Phase diagram and momentum distribution of an interacting Bose gas in a bichromatic lattice

TL;DR

This paper maps the phase diagram and momentum distribution of a 1D interacting Bose gas in a bichromatic lattice, revealing superfluid, Bose glass, and Mott insulator phases influenced by lattice strength and interactions.

Contribution

It combines numerical (DMRG) and analytical (bosonization) methods to analyze localization transitions and phase boundaries in a bichromatic lattice Bose gas.

Findings

Weak interactions increase the critical V2 for localization.

Mott lobes shrink and vanish with increasing V2.

Superfluid phase shows Luttinger liquid behavior with diffraction peaks.

Abstract

We determine the phase diagram and the momentum distribution for a one-dimensional Bose gas with repulsive short range interactions in the presence of a two-color lattice potential, with incommensurate ratio among the respective wave lengths, by using a combined numerical (DMRG) and analytical (bosonization) analysis. The system displays a delocalized (superfluid) phase at small values of the intensity of the secondary lattice V2 and a localized (Bose glass-like) phase at larger intensity V2. We analyze the localization transition as a function of the height V2 beyond the known limits of free and hard-core bosons. We find that weak repulsive interactions unfavor the localized phase i. e. they increase the critical value of V2 at which localization occurs. In the case of integer filling of the primary lattice, the phase diagram at fixed density displays, in addition to a transition from a superfluid to a Bose glass phase, a transition to a Mott-insulating state for not too large V2 and large repulsion. We also analyze the emergence of a Bose-glass phase by looking at the evolution of the Mott-insulator lobes when increasing V2. The Mott lobes shrink and disappear above a critical value of V2. Finally, we characterize the superfluid phase by the momentum distribution, and show that it displays a power-law decay at small momenta typical of Luttinger liquids, with an exponent depending on the combined effect of the interactions and of the secondary lattice. In addition, we observe two side peaks which are due to the diffraction of the Bose gas by the second lattice. This latter feature could be observed in current experiments as characteristics of pseudo-random Bose systems.