Spinor Bosonic Atoms in Optical Lattices: Symmetry Breaking and Fractionalization

We have studied superfluid-Mott insulating transition of spin-1 bosons interacting antiferromagnetically in an optical lattice. We have obtained the zero-temperature phase diagram by a mean-field approximation and have found that the superfluid phase is to be a polar state as a usual trapped spin-1 Bose gas. More interestingly, we have found that the Mott-insulating phase is strongly stabilized only when the number of atoms per site is even.

Ultracold bosons in optical lattices are one of the few systems where bosonic matter is known to exhibit strong correlations. Here we push the frontier of our understanding of interacting bosons in optical lattices by adding synthetic spin-orbit coupling, and show that new kinds of density- and chiral-orders develop. The competition between the optical lattice period and the spin-orbit coupling length -- which can be made comparable in experiments -- along with the spin hybri...

In this paper we show that the superfluidity of cold spin--1 Bose atoms of weak interactions in an optical lattice can be realized according to the excitation energy spectrum which is derived by means of Bogliubov transformation. The characteristic of the superfluid-phase spectrum is explained explicitly in terms of the nonvanishing critical velocity, i.e., the Landau criterion. It is observed that critical velocities of superfluid are different for three spin components and,...

We investigate ground state properties of spin-1 bosonic system trapped in optical lattice with extended standard basis operator (SBO) method. For both ferromagnetic ($U_2<0$) and antiferromagnetic ($U_2>0$) systems, we analytically figure out the symmetry properties in Mott-insulator and superfluid phases, which would provide a deeper insight into the MI-SF phase transition process. Then by applying self-consistent approach to the method, we include the effect of quantum and...

We study the ground-state phase diagram of spinless and spin-1 bosons in optical superlattices using a Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian that includes spin-dependent interactions. We decouple the unit cells of the superlattice via a mean-field approach and take into account the dynamics within the unit cell exactly. The system supports Mott-insulating as well as superfluid phases. The transitions between these phases are second-order for spinless bosons and second- or first-order for ...

We analyze theoretically the emergence of different superfluid phases of spin-1 bosons in a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice by generalizing the recently developed Ginzburg-Landau theory for the Bose-Hubbard model to a spinor Bose gas. In particular at zero temperature, our theory distinguishes within its validity range between various superfluid phases for an anti-ferromagnetic interaction with an external magnetic field. In addition, we determine that the superfluid-...

The superfluid--Mott-insulator phase transition of ultracold spin-1 bosons with ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions in an optical lattice is theoretically investigated. Two counterpropagating linearly polarized laser beams with the angle $\theta$ between the polarization vectors (lin-$\theta$-lin configuration), driving an $F_g=1$ to $F_e=1$ internal atomic transition, create the optical lattice and at the same time couple atomic ground states with magnetic quant...

In this review, we discuss the physics of spin-orbit coupled quantum gases in optical lattices. After reviewing some relevant experimental techniques, we introduce the basic theoretical model and discuss some of its generic features. In particular, we concentrate on the interplay between spin-orbit coupling and strong interactions and show how it leads to various exotic quantum phases in both the Mott insulating and superfluid regimes. Phase transitions between the Mott and s...

The ground state of spin-1 ultracold bosons trapped in a periodic one-dimensional optical superlattice is studied. The two sites of the unit cell have an energy shift between them, whose competition with the spin-dependent strength is the main focus of this paper. Charge density wave (CDW) phases appear for semi-integer and integer densities, leading to rich phase diagrams with Mott insulator, superfluid and CDW phases. The spin-dependent interaction favors insulator phases f...

We study the effects of spin-orbit coupling on the Mott-superfluid transition of bosons in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We determine the strong coupling magnetic phase diagram by a combination of exact analytic and numerical means. Smooth evolution of the magnetic structure into the superfluid phases are investigated with the density matrix renormalization group technique. Novel magnetic phases are uncovered and phase transitions between them within the superfluid regim...