Ji-Woo Lee

Quantum Phase Transitions of Hard-Core Bosons in Background Potentials

We study the zero temperature phase diagram of hard-core bosons in two dimensions subjected to three types of background potentials: staggered, uniform, and random. In all three cases there is a quantum phase transition from a superfluid (at small potential) to a normal phase (at large potential), but with different universality classes. As expected, the staggered case belongs to the XY universality, while the uniform potential induces a mean field transition. The disorder driven transition is clearly different from both; in particular, we find z approximately 1.4, nu approximately 1, and beta approximately 0.6.

Separation of two regimes in a disordered boson Hubbard model

We study the insulator-to-superfluid transition in a two-dimensional disordered boson Hubbard model at zero temperature for intermediate strength of disorder at commensurate density. Via Monte Carlo calculations of the correlation functions in the integer current representation of the model, we obtain the dynamical critical exponent

Quantum Monte Carlo study of disordered fermions

z=1.5 \pm 0.1

POSSIBILITY OF DIRECT MOTT INSULATOR-TO-SUPERFLUID TRANSITIONS IN WEAKLY DISORDERED BOSON SYSTEMS

, supporting the multi-critical behavior separating the strong and weak disorder regimes. Investigating the density profile, we suggest that the density fluctuations due to the particle-hole excitations drive the transition in the weak disorder regime.

Momentum distribution of the hard-core extended boson Hubbard model in one dimension

We study a strongly correlated fermionic model with attractive interactions in the presence of disorder in two spatial dimensions. Our model has been designed so that it can be solved using the recently discovered meron-cluster approach. Although the model is unconventional it has the same symmetries of the Hubbard model. Since the naive algorithm is inefficient, we develop a new algorithm by combining the meron-cluster technique with the directed-loop update. This combination allows us to compute the pair susceptibility and the winding number susceptibility accurately. We find that the s-wave superconductivity, present in the clean model, does not disappear until the disorder reaches a temperature dependent critical strength. The critical behavior as a function of disorder close to the phase transition belongs to the Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless universality class as expected. The fermionic degrees of freedom, although present, do not appear to play an important role near the phase transition.