2003/09/30 by Marcos Rigol, Alejandro Muramatsu · 9 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum many-body systems #cond-mat.stat-mech #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.69.053612
published as Phys. Rev. A 69, 053612 (2004) · RevTex file, 13 pages, 19 figures, published version
arxiv created 2004/05/14 · openalex publication_date 2004/05/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations we study the ground-state properties of the one-dimensional fermionic Hubbard model in traps with an underlying lattice. Since due to the confining potential the density is space dependent, Mott-insulating domains always coexist with metallic regions, such that global quantities are not appropriate to describe the system. We define a local compressibility that characterizes the Mott-insulating regions and analyze other local quantities. It is shown that the momentum distribution function, a quantity that is commonly considered in experiments, fails in giving a clear signal of the Mott-insulating transition. Furthermore, we analyze a mean-field approach to these systems and compare it with the numerically exact QMC results. Finally, we determine a generic form for the phase diagram that allows us to predict the phases to be observed in the experiments.