Feshbach-Stabilized Insulator of Bosons in Optical Lattices

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Feshbach insulator, a new phase of bosons in optical lattices stabilized by spin-changing Feshbach resonances, preventing collapse near negative scattering lengths, with potential for experimental detection.

Contribution

It demonstrates, through simulations and theory, that spin-changing Feshbach interactions can stabilize an insulating phase in ultracold bosonic systems near a narrow resonance, a novel mechanism.

Findings

Feshbach insulator appears near resonance, preventing collapse.

Transition from condensate to insulator is first-order.

Features are observable in $^{87}$Rb experiments.

Abstract

Feshbach resonances - namely resonances between an unbound two-body state (atomic state) and a bound (molecular) state, differing in magnetic moment - are a unique tool to tune the interaction properties of ultracold atoms. Here we show that the spin-changing interactions, coherently coupling the atomic and molecular state, can act as a novel mechanism to stabilize an insulating phase - the Feshbach insulator - for bosons in an optical lattice close to a narrow Feshbach resonance. Making use of quantum Monte Carlo simulations and mean-field theory, we show that the Feshbach insulator appears around the resonance, preventing the system from collapsing when the effective atomic scattering length becomes negative. On the atomic side of the resonance, the transition from condensate to Feshbach insulator has a characteristic first-order nature, due to the simultaneous loss of coherence in the atomic and molecular components. These features appear clearly in the ground-state phase diagram of e.g. $^{87}$Rb around its 414 G resonance, and they are therefore directly amenable to experimental observation.