arXiv subjects

Stefano Giorgini

Publications and source records attributed to Stefano Giorgini.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Supersolid phase in two-dimensional soft-core bosons at finite temperature

The supersolid phase of soft-core bosons in two dimensions is investigated using the self-consistent Hartree-Fock and quantum Monte Carlo methods. An approximate phase diagram at finite temperatures is initially constructed using the mean-field approach, which is subsequently validated through precise path-integral simulations, enabling a microscopic characterization of the various phases. Superfluid and melting/freezing transitions are analyzed through the superfluid density and the long-range behavior of correlation functions associated with positional and orientational order, in accordance with the general picture of Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions. A broad region at low temperatures is identified where the supersolid phase exists, separating the uniform superfluid phase from the normal quasi-crystal phase. Additionally, a potential intermediate hexatic phase with quasi long-range orientational order is identified in a narrow region between the normal solid and fluid phases. These findings establish self-consistent Hartree-Fock theory beyond the local density approximation as an effective tool, complementary to computationally intensive quantum Monte Carlo simulations, for investigating the melting of the supersolid phase and the possible emergence of the hexatic superfluid phase in bosonic systems with various interaction potentials.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Quantum droplets in two-dimensional Bose mixtures at finite temperature

We investigate the formation of quantum droplets at finite temperature in attractive Bose mixtures subject to a strong transverse harmonic confinement. By means of exact path-integral Monte Carlo methods we determine the equilibrium density of the gas and the liquid as well as the pressure vs. volume dependence along isothermal curves. Results for the equation of state and for the gas-liquid coexistence region in quasi-2D configurations are compared with calculations in strictly two dimensions, finding excellent agreement. Within the pure 2D model we explore the relevance of the quantum scale anomaly and we determine the critical interaction strength for the occurrence of the first-order gas to liquid transition. Furthermore, we find that the superfluid response develops suddenly, following the density jump from the gas to the liquid state.

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arXiv2024

Superfluidity and sound propagation in disordered Bose gases

Superfluidity describes the ability of quantum matter to flow without friction. Due to its fundamental role in many transport phenomena, it is crucial to understand the robustness of superfluid properties to external perturbations. Here, we theoretically study the effects of speckle disorder on the propagation of sound waves in a two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature. We numerically solve the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the presence of disorder and employ a superfluid hydrodynamic approach to elucidate the role of the compressibility and superfluid fraction on the propagation of sound. A key result is that disorder reduces the superfluid fraction and hence the speed of sound; it also introduces damping and mode coupling. In the limit of weak disorder, the predictions for the speed of sound and its damping rate are well reproduced by a quadratic perturbation theory. The hydrodynamic description is valid over a wide range of parameters, while discrepancies become evident if the disorder becomes too strong, the effect being more significant for disorder applied in only one spatial direction. Our predictions are well within the reach of state-of-the-art cold-atom experiments and carry over to more general disorder potentials.

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arXiv2023

Attractive Solution of Binary Bose Mixtures: Liquid-Vapor Coexistence and Critical Point

We study the thermodynamic behavior of attractive binary Bose mixtures using exact path-integral Monte-Carlo methods. Our focus is on the regime of interspecies interactions where the ground state is in a self-bound liquid phase, stabilized by beyond mean-field effects. We calculate the isothermal curves in the pressure vs density plane for different values of the attraction strength and establish the extent of the coexistence region between liquid and vapor using the Maxwell construction. Notably, within the coexistence region, Bose-Einstein condensation occurs in a discontinuous way as the density jumps from the normal gas to the superfluid liquid phase. Furthermore, we determine the critical point where the line of first-order transition ends and investigate the behavior of the density discontinuity in its vicinity. We also point out that the density discontinuity at the transition could be observed in experiments of mixtures in traps.

