Off-diagonal Long-Range Order and Supersolidity in a Quantum Solid with Vacancies

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a lattice of bosonic atoms with vacancies exhibits off-diagonal long-range order and Bose-Einstein condensation, with the condensate fraction proportional to vacancy concentration, indicating supersolidity.

Contribution

It provides an analytical calculation showing the relationship between vacancies and off-diagonal long-range order in a quantum solid.

Findings

Condensate fraction proportional to vacancy concentration

Off-diagonal long-range order exists with finite vacancies

Analytical expression for zero-momentum particle number in 1D

Abstract

We consider a lattice of bosonic atoms, whose number N may be smaller than the number of lattice sites M. We study the Hartree-Fock wave function built up from localized wave functios w(\mathbf{r}) of single atoms, with nearest neighboring overlap. The zero-momentum particle number is expressed in terms of permanents of matrices. In one dimension, it is analytically calculated to be \alpha*N(M-N+1)/M, with \alpha=|\int w(\mathbf{r})d\Omega|^2/[(1+2a)l], where a is the nearest-neighboring overlap, l is the lattice constant. \alpha is of the order of 1. The result indicates that the condensate fraction is proportional to and of the same order of magnitude as that of the vacancy concentration, hence there is off-diagonal long-range order or Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms when the number of vacancies M-N is a finite fraction of the number of the lattice sites M.