Phase diagram of the asymmetric Hubbard model and an entropic chromatographic method for cooling cold fermions in optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper explores the phase diagram of the asymmetric Hubbard model using dynamical mean field theory, revealing orbital-selective physics, phase transitions, and proposing an entropic chromatography cooling method for cold fermions in optical lattices.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the asymmetric Hubbard model's phase diagram and introduces a novel entropic chromatography method for cooling in optical lattices.

Findings

Orbital-selective crossover from Fermi liquid to non-Fermi liquid.

Presence of long-range orbital order below a certain temperature.

Charge density wave formation indicated by increased double occupancies.

Abstract

We study the phase diagram of the asymmetric Hubbard model (AHM), which is characterized by different values of the hopping for the two spin projections of a fermion or equivalently, two different orbitals. This model is expected to provide a good description of a mass-imbalanced cold fermionic mixture in a 3D optical lattice. We use the dynamical mean field theory to study various physical properties of this system. In particular, we show how orbital-selective physics, observed in multi-orbital strongly correlated electron systems, can be realized in such a simple model. We find that the density distribution is a good probe of this orbital selective crossover from a Fermi liquid to a non-Fermi liquid state. Below an ordering temperature $T_o$, which is a function of both the interaction and hopping asymmetry, the system exhibits staggered long range orbital order. Apart from the special case of the symmetric limit, i.e., Hubbard model, where there is no hopping asymmetry, this orbital order is accompanied by a true charge density wave order for all values of the hopping asymmetry. We calculate the order parameters and various physical quantities including the thermodynamics in both the ordered and disordered phases. We find that the formation of the charge density wave is signaled by an abrupt increase in the sublattice double occupancies. Finally, we propose a new method, entropic chromatography, for cooling fermionic atoms in optical lattices, by exploiting the properties of the AHM. To establish this cooling strategy on a firmer basis, we also discuss the variations in temperature induced by the adiabatic tuning of interactions and hopping parameters.