Quantum effects in one-dimensional optical flat-band lattices
I numerically simulated one-dimensional lattice systems describable by the Hubbard-model and containing a flat-band. I studied the manner in which particles initially held in place by a parabolic confinement potential are dispersed across the lattice after the potential is removed. I also studied currents flowing within one-dimensional Hubbard-rings. In both of these cases I observed that the flat dispersion relation of the flat-band manifests itself as the immobility of the particles occupying it. Particles occupying flat-band states do not disperse even after the removal of any external confinement, neither do they contribute to a current within a ring.
Diagrammatic Expansion for Positive Spectral Functions in the Steady-State Limit
Recently, a method was presented for constructing self-energies within many-body perturbation theory that are guaranteed to produce a positive spectral function for equilibrium systems, by representing the self-energy as a product of half-diagrams on the forward and backward branches of the Keldysh contour. We derive an alternative half-diagram representation that is based on products of retarded diagrams. Our approach extends the method to systems out of equilibrium. When a steady-state limit exists, we show that our approach yields a positive definite spectral function in the frequency domain.
Cutting rules and positivity in finite temperature many-body theory
Abstract For a given diagrammatic approximation in many-body perturbation theory it is not guaranteed that positive observables, such as the density or the spectral function, retain their positivity. For zero-temperature systems we developed a method [2014 Phys. Rev. B 90 115134] based on so-called cutting rules for Feynman diagrams that enforces these properties diagrammatically, thus solving the problem of negative spectral densities observed for various vertex approximations. In this work we extend this method to systems at finite temperature by formulating the cutting rules in terms of retarded N-point functions, thereby simplifying earlier approaches and simultaneously solving the issu…
Flat bands, Dirac cones, and atom dynamics in an optical lattice
We study atoms trapped with a harmonic confinement in an optical lattice characterized by a flat band and Dirac cones. We show that such an optical lattice can be constructed which can be accurately described with the tight binding or Hubbard models. In the case of fermions the release of the harmonic confinement removes fast atoms occupying the Dirac cones while those occupying the flat band remain immobile. Using exact diagonalization and dynamics we demonstrate that a similar strong occupation of the flat band does not happen in bosonic case and furthermore that the mean field model is not capable for describing the dynamics of the boson cloud.
Contour calculus for many-particle functions
In non-equilibrium many-body perturbation theory, Langreth rules are an efficient way to extract real-time equations from contour ones. However, the standard rules are not applicable in cases that do not reduce to simple convolutions and multiplications. We introduce a procedure for extracting real-time equations from general multi-argument contour functions with an arbitrary number of arguments. This is done for both the standard Keldysh contour, as well as the extended contour with a vertical track that allows for general initial states. This amounts to the generalization of the standard Langreth rules to much more general situations. These rules involve multi-argument retarded functions …
Many-particle dynamics of bosons and fermions in quasi-one-dimensional flat-band lattices
The difference between boson and fermion dynamics in quasi-one-dimensional lattices is studied by calculating the persistent current in small quantum rings and by exact simulations of the time evolution of the many-particle state in two cases: expansion of a localized cloud and collisions in a Newton’s cradle. We consider three different lattices which in the tight-binding model exhibit flat bands. The physical realization is considered to be an optical lattice with bosonic or fermionic atoms. The atoms are assumed to interact with a repulsive short-range interaction. The different statistics of bosons and fermions lead to different dynamics. Spinless fermions are easily trapped in the flat…