Mean field theory of superglasses (original) (raw)

Superglass Phase of Interacting Bosons

Physical Review Letters, 2010

We introduce a Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian with random disordered interactions as a model to study the interplay of superfluidity and glassiness in a system of three-dimensional hard-core bosons at half-filling. Solving the model using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we show that these disordered interactions promote a stable superglass phase, where superflow and glassy density localization coexist in equilibrium without exhibiting phase separation. The robustness of the superglass phase is underlined by its existence in a replica mean-field calculation on the infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian.

The glass to superfluid transition in dirty bosons on a lattice

New Journal of Physics, 2012

We investigate the interplay between disorder and interactions in a Bose gas on a lattice in presence of randomly localized impurities. We compare the performance of two theoretical methods, the simple version of multi-orbital Hartree-Fock and the common Gross-Pitaevskii approach, showing how the former gives a better approximation to the ground state in the limit of weak interactions, where the superfluid fraction is small. We further prove rigorously that for this class of disorder the fractal dimension of the ground state d * tends to the physical dimension in the thermodynamic limit. This allows us to introduce a quantity, the fractional occupation, which gives insightful information on the crossover from a Lifshits to a Bose glass. Finally, we compare temperature and interaction effects, highlighting similarities and intrinsic differences.

A glassy counterpart to supersolids A Viewpoint on: Theory of the superglass phase

Glasses are liquids that have ceased to flow on experimentally measurable time scales. By constrast, superfluids flow without any resistance. The existence of a phase characterized by simultaneous glassiness and superfluidity may seem like a clear contradiction. However, in a paper in Physical Review B, Giulio Biroli (Institut de Physique Théorique, France), Claudio Chamon (Boston University), and Francesco Zamponi (École Normale Supérieure, France) prove that this is not so [1] and illustrate theoretically the possibility of a "superglass" phase. This phase forms an intriguing amorphous counterpart to the "supersolid" phase [2, 3] that has seen a surge of interest in recent years . Within a "supersolid" phase, superfluidity can occur without disrupting crystalline order.

Disorder-induced superfluidity

Physical Review B, 2009

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the phase diagram of hard-core bosons with short-ranged attractive interactions, in the presence of uniform diagonal disorder. It is shown that moderate disorder stabilizes a glassy superfluid phase in a range of values of the attractive interaction for which the system is a Mott insulator, in the absence of disorder. A transition to an insulating Bose glass phase occurs as the strength of the disorder or interactions increases.

Mean-field phase diagram of disordered bosons in a lattice at nonzero temperature

New Journal of Physics, 2006

Bosons in a periodic lattice with on-site disorder at low but non-zero temperature are considered within a mean-field theory. The criteria used for the definition of the superfluid, Mott insulator and Bose glass are analysed. Since the compressibility does never vanish at non-zero temperature, it can not be used as a general criterium. We show that the phases are unambiguously distinguished by the superfluid density and the density of states of the low-energy exitations. The phase diagram of the system is calculated. It is shown that even a tiny temperature leads to a significant shift of the boundary between the Bose glass and superfluid.

Superfluid Density and Phase Relaxation in Superconductors with Strong Disorder

Physical Review Letters, 2012

As a prototype of a disordered superconductor we consider the attractive Hubbard model with on-site disorder. We solve the Bogoljubov-de-Gennes equations on two-dimensional finite clusters at zero temperature and evaluate the electromagnetic response to a vector potential. We find that the standard decoupling between transverse and longitudinal response does not apply in the presence of disorder. Moreover the superfluid density is strongly reduced by the relaxation of the phase of the order parameter already at mean-field level when disorder is large. We also find that the anharmonicity of the phase fluctuations is strongly enhanced by disorder. Beyond mean-field, this provides an enhancement of quantum fluctuations inducing a zero-temperature transition to a nonsuperconducting phase of disordered preformed pairs. Finally, the connection of our findings with the glassy physics for extreme dirty superconductors is discussed.

Quantum critical behavior of a three-dimensional superfluid-Mott glass transition

Physical Review B, 2018

The superfluid to insulator quantum phase transition of a three-dimensional particle-hole symmetric system of disordered bosons is studied. To this end, a site-diluted quantum rotor Hamiltonian is mapped onto a classical (3+1)-dimensional XY model with columnar disorder and analyzed by means of large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. The superfluid-Mott insulator transition of the clean, undiluted system is in the 4D XY universality class and shows mean-field critical behavior with logarithmic corrections. The clean correlation length exponent ν = 1/2 violates the Harris criterion, indicating that disorder must be a relevant perturbation. For nonzero dilutions below the lattice percolation threshold of pc = 0.688392, our simulations yield conventional power-law critical behavior with dilution-independent critical exponents z = 1.67(6), ν = 0.90(5), β/ν = 1.09(3), and γ/ν = 2.50(3). The critical behavior of the transition across the lattice percolation threshold is controlled by the classical percolation exponents. Our results are discussed in the context of a classification of disordered quantum phase transitions, as well as experiments in superfluids, superconductors and magnetic systems.

Quantum glass phases in the disordered Bose-Hubbard model

Physical review letters, 2007

The phase diagram of the Bose-Hubbard model in the presence of off-diagonal disorder is determined using Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. A sequence of quantum glass phases intervene at the interface between the Mott insulating and the Superfluid phases of the clean system. In addition to the standard Bose glass phase, the coexistence of gapless and gapped regions close to the Mott insulating phase leads to a novel Mott glass regime which is incompressible yet gapless. Numerical evidence for the properties of these phases is given in terms of global (compressibility, superfluid stiffness) and local (compressibility, momentum distribution) observables.

Anomalous quantum glass of bosons in a random potential in two dimensions

Physical review letters, 2015

We present a quantum Monte Carlo study of the "quantum glass" phase of the two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model with random potentials at filling ρ=1. In the narrow region between the Mott and superfluid phases, the compressibility has the form κ∼exp(-b/T^{α})+c with α<1 and c vanishing or very small. Thus, at T=0 the system is either incompressible (a Mott glass) or nearly incompressible (a Mott-glass-like anomalous Bose glass). At stronger disorder, where a glass reappears from the superfluid, we find a conventional highly compressible Bose glass. On a path connecting these states, away from the superfluid at larger Hubbard repulsion, a change of the disorder strength by only 10% changes the low-temperature compressibility by more than 4 orders of magnitude, lending support to two types of glass states separated by a phase transition or a sharp crossover.

Time-dependent mean-field theory of the superfluid-insulator phase transition

Physical Review B, 2000

We develop a time-dependent mean field approach, within the time-dependent variational principle, to describe the Superfluid-Insulator quantum phase transition. We construct the zero temperature phase diagram both of the Bose-Hubbard model (BHM), and of a spinS Heisenberg model (SHM) with the XXZ anisotropy. The phase diagram of the BHM indicates a phase transition from a Mott insulator to a compressibile superfluid phase, and shows the expected lobe-like structure. The SHM phase diagram displays a quantum phase transition between a paramagnetic and a canted phases showing as well a lobe-like structure. We show how the BHM and Quantum Phase model (QPM) can be rigorously derived from the SHM. Based on such results, the phase boundaries of the SHM are mapped to the BHM ones, while the phase diagram of the QPM is related to that of the SHM. The QPM's phase diagram obtained through the application of our approach to the SHM, describes the known onset of the macroscopic phase coherence from the Coulomb blockade regime for increasing Josephson coupling constant. The BHM and the QPM phase diagrams are in good agreement with Quantum Monte Carlo results, and with the third order strong coupling perturbative expansion.