arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Michiel Snoek.
We derive the Bosonic Dynamical Mean-Field equations for bosonic atoms in optical lattices with arbitrary lattice geometry. The equations are presented as a systematic expansion in 1/z, z being the number of lattice neighbors. Hence the theory is applicable in sufficiently high dimensional lattices. We apply the method to a two-component mixture, for which a rich phase diagram with spin-order is revealed.
We study magnetic phases of two-component mixtures of ultracold fermions with repulsive interactions in optical lattices in the presence of both hopping and population imbalance by means of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). It is shown that these mixtures can have easy-axis antiferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, charge-density wave, and canted-antiferromagnetic order or be unordered depending on parameters of the system. We study the resulting phase diagram in detail and investigate the stability of the different phases with respect to thermal fluctuations. We also perform a quantitative analysis for a gas confined in a harmonic trap, both within the local density approximation and using a full real-space generalization of DMFT.
We theoretically investigate the thermodynamics of an interacting inhomogeneous two-component Fermi gas in an optical lattice. Motivated by a recent experiment by L. Hackermüller et al., Science, 327, 1621 (2010), we study the effect of the interplay between thermodynamics and strong correlations on the size of the fermionic cloud. We use dynamical mean-field theory to compute the cloud size, which in the experiment shows an anomalous expansion behavior upon increasing attractive interaction. We confirm this qualitative effect but, assuming adiabaticity, we find quantitative agreement only for weak interactions. For strong interactions we observe significant non-equilibrium effects which we attribute to a dynamical arrest of the particles due to increasing correlations.
We analyze the collective modes of a harmonically trapped, strongly interacting Bose gas in an optical lattice in the vicinity of the Mott insulator transition. For that aim we employ the dynamical Gutzwiller equations, by performing real-time evolution and by solving the equations in linear response. We find a strong dependence on the spatial dimension of the system: while in one dimension the frequency of the dipole mode vanishes at the Mott transition, in higher dimensions the dominant dipole mode is featureless and we find a signature only in the breathing mode. We discuss implications for experiments with bosonic and fermionic atoms.
We provide a rigorous derivation of Gutzwiller mean-field dynamics for lattice bosons, showing that it is exact on fully connected lattices. We apply this formalism to quenches in the interaction parameter from the Mott insulator to the superfluid state. Although within mean-field the Mott insulator is a steady state, we show that a dynamical critical interaction $U_d$ exists, such that for final interaction parameter $U_f>U_d$ the Mott insulator is exponentially unstable towards emerging long-range superfluid order, whereas for $U_f<U_d$ the Mott insulating state is stable. We discuss the implications of this prediction for finite-dimensional systems.
We investigate a Bose-Fermi mixture in a three-dimensional optical lattice, trapped in a harmonic potential. Using Generalized Dynamical Mean-Field theory, which treats the Bose-Bose and Bose-Fermi interaction in a fully non-perturbative way, we show that for experimentally relevant parameters a peak in the condensate fraction close to the point of vanishing Bose-Fermi interaction is reproduced within a single band framework. We identify two physical mechanisms contributing to this effect: the spatial redistribution of particles when the interspecies interaction is changed and the reduced phase space for strong interactions, which results in a higher temperature at fixed entropy.
We investigate antiferromagnetic order of repulsively interacting fermionic atoms in an optical lattice by means of Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (DMFT). Special attention is paid to the case of an imbalanced mixture. We take into account the presence of an underlying harmonic trap, both in a local density approximation and by performing full Real-Space DMFT calculations. We consider the case that the particle density in the trap center is at half filling, leading to an antiferromagnetic region in the center, surrounded by a Fermi liquid region at the edge. In the case of an imbalanced mixture, the antiferromagnetism is directed perpendicular to the ferromagnetic polarization and canted. We pay special attention to the boundary structure between the antiferromagnetic and the Fermi liquid phase. For the moderately strong interactions considered here, no Stoner instability toward a ferromagnetic phase is found. Phase separation is only observed for strong imbalance and sufficiently large repulsion.
We investigate a bosonic quantum gas consisting of two interacting species in an optical lattice at zero and finite temperature. The equilibrium properties and dynamics of this system are obtained by means of the Gutzwiller mean-field method. In particular we model recent experiments where the ramp-up of the optical lattice occurs on a time scale comparable to the tunneling time of the bosons. We demonstrate the violation of adiabaticity of this process with respect to the many-body quantum states, and reproduce and explain the oscillations of the visibility as a function of ramp-up time, as seen in experiments.
