No abstract

We study the zero temperature phase diagram of hard-core bosons in two dimensions subjected to three types of background potentials: staggered, uniform, and random. In all three cases there is a quantum phase transition from a superfluid (at small potential) to a normal phase (at large potential), but with different universality classes. As expected, the staggered case belongs to the XY universality, while the uniform potential induces a mean field transition. The disorder driven transition is clearly different from both; in particular, we find z approximately 1.4, nu approximately 1, and beta approximately 0.6.

We study the zero-temperature phase transition of a two-dimensional disordered boson Hubbard model. The phase diagram is constructed in terms of the disorder strength and the chemical potential. Via Monte Carlo simulations, we find a multicritical line separating the weak-disorder regime, where the Mott-insulator-to-superfluid transition occurs, from the strong-disorder regime, where the Bose-glass-to-superfluid transition occurs. On the multicritical line, the insulator-to-superfluid transition has the dynamical critical exponent z = 1.35+/-0.05 and the correlation length critical exponent nu = 0.67+/-0.03. We suggest that the proliferation of the particle-hole pairs screens out the weak-disorder effects.

We study the insulator-to-superfluid transition in a two-dimensional disordered boson Hubbard model at zero temperature for intermediate strength of disorder at commensurate density. Via Monte Carlo calculations of the correlation functions in the integer current representation of the model, we obtain the dynamical critical exponent z = 1.5± 0.1, supporting the multicritical behavior separating the strong and weak disorder regimes. Investigating the density profile, we suggest that the density fluctuations due to the particle-hole excitations drive the transition in the weak disorder regime.

We study finite-temperature phase transitions in a two-dimensional boson Hubbard model with zero-point quantum fluctuations via Monte Carlo simulations of a quantum rotor model and construct the corresponding phase diagram. Compressibility shows a thermally activated gapped behavior in the insulating regime. Finite-size scaling of the superfluid stiffness clearly shows the nature of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. The transition temperature T(c) confirms a scaling relation T(c) proportional, rho(0)(x), with x=1.0. Some evidence of anomalous quantum behavior at low temperatures is presented.