Abstract
We study the effect of an artificial gauge field on the zero-temperature phase diagram of an extended Bose-Hubbard model that describes ultracold atoms in optical lattices with long-range interactions by using strong-coupling perturbation theory. We determine analytically the effect of the artificial gauge field on the density-wave–supersolid (DW-SS) and the Mott-insulator–superfluid (MI-SF) transition boundary. The momentum distribution at these two transition boundaries is also calculated in this approach. It is shown that such a momentum distribution, which can be observed in time-of-flight measurements, reveals the symmetry of the gauge potential through the formation of a magnetic Brillouin zone and clearly distinguishes between the DW-SS and MI-SF boundary. We also point out that, in a symmetric gauge, the momentum distribution structure at these transition boundaries bears distinctive signatures of vortices in supersolid and superfluid phases.
1 More- Received 23 May 2011
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.013642
©2012 American Physical Society