Quantum Phase Transition of Bosons in a Shaken Optical Lattice

TL;DR

This paper explores quantum phase transitions of bosons in a two-dimensional shaken optical lattice, revealing new phases, the impact of shaking types and interactions on critical points, and proposing a transition to a non-condensed Bose liquid.

Contribution

It generalizes the 1D superfluid Ising transition to 2D, identifies new phases, and develops a low-energy theory for quantum criticality in shaken optical lattices.

Findings

Identification of three phases: NSF, D4SF, and MI.

Interaction and shaking types influence critical shaking amplitude.

Proposal of a transition from BEC to a non-condensed Bose liquid.

Abstract

Recently, the lattice shaking technique has been used to couple different Bloch bands resonantly. For the one-dimensional (1D) case, in which shaking is along only one direction, experimental observation of domain-wall formation has been explained by superfluid Ising transition. Inspired by these, we generalize to a 2D case in which shaking is along two orthogonal directions. Analogous to the 1D case, we find three different phases, the normal superfluid (NSF) phase, the $D_4$ symmetry-breaking superfluid ($D_4$SF) phase and the Mott insulator (MI) phase. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the interaction effect induced by inhomogeneous band mixing can modify the critical shaking amplitude. Unlike in the 1D case, shaking types also can modify the critical shaking amplitude. Unlike in the 1D case, shaking types also can modify the critical shaking amplitude. We also construct a low-energy effective field theory to study the quantum criticality of bosons near the tricritical point of NSF, $D_4$SF and MI phases. Moreover, we find a Bose liquid with anisotropically algebraic order and propose to change the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) into a non-condensed Bose liquid by tuning the shaking amplitude approaching the critical value.