Absence of a Direct Superfluid to Mott Insulator Transition in Disordered Bose Systems

We prove the absence of a direct quantum phase transition between a superfluid and a Mott insulator in a bosonic system with generic, bounded disorder. We also prove compressibility of the system on the superfluid--insulator critical line and in its neighborhood. These conclusions follow from a general {\it theorem of inclusions} which states that for any transition in a disordered system one can always find rare regions of the competing phase on either side of the transition line. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the disordered Bose-Hubbard model show an even stronger result, important for the nature of the Mott insulator to Bose glass phase transition: The critical disorder bound, $\Delta_c$, corresponding to the onset of disorder-induced superfluidity, satisfies the relation $\Delta_c > E_{\rm g/2}$, with $E_{\rm g/2}$ the half-width of the Mott gap in the pure system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; replaced with resubmitted versio

Measuring the equation of state of trapped ultracold bosonic systems in an optical lattice with in-situ density imaging

We analyze quantitatively how imaging techniques with single-site resolution allow to measure thermodynamical properties that cannot be inferred from time-of-light images for the trapped Bose-Hubbard model. If the normal state extends over a sufficiently large range, the chemical potential and the temperature can be extracted from a single shot, provided the sample is in thermodynamic equilibrium. When the normal state is too narrow, temperature is low but can still be extracted using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem over the entire trap range as long as the local density approximation remains valid, as was recently suggested by Qi Zhou and Tin-Lun Ho [arXiv:0908.3015]. However, for typical present-day experiments, the number of samples needed is of the order of 1000 in order to get the temperature at least $10 \%$ accurate, but it is possible to reduce the variance by 2 orders of magnitude if the density-density correlation length is short, which is the case for the Bose-Hubbard model. Our results provide further evidence that cold gases in an optical lattices can be viewed as quantum analog computers.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Relaxation and thermalization in the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model: A case study for the interaction quantum quench from the atomic limit

Motivated by recent experiments, we study the relaxation dynamics and thermalization in the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model induced by a global interaction quench. Specifically, we start from an initial state that has exactly one boson per site and is the ground state of a system with infinitely strong repulsive interactions at unit filling. Using exact diagonalization and the density matrix renormalization group method, we compute the time dependence of such observables as the multiple occupancy and the momentum distribution function. Typically, the relaxation to stationary values occurs over just a few tunneling times. The stationary values are identical to the so-called diagonal ensemble on the system sizes accessible to our numerical methods and we further observe that the micro-canonical ensemble describes the steady state of many observables reasonably well for small and intermediate interaction strength. The expectation values of observables in the canonical ensemble agree quantitatively with the time averages obtained from the quench at small interaction strengths, and qualitatively provide a good description of steady-state values even in parameter regimes where the micro-canonical ensemble is not applicable due to finite-size effects. We discuss our numerical results in the framework of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. Moreover, we also observe that the diagonal and the canonical ensemble are practically identical for our initial conditions already on the level of their respective energy distributions for small interaction strengths. Finally, we discuss implications of our results for the interpretation of a recent sudden expansion experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 205301 (2013)], in which the same interaction quench was realized.Comment: 19 pages, 22 figure

Dynamical critical exponent of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model

An array of high-Q electromagnetic resonators coupled to qubits gives rise to the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model describing a superfluid to Mott insulator transition of lattice polaritons. From mean-field and strong coupling expansions, the critical properties of the model are expected to be identical to the scalar Bose-Hubbard model. A recent Monte Carlo study of the superfluid density on the square lattice suggested that this does not hold for the fixed-density transition through the Mott lobe tip. Instead, mean-field behavior with a dynamical critical exponent z=2 was found. We perform large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the critical behavior of the superfluid density and the compressibility. We find z=1 at the tip of the insulating lobe. Hence the transition falls in the 3D XY universality class, analogous to the Bose-Hubbard model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. To appear as a Rapid Communication in Phys. Rev.

Comment on "Direct Mapping of the Finite Temperature Phase Diagram of Strongly Correlated Quantum Models" by Q. Zhou, Y. Kato, N. Kawashima, and N. Trivedi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 085701 (2009)

In their Letter, Zhou, Kato, Kawashima, and Trivedi claim that finite-temperature critical points of strongly correlated quantum models emulated by optical lattice experiments can generically be deduced from kinks in the derivative of the density profile of atoms in the trap with respect to the external potential, $\kappa = -dn(r)/dV(r)$. In this comment we demonstrate that the authors failed to achieve their goal: to show that under realistic experimental conditions critical densities $n_c(T,U)$ can be extracted from density profiles with controllable accuracy.Comment: 1 page, 1 figur

Criticality in Trapped Atomic Systems

We discuss generic limits posed by the trap in atomic systems on the accurate determination of critical parameters for second-order phase transitions, from which we deduce optimal protocols to extract them. We show that under current experimental conditions the in-situ density profiles are barely suitable for an accurate study of critical points in the strongly correlated regime. Contrary to recent claims, the proper analysis of time-of-fight images yields critical parameters accurately.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; added reference

Consequences of the Pauli exclusion principle for the Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms and excitons

The bosonic atoms used in present day experiments on Bose-Einstein condensation are made up of fermionic electrons and nucleons. In this Letter we demonstrate how the Pauli exclusion principle for these constituents puts an upper limit on the Bose-Einstein-condensed fraction. Detailed numerical results are presented for hydrogen atoms in a cubic volume and for excitons in semiconductors and semiconductor bilayer systems. The resulting condensate depletion scales differently from what one expects for bosons with a repulsive hard-core interaction. At high densities, Pauli exclusion results in significantly more condensate depletion. These results also shed a new light on the low condensed fraction in liquid helium II.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revised version, now includes a direct comparison with hard-sphere QMC results, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Disorder-induced superfluidity

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the phase diagram of hard-core bosons with short-ranged {\it attractive} interactions, in the presence of uniform diagonal disorder. It is shown that moderate disorder stabilizes a glassy superfluid phase in a range of values of the attractive interaction for which the system is a Mott insulator, in the absence of disorder. A transition to an insulating Bose glass phase occurs as the strength of the disorder or interactions increases.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Discerning Incompressible and Compressible Phases of Cold Atoms in Optical Lattices

Experiments with cold atoms trapped in optical lattices offer the potential to realize a variety of novel phases but suffer from severe spatial inhomogeneity that can obscure signatures of new phases of matter and phase boundaries. We use a high temperature series expansion to show that compressibility in the core of a trapped Fermi-Hubbard system is related to measurements of changes in double occupancy. This core compressibility filters out edge effects, offering a direct probe of compressibility independent of inhomogeneity. A comparison with experiments is made