We consider ultracold matter of spin-2 atoms in optical lattices. We derive an effective Hamiltonian for the studies of spin ordering in Mott states and investigate hyperfine spin correlations. Particularly, we diagonalize the Hamiltonian in an on-site Hilbert space taking into account spin-dependent interactions and exchange between different sites. We obtain phase diagrams and quantum phase transitions between various magnetic phases.
We analyze the dynamics of ultracold atoms in optical lattices induced by a sudden shift of the underlying harmonic trapping potential. In order to study the effect of strong interactions, dimensionality and lattice topology on transport properties, we consider bosonic atoms with arbitrarily strong repulsive interactions, on a two-dimensional square lattice and a hexagonal lattice. On the square lattice we find insulating behavior for weakly interacting atoms and slow relaxation for strong interactions, even when a Mott plateau is present, which in one dimension blocks the dynamics. On the hexagonal lattice the center of mass relaxes to the new equilibrium for any interaction strength.
The combination of a vortex line in a one-dimensional optical lattice with fermions bound to the vortex core makes up an ultracold superstring. We give a detailed derivation of the way to make this supersymmetric string in the laboratory. In particular, we discuss the presence of a fermionic bound state in the vortex core and the tuning of the laser beams needed to achieve supersymmetry. Moreover, we discuss experimental consequences of supersymmetry and identify the precise supersymmetry in the problem. Finally, we make the mathematical connection with string theory.
We investigate quantum and temperature fluctuations of a vortex lattice in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We discuss in particular the Bloch bands of the Tkachenko modes and calculate the correlation function of the vortex positions along the direction of the optical lattice. Because of the small number of particles in the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates at every site of the optical lattice, finite-size effects become very important. Moreover, the fluctuations in the vortex positions are inhomogeneous due to the inhomogeneous density. As a result, the melting of the lattice occurs from the outside inwards. However, tunneling between neighboring pancakes substantially reduces the inhomogeneity as well as the size of the fluctuations. On the other hand, nonzero temperatures increase the size of the fluctuations dramatically. We calculate the crossover temperature from quantum melting to classical melting. We also investigate melting in the presence of a quartic radial potential, where a liquid can form in the center instead of at the outer edge of the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates.
We investigate quantum fluctuations of a vortex lattice in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Our method gives full access to all the modes of the vortex lattice and we discuss in particular the Bloch bands of the Tkachenko modes. Because of the small number of particles in the pancake Bose-Einstein condensates at every site of the optical lattice, finite-size effects become very important. Therefore, the fluctuations in the vortex positions are inhomogeneous and the melting of the lattice occurs from the outside inwards. Tunneling between neighbouring pancakes substantially reduces the inhomogeneity as well as the size of the fluctuations.
We propose a setup with ultracold atomic gases that can be used to make a nonrelativistic superstring in four spacetime dimensions. In particular, we consider for the creation of the superstring a fermionic atomic gas that is trapped in the core of a vortex in a Bose-Einstein condensate. We explain the required tuning of experimental parameters to achieve supersymmetry between the fermionic atoms and the bosonic modes describing the oscillations in the vortex position. Furthermore, we discuss the experimental consequences of supersymmetry.
We present microscopic wave functions of spin singlet Mott insulating states and nematic Mott insulating states. We also investigate quantum phase transitions between the spin singlet Mott phase and the nematic Mott phase in both large-N limit and small-N limit (N being the number of particles per site) in high dimensional bipartite lattices. In the mean field approximation employed in this article we find that phase transitions are generally weakly first order.
We have investigated spin singlet Mott states of spin-one bosons with antiferromagnetic interactions. These spin singlet states do not break rotational symmetry and exhibit remarkably different macroscopic properties compared with nematic Mott states of spin-one bosons. We demonstrate that the dynamics of spin singlet Mott states is fully characterized by even- and odd-class quantum dimer models. The difference between spin singlet Mott states for even and odd numbers of atoms per site can be attributed to a selection rule in the low energy sectors of on-site Hilbert spaces; alternatively, it can also be attributed to an effect of Berry's phases on bosonic Mott states. We also discuss evidence for spin singlet quantum condensate of spin-one atoms. Our main finding is that in a projected spin singlet Hilbert space, the low energy physics of spin-one bosons is fully characterized by a Bose-Hubbard model of interacting spinless bosons carrying charges of Ising gauge fields; the other major finding is spin-charge separation in some one-dimensional Mott states. We propose charge-e spin singlet superfluid for an odd number of atoms per lattice site and charge-2e spin singlet superfluid for an even number of atoms per lattice site in one-dimensional lattices. All discussions in this article are limited to integer numbers of bosons per site.