Quantum phases, Supersolids and quantum phase transitions of interacting bosons in frustrated lattices

TL;DR

This paper develops a dual vortex method to analyze quantum phases and phase transitions in frustrated lattices, revealing new supersolid and charge density wave phases with detailed stability conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic scheme using vortex degrees of freedom to characterize symmetry breaking and identifies novel CDW-VB supersolid phases in frustrated lattices.

Findings

Discovery of a new CDW-VB phase with both local CDW and VB orders.

Identification of various supersolids including CDW-VB supersolids.

Analysis of stability conditions for different supersolid phases.

Abstract

By using the dual vortex method (DVM), we develop systematically a simple and effective scheme to use the vortex degree of freedoms on dual lattices to characterize the symmetry breaking patterns of the boson insulating states in the direct lattices. Then we apply our scheme to study quantum phases and phase transitions in an extended boson Hubbard model slightly away from $ 1/3 $ ($ 2/3 $) filling on frustrated lattices such as triangular and kagome lattice. In a triangular lattice at $ 1/3 $, we find a X-CDW, a stripe CDW phase which was found perviously by a density operator formalism (DOF). Most importantly, we also find a new CDW-VB phase which has both local CDW and local VB orders, in sharp contrast to a bubble CDW phase found previously by the DOF. In the Kagome lattice at $ 1/3 $, we find a VBS phase and a 6 fold-CDW phase. Most importantly, we also identify a CDW-VB phase which has both local CDW and local VB orders which was found in previous QMC simulations. By analyzing carefully the saddle point structures of the dual gauge fields in the translational symmetry breaking sides and pushing the effective actions slightly away from the commensurate filling $ f=1/3 $($ 2/3 $), we classified all the possible types of supersolids and analyze their stability conditions. In a triangular lattice, there are X-CDW supersolid, stripe CDW supersolid, but absence of any valence bond supersolid (VB-SS). There are also a new kind of supersolid: CDW-VB supersolid. In a Kagome lattice, there are 6 fold-CDW supersolid, stripe CDW supersolid, but absence of any valence bond supersolid (VB-SS). There are also a new kind of supersolid: CDW-VB supersolid. Implications on QMC simulations with both nearest neighbor and next nearest neighbor interactions in both lattices are given.