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arXiv2023

Thermal-induced Local Imbalance in Repulsive Binary Bose Mixtures

We study repulsive two-component Bose mixtures with equal populations and confined in a finite-size box through path-integral Monte Carlo simulations. For different values of the $s$-wave scattering length of the interspecies potential, we calculate the local population imbalance in a region of fixed volume inside the box at different temperatures. We find two different behaviors: for phase-separated states at $T=0$, thermal effects induce a diffusion process which reduces the local imbalance whereas, for miscible states at $T=0$, a maximum in the local population imbalance appears at a certain temperature, below the critical one. We show that this intriguing behavior is strongly related to the bunching effect associated with the Bose-Einstein statistics of the particles in the mixture and to an unexpected behavior of the cross pair distribution function not reported before.

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arXiv2022

Thermodynamics of a dilute Bose gas: A path-integral Monte Carlo study

We present precise path-integral Monte-Carlo results for the thermodynamics of a homogeneous dilute Bose gas. Pressure and energy are calculated as a function of temperature both below and above the Bose-Einstein transition. Specifically, we address interaction effects, focusing on deviations from the ideal gas law in the thermodynamic limit. We also calculate the isothermal compressibility and the contact parameter, which provide a clear signature of the role played by interactions. In particular, we show that the compressibility exhibits a discontinuity at the transition point. To gain physical insight, numerical results are systematically compared with the predictions of first-order Hartree-Fock and second-order Popov theories, both giving an approximate description of the gas thermodynamics. The comparison shows the extension of the critical region around the transition point, where the inaccuracies of the perturbative expansions are more pronounced.

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arXiv2020

Thermodynamics of dilute Bose gases: Beyond mean-field theory for binary mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensate

We study the thermodynamic properties of binary Bose mixtures, by developing a beyond mean-field Popov theory which properly includes the effects of quantum and thermal fluctuations in both the density and spin channels. Results for key thermodynamic quantities, such as the isothermal compressibility and the magnetic susceptibility, are derived from a perturbative calculation of the grand-canonical potential. We find that thermal fluctuations can play a crucial role on the miscibility condition of a binary mixture, favoring phase separation at finite temperature even if the mixture is soluble at zero temperature, as already anticipated in a previous work [Ota et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 075301 (2019)]. We further investigate the miscibility condition for binary mixtures in the presence of asymmetry in the intra-species interactions, as well as in the masses of the two components. Furthermore, we discuss the superfluid behavior of the mixture and the temperature dependence of the Andreev-Bashkin effect.

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arXiv2020

Quantum droplets in one-dimensional Bose mixtures: a quantum Monte-Carlo study

We use exact Quantum Monte Carlo techniques to study the properties of quantum droplets in two-component bosonic mixtures with contact interactions in one spatial dimension. We systematically study the surface tension, the density profile and the breathing mode as a function of the number of particles in the droplet and of the ratio of coupling strengths between intra-species repulsion and inter-species attraction. We find that deviations from the predictions of the generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation are small in most cases of interest.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Magnetic phase transition in a mixture of two interacting Bose gases at finite temperature

The miscibility condition for a binary mixture of two interacting Bose-Einstein condensates is shown to be deeply affected by interaction driven thermal fluctuations. These give rise to a first order phase transition to a demixed phase with full spatial separation of the two condensates, even if the mixture is miscible at zero temperature. Explicit predictions for the isothermal compressibility, the spin susceptibility, and the phase transition temperature $T_M$ are obtained in the framework of Popov theory, which properly includes beyond mean-field quantum and thermal fluctuations in both the spin and density channels. For a mixture of two sodium condensates occupying the hyperfine states $\lvert F=1, m_F=1 \rangle$ and $\lvert F=1, m_F=-1 \rangle$ respectively, $T_M$ is predicted to occur at about $0.7$ times the usual BEC critical temperature.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Two-dimensional repulsive Fermi polarons with short and long-range interactions

