Mateusz Łącki

Quantum Hall physics with cold atoms in cylindrical optical lattices

We propose and study various realizations of a Hofstadter-Hubbard model on a cylinder geometry with fermionic cold atoms in optical lattices. The cylindrical optical lattice is created by copropagating Laguerre-Gauss beams, i.e.~light beams carrying orbital angular momentum. By strong focusing of the light beams we create a real space optical lattice in the form of rings, which are offset in energy. A second set of Laguerre-Gauss beams then induces a Raman-hopping between these rings, imprinting phases corresponding to a synthetic magnetic field (artificial gauge field). In addition, by rotating the lattice potential, we achieve a slowly varying flux through the hole of the cylinder, which allows us to probe the Hall response of the system as a realization of Laughlins thought experiment. We study how in the presence of interactions fractional quantum Hall physics could be observed in this setup.

Dynamics of cold bosons in optical lattices: effects of higher Bloch bands

The extended effective multiorbital Bose–Hubbard-type Hamiltonian which takes into account higher Bloch bands is discussed for boson systems in optical lattices, with emphasis on dynamical properties, in relation to current experiments. It is shown that the renormalization of Hamiltonian parameters depends on the dimension of the problem studied. Therefore, mean-field phase diagrams do not scale with the coordination number of the lattice. The effect of Hamiltonian parameters renormalization on the dynamics in reduced one-dimensional optical lattice potential is analyzed. We study both the quasi-adiabatic quench through the superfluid–Mott insulator transition and the absorption spectroscopy, that is, the energy absorption rate when the lattice depth is periodically modulated.

Fast Dynamics for Atoms in Optical Lattices

Cold atoms in optical lattices allow for accurate studies of many body dynamics. Rapid time-dependent modifications of optical lattice potentials may result in significant excitations in atomic systems. The dynamics in such a case is frequently quite incompletely described by standard applications of tight-binding models (such as, e.g., Bose-Hubbard model or its extensions) that typically neglect the effect of the dynamics on the transformation between the real space and the tight-binding basis. We illustrate the importance of a proper quantum mechanical description using a multiband extended Bose-Hubbard model with time-dependent Wannier functions. We apply it to situations directly related to experiments.

Disordered spinor Bose-Hubbard model

We study the zero-temperature phase diagram of the disordered spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model in a two-dimensional square lattice. To this aim, we use a mean-field Gutzwiller ansatz and a probabilistic mean-field perturbation theory. The spin interaction induces two different regimes, corresponding to a ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order. In the ferromagnetic case, the introduction of disorder reproduces analogous features of the disordered scalar Bose-Hubbard model, consisting in the formation of a Bose glass phase between Mott insulator lobes. In the antiferromagnetic regime, the phase diagram differs more from the scalar case. Disorder in the chemical potential can lead to the disappearance of Mott insulator lobes with an odd-integer filling factor and, for sufficiently strong spin coupling, to Bose glass of singlets between even-filling Mott insulator lobes. Disorder in the spinor coupling parameter results in the appearance of a Bose glass phase only between the n and the n+1 lobes for n odd. Disorder in the scalar Hubbard interaction inhibits Mott insulator regions for occupation larger than a critical value.

Locating the quantum critical point of the Bose-Hubbard model through singularities of simple observables.

We show that the critical point of the two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model can be easily found through studies of either on-site atom number fluctuations or the nearest-neighbor two-point correlation function (the expectation value of the tunnelling operator). Our strategy to locate the critical point is based on the observation that the derivatives of these observables with respect to the parameter that drives the superfluid-Mott insulator transition are singular at the critical point in the thermodynamic limit. Performing the quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, we show that this technique leads to the accurate determination of the position of its critical point. Our results can be easily extended to the three-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model and different Hubbard-like models. They provide a simple experimentally-relevant way of locating critical points in various cold atomic lattice systems.

Tunneling-induced restoration of the degeneracy and the time-reversal symmetry breaking in optical lattices.

We study the ground-state properties of bosons loaded into the p band of a one-dimensional optical lattice. We show that the phase diagram of the system is substantially affected by the anharmonicity of the lattice potential. In particular, for a certain range of tunneling strength, the full many-body ground state of the system becomes degenerate. In this region, an additional symmetry of the system, namely, the parity of the occupation number of the chosen orbital, is spontaneously broken. The state with a nonvanishing staggered angular momentum, which breaks the time-reversal symmetry, becomes the true ground state of the system.

Numerical computation of dynamically important excited states of many-body systems

We present an extension of the time-dependent Density Matrix Renormalization Group (t-DMRG), also known as Time Evolving Block Decimation algorithm (TEBD), allowing for the computation of dynamically important excited states of one-dimensional many-body systems. We show its practical use for analyzing the dynamical properties and excitations of the Bose-Hubbard model describing ultracold atoms loaded in an optical lattice from a Bose-Einstein condensate. This allows for a deeper understanding of nonadiabaticity in experimental realizations of insulating phases.

Bose-Hubbard model with random impurities: Multiband and nonlinear hopping effects

We investigate the phase diagrams of theoretical models describing bosonic atoms in a lattice in the presence of randomly localized impurities. By including multiband and nonlinear hopping effects we enrich the standard model containing only the chemical-potential disorder with the site-dependent hopping term. We compare the extension of the MI and the BG phase in both models using a combination of the local mean-field method and a Hartree-Fock-like procedure, as well as, the Gutzwiller-ansatz approach. We show analytical argument for the presence of triple points in the phase diagram of the model with chemical-potential disorder. These triple points however, cease to exists after the addition of the hopping disorder.