Quantum glass of interacting bosons with off-diagonal disorder

Abstract

We study disordered interacting bosons described by the Bose-Hubbard model with Gaussian-distributed random tunneling amplitudes. It is shown that the off-diagonal disorder induces a spin-glass-like ground state, characterized by randomly frozen quantum-mechanical U(1) phases of bosons. To access criticality, we employ the "$n$-replica trick", as in the spin-glass theory, and the Trotter-Suzuki method for decomposition of the statistical density operator, along with numerical calculations. The interplay between disorder, quantum and thermal fluctuations leads to phase diagrams exhibiting a glassy state of bosons, which are studied as a function of model parameters. The considered system may be relevant for quantum simulators of optical-lattice bosons, where the randomness can be introduced in a controlled way. The latter is supported by a proposition of experimental realization of the system in question.