We study the repulsive polaron problem in a two-component two-dimensional system of fermionic atoms. We use two different interaction models: a short-range (hard-disk) potential and a dipolar potential. In our approach, all the atoms have the same mass and we consider the system to be composed of a uniform bath of a single species and a single atomic impurity. We use the diffusion Monte Carlo method to evaluate polaron properties such as its chemical potential and pair distribution functions, together with a discussion on the deficit of volume induced by the impurity. We also evaluate observables that allow us to determine the validity of the quasi-particle picture: the quasi-particle residue and the effective mass of the polaron. Employing two different potentials allows us to identify the universality regime, where the properties depend only on the gas parameter $n a_s^2$ fixed by the bath density and the two-dimensional scattering length.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Two-dimensional Mixture of Dipolar Fermions: Equation of State and Magnetic Phases

We study a two-component mixture of fermionic dipoles in two dimensions at zero temperature, interacting via a purely repulsive $1/r^3$ potential. This model can be realized with ultracold atoms or molecules, when their dipole moments are aligned in the confinement direction orthogonal to the plane. We characterize the unpolarized mixture by means of the Diffusion Monte Carlo technique. Computing the equation of state, we identify the regime of validity for a mean-field theory based on a low-density expansion and compare our results with the hard-disk model of repulsive fermions. At high density, we address the possibility of itinerant ferromagnetism, namely whether the ground state can be fully polarized in the fluid phase. Within the fixed-node approximation, we show that the accuracy of Jastrow-Slater trial wave functions, even with the typical two-body backflow correction, is not sufficient to resolve the relevant energy differences. By making use of the iterative-backflow improved trial wave functions, we observe no signature of a fully-polarized ground state up to the freezing density.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2018

Spin dynamics and Andreev-Bashkin effect in mixtures of one-dimensional Bose gases

We investigate the propagation of spin waves in two-component mixtures of one-dimensional Bose gases interacting through repulsive contact potentials. By using quantum Monte Carlo methods we calculate static ground-state properties, such as the spin susceptibility and the spin structure factor, as a function of both the intra-species and inter-species coupling strength and we determine the critical parameters for phase separation. In homogeneous mixtures, results of the velocity of spin waves and of its softening close to the critical point of phase separation are obtained by means of a sum-rule approach. We quantify the non-dissipative drag effect, resulting from the Andreev-Bashkin current-current interaction between the two components of the gas, and we show that in the regime of strong coupling it causes a significant suppression of the spin-wave velocity.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Quantum Monte-Carlo study of the Bose polaron problem in a one-dimensional gas with contact interactions

We present a theoretical study based upon quantum Monte Carlo methods of the Bose polaron in one-dimensional systems with contact interactions. In this instance of the problem of a single impurity immersed in a quantum bath, the medium is a Lieb-Liniger gas of bosons ranging from the weakly interacting to the Tonks-Girardeau regime, whereas the impurity is coupled to the bath via a different contact potential producing both repulsive and attractive interactions. Both the case of a mobile impurity, having the same mass as the particles in the medium, and of a static impurity with infinite mass are considered. We make use of exact numerical techniques that allow us to calculate the ground-state energy of the impurity, its effective mass as well as the contact parameter between the impurity and the bath. These quantities are investigated as a function of the strength of interactions between the impurity and the bath and within the bath. In particular, we find that the effective mass rapidly increases to very large values when the impurity gets strongly coupled to an otherwise weakly repulsive bath. This heavy impurity hardly moves within the medium, thereby realizing the "self-localization" regime of the Landau-Pekar polaron. Furthermore, we compare our results with predictions of perturbation theory valid for weak interactions and with exact solutions available when the bosons in the medium behave as impenetrable particles.

