially dependent sound velocity described by a local index of refraction directly related to the local superfluid density. Lastly, the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition and vortex-antivortex pairs are discussed in thin (wide) superfluid shells (rings) limited by three (two) dimensional Mott regions.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures

Bopp-Podolsky black holes and the no-hair theorem

Bopp-Podolsky electrodynamics is generalized to curved space-times. The equations of motion are written for the case of static spherically symmetric black holes and their exterior solutions are analyzed using Bekenstein's method. It is shown the solutions split-up into two parts, namely a non-homogeneous (asymptotically massless) regime and a homogeneous (asymptotically massive) sector which is null outside the event horizon. In addition, in the simplest approach to Bopp-Podolsky black holes, the non-homogeneous solutions are found to be Maxwell's solutions leading to a Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole. It is also demonstrated that the only exterior solution consistent with the weak and null energy conditions is the Maxwell's one. Thus, in light of energy conditions, it is concluded that only Maxwell modes propagate outside the horizon and, therefore, the no-hair theorem is satisfied in the case of Bopp-Podolsky fields in spherically symmetric space-times.Comment: 9 pages, updated to match published versio

Evolution from BCS to BKT superfluidity in one-dimensional optical lattices

We analyze the finite temperature phase diagram of fermion mixtures in one-dimensional optical lattices as a function of interaction strength. At low temperatures, the system evolves from an anisotropic three-dimensional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to an effectively two-dimensional Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) superfluid as the interaction strength increases. We calculate the critical temperature as a function of interaction strength, and identify the region where the dimensional crossover occurs for a specified optical lattice potential. Finally, we show that the dominant vortex excitations near the critical temperature evolve from multiplane elliptical vortex loops in the three-dimensional regime to planar vortex-antivortex pairs in the two-dimensional regime, and we propose a detection scheme for these excitations.Comment: 4 pages with 2 figure

Vortex-Antivortex Lattice in Ultra-Cold Fermi Gases

We discuss ultra-cold Fermi gases in two dimensions, which could be realized in a strongly confining one-dimensional optical lattice. We obtain the temperature versus effective interaction phase diagram for an s-wave superfluid and show that, below a certain critical temperature T_c, spontaneous vortex-antivortex pairs appear for all coupling strengths. In addition, we show that the evolution from weak to strong coupling is smooth, and that the system forms a square vortex-antivortex lattice at a lower critical temperature T_M.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letter