BCS-BEC crossover in bilayers of cold fermionic polar molecules

We investigate the quantum and thermal phase diagram of fermionic polar molecules loaded in a bilayer trapping potential with perpendicular dipole moment. We use both a BCS-theory approach that is most reliable at weak coupling and a strong-coupling approach that considers the two-body bound dimer states with one molecule in each layer as the relevant degree of freedom. The system ground state is a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of dimer bound states in the low-density limit and a paired superfluid (BCS) state in the high-density limit. At zero temperature, the intralayer repulsion is found to broaden the regime of BCS-BEC crossover and can potentially induce system collapse through the softening of roton excitations. The BCS theory and the strongly coupled dimer picture yield similar predictions for the parameters of the crossover regime. The Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature of the dimer superfluid is also calculated. The crossover can be driven by many-body effects and is strongly affected by the intralayer interaction which was ignored in previous studies

A Mott Glass to Superfluid Transition for Random Bosons in Two Dimensions

We study the zero temperature superfluid-insulator transition for a two-dimensional model of interacting, lattice bosons in the presence of quenched disorder and particle-hole symmetry. We follow the approach of a recent series of papers by Altman, Kafri, Polkovnikov, and Refael, in which the strong disorder renormalization group is used to study disordered bosons in one dimension. Adapting this method to two dimensions, we study several different species of disorder and uncover universal features of the superfluid-insulator transition. In particular, we locate an unstable finite disorder fixed point that governs the transition between the superfluid and a gapless, glassy insulator. We present numerical evidence that this glassy phase is the incompressible Mott glass and that the transition from this phase to the superfluid is driven by percolation-type process. Finally, we provide estimates of the critical exponents governing this transition.Comment: (24 pages + 7 page appendix, 28 figures) This version has been accepted to PRB. We have acquired new data that resolves the contradiction between two estimates of the critical exponents in the earlier version of the pape

Relaxation of Fermionic Excitations in a Strongly Attractive Fermi Gas in an Optical Lattice

We theoretically study the relaxation of high energy single particle excitations into molecules in a system of attractive fermions in an optical lattice, both in the superfluid and the normal phase. In a system characterized by an interaction scale $U$ and a tunneling rate $t$, we show that the relaxation rate scales as $\sim Ct\exp(-\alpha U^2/t^2)$ in the large $U/t$ limit. We obtain explicit expressions for the exponent $\alpha$, both in the low temperature superfluid phase and the high temperature phase with pairing but no coherence between the molecules. We find that the relaxation rate decreases both with temperature and deviation of the fermion density from half-filling. We show that quasiparticle and phase degrees of freedom are effectively decoupled within experimental timescales allowing for observation of ordered states even at high total energy of the system.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Modulation Spectroscopy and Dynamics of Double Occupancies in a Fermionic Mott Insulator

We calculate the rate of creation of double occupancies in a 3D Fermionic Mott insulator near half-filling by modulation of optical lattice potential. At high temperatures, incoherent holes lead to a broad response peaked at the Hubbard repulsion $U$. At low temperatures, antiferromagnetic order leads to a coherent peak for the hole along with broad features representing spin wave shake-off processes. This is manifested in the doublon creation rate as a sharp absorption edge and oscillations as a function of modulating frequency. Thus, modulation spectroscopy can be used as a probe of antiferromagnetic order and nature of quasiparticle excitations in the system.Comment: 4 pages 2 figure

Nanosegregation in Na2C60

There is continuous interest in the nature of alkali metal fullerides containing C(4)(60) and C(2)(60), because these compounds are believed to be nonmagnetic Mott–Jahn–Teller insulators. This idea could be verified in the case of A(4)C(60), but Na(2)C(60) is more controversial. By comparing the results of infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, we found that Na(2)C(60) is segregated into 3-10 nm large regions. The two main phases of the material are insulating C(60) and metallic Na(3)C(60). We found by neutron scattering that the diffusion of sodium ions becomes faster on heating. Above 470 K Na(2)C(60) is homogeneous and we show IR spectroscopic evidence of a Jahn–Teller distorted C(2)(60) anion

Signatures of the superfluid to Mott insulator transition in equilibrium and in dynamical ramps

We investigate the equilibrium and dynamical properties of the Bose-Hubbard model and the related particle-hole symmetric spin-1 model in the vicinity of the superfluid to Mott insulator quantum phase transition. We employ the following methods: exact-diagonalization, mean field (Gutzwiller), cluster mean-field, and mean-field plus Gaussian fluctuations. In the first part of the paper we benchmark the four methods by analyzing the equilibrium problem and give numerical estimates for observables such as the density of double occupancies and their correlation function. In the second part, we study parametric ramps from the superfluid to the Mott insulator and map out the crossover from the regime of fast ramps, which is dominated by local physics, to the regime of slow ramps with a characteristic universal power law scaling, which is dominated by long wavelength excitations. We calculate values of several relevant physical observables, characteristic time scales, and an optimal protocol needed for observing universal scaling.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figure

Majorana Fermions in Equilibrium and Driven Cold Atom Quantum Wires

We introduce a new approach to create and detect Majorana fermions using optically trapped 1D fermionic atoms. In our proposed setup, two internal states of the atoms couple via an optical Raman transition---simultaneously inducing an effective spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field---while a background molecular BEC cloud generates s-wave pairing for the atoms. The resulting cold atom quantum wire supports Majorana fermions at phase boundaries between topologically trivial and nontrivial regions, as well as `Floquet Majorana fermions' when the system is periodically driven. We analyze experimental parameters, detection schemes, and various imperfections.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; references adde

Structure and properties of the stable two-dimensional conducting polymer Mg5C60

We present a study on the structural, spectroscopic, conducting, and magnetic properties of Mg5C60, which is a two-dimensional (2D) fulleride polymer. The polymer phase is stable up to the exceptionally high temperature of 823 K. The infrared and Raman studies suggest the formation of single bonds between the fulleride ions and possibly Mg-C-60 covalent bonds. Mg5C60 is a metal at ambient temperature, as shown by electron spin resonance and microwave conductivity measurements. The smooth transition from a metallic to a paramagnetic insulator state below 200 K is attributed to Anderson localization driven by structural disorder