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arXiv2015

Variational Monte Carlo study of soliton excitations in hard-sphere Bose gases

By using a full many-body approach, we calculate the excitation energy, the effective mass and the density profile of soliton states in a three dimensional Bose gas of hard spheres at zero temperature. The many-body wave function used to describe the soliton contains a one-body term, derived from the solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, and a two-body Jastrow term which accounts for the repulsive correlations between atoms. We optimize the parameters in the many-body wave function via a Variational Monte Carlo procedure, calculating the grand-canonical energy and the canonical momentum of the system in a moving reference frame where the soliton is stationary. As the density of the gas is increased, significant deviations from the mean-field predictions are found for the excitation energy and the density profile of both dark and grey solitons. In particular, the soliton effective mass $m^\ast$ and the mass $mΔN$ of missing particles in the region of the density depression are smaller than the result from the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, their ratio being however well reproduced by this theory up to large values of the gas parameter. We also calculate the profile of the condensate density around the soliton notch finding good agreement with the prediction of the local density approximation.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo study of the BCS-BEC crossover in a bilayer system of fermionic dipoles

We investigate the BCS-BEC crossover in a bilayer system of fermionic dipoles at zero temperature using the fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo technique. The dipoles are confined on two parallel planes separated by a distance $λ$ and are aligned perpendicular to the planes by an external field. The interlayer pairing, which is responsible for the superfluid behavior of the system, crosses from a weak to a strong-coupling regime by reducing the separation distance $λ$. For a fixed in-plane density, equal in the two layers, we calculate the ground-state energy, the chemical potential, the pairing gap and the quasiparticle dispersion as a function of the interlayer separation. At large $λ$ one recovers the ground-state energy of a single layer of fermions and at small $λ$ the one of a single layer of composite bosons with twice the particle mass and the dipole moment. The superfluid gap varies instead from the exponentially small BCS result to half of the large two-body binding energy in the BEC regime of strong interlayer pairing. Results are compared with the predictions of the simplest mean-field theory valid in the low-density limit and deviations are observed both in the BCS regime, where in-plane repulsions are important, and in the BEC regime where the mean-field approach fails to describe the physics of composite dipolar bosons.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

The impurity problem in a bilayer system of dipoles

We consider a bilayer geometry where a single impurity moves in a two-dimensional plane and is coupled, via dipolar interactions, to a two-dimensional system of fermions residing in the second layer. Dipoles in both layers point in the same direction oriented by an external field perpendicular to the plane of motion. We use quantum Monte Carlo methods to calculate the binding energy and the effective mass of the impurity at zero temperature as a function of the distance between layers as well as of the in-plane interaction strength. In the regime where the fermionic dipoles form a Wigner crystal, the physics of the impurity can be described in terms of a polaron coupled to the bath of lattice phonons. By reducing the distance between layers this polaron exhibits a crossover from a free-moving to a tightly-bound regime where its effective mass is orders of magnitude larger than the bare mass.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Quantum Monte Carlo study of the dynamic structure factor in the gas and crystal phase of hard-sphere bosons

We investigate the dynamic structure factor of a system of Bose particles at zero temperature using quantum Monte Carlo methods. Interactions are modeled using a hard-sphere potential of size $a$ and simulations are performed for values of the gas parameter $na^3$ ranging from the dilute regime up to densities $n$ where the thermodynamically stable phase is a solid. With increasing density we observe a crossover of the dispersion of elementary excitations from a Bogoliubov-like spectrum to a phonon--maxon--roton curve and the emergence of a broad multiphonon contribution accompanying the single-quasiparticle peak. In particular, for $na^3=0.2138$, which corresponds to superfluid $^4$He at equilibrium density, the extracted spectrum turns out to be in good agreement with the experimental energy--momentum dispersion relation in the roton region and for higher momenta. The behavior of the spectral function at the same density in the stable solid and metastable gas phase above the freezing point is also discussed.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Fermi-Liquid Behavior of the Normal Phase of a Strongly Interacting Gas of Cold Atoms

We measure the magnetic susceptibility of a Fermi gas with tunable interactions in the low-temperature limit and compare it to quantum Monte Carlo calculations. Experiment and theory are in excellent agreement and fully compatible with the Landau theory of Fermi liquids. We show that these measure- ments shed new light on the nature of the excitations of the normal phase of a strongly interacting Fermi gas.

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