Mott-Hubbard Transition of Bosons in Optical Lattices with Three-body Interactions

TL;DR

This paper explores how three-body interactions influence the quantum phase transition between superfluid and Mott-insulator states in bosonic optical lattices, extending the Bose-Hubbard model and connecting theory with experiments.

Contribution

It introduces an extended Bose-Hubbard model including three-body interactions and analyzes its phase diagram using mean-field approximation, revealing new features like extended insulating lobes and a fixed point.

Findings

Extended Mott lobes due to three-body interactions

Existence of a fixed point in phase space

Potential experimental observation in BECs

Abstract

In this paper, the quantum phase transition between superfluid state and Mott-insulator state is studied based on an extended Bose-Hubbard model with two- and three-body on-site interactions. By employing the mean-field approximation we find the extension of the insulating 'lobes' and the existence of a fixed point in three dimensional phase space. We investigate the link between experimental parameters and theoretical variables. The possibility to obverse our results through some experimental effects in optically trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates(BEC) is also discussed.