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Mott-insulator-to-superfluid transition in the Bose-Hubbard model: A strong-coupling approach

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
;  [1]
  1. Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, M5T 2Y4 ON (Canada)
We present a strong-coupling expansion of the Bose-Hubbard model which describes both the superfluid and the Mott phases of ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. By performing two successive Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations of the intersite hopping term, we derive an effective action which provides a suitable starting point to study the strong-coupling limit of the Bose-Hubbard model. This action can be analyzed by taking into account Gaussian fluctuations about the mean-field approximation as in the Bogoliubov theory of the weakly interacting Bose gas. In the Mott phase, we reproduce results of previous mean-field theories and also calculate the momentum distribution function. In the superfluid phase, we find a gapless spectrum and compare our results with the Bogoliubov theory.
OSTI ID:
20650480
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 71; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English