Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Interacting Wannier functions in a superlattice: An iterative method

Jens Samland*

  • *Contact author: iterativeInteractingWannier@gmx.net

Phys. Rev. A 112, 053325 – Published 25 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/4s97-x2h7

Abstract

We present a method to compute interacting Wannier functions in an optical superlattice for cold atom gas experiments. We start from a noninteracting Wannier function obtained from the band projected position operator method and perform Trotter method to compute the interacting Wannier function. Then, we use this function to compute the on-site interaction strength in a superlattice, compare the result to a measurement, and find good agreement between simulation and data.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (25)

  1. P. A. Lee, N. Nagaosa, and X.-G. Wen, Doping a Mott insulator: Physics of high-temperature superconductivity, Rev. Mod. Phys. 78, 17 (2006).
  2. S. Trotzky, P. Cheinet, S. Fölling, M. Feld, U. Schnorrberger, A. M. Rey, A. Polkovnikov, E. A. Demler, M. D. Lukin, and I. Bloch, Time-resolved observation and control of superexchange interactions with ultracold atoms in optical lattices, Science 319, 295 (2008).
  3. R. Jördens, N. Strohmaier, K. Günter, H. Moritz, and T. Esslinger, A Mott insulator of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice, Nature (London) 455, 204 (2008).
  4. U. Schneider, L. Hackermüller, S. Will, T. Best, I. Bloch, T. A. Costi, R. W. Helmes, D. Rasch, and A. Rosch, Metallic and insulating phases of repulsively interacting fermions in a 3D optical lattice, Science 322, 1520 (2008).
  5. L. W. Cheuk, M. A. Nichols, K. R. Lawrence, M. Okan, H. Zhang, and M. W. Zwierlein, Observation of 2D fermionic Mott insulators of k40 with single-site resolution, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 235301 (2016).
  6. D. Greif, M. F. Parsons, A. Mazurenko, C. S. Chiu, S. Blatt, F. Huber, G. Ji, and M. Greiner, Site-resolved imaging of a fermionic Mott insulator, Science 351, 953 (2016).
  7. E. Cocchi, L. A. Miller, J. H. Drewes, M. Koschorreck, D. Pertot, F. Brennecke, and M. Köhl, Equation of state of the two-dimensional Hubbard model, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 175301 (2016).
  8. D. Greif, T. Uehlinger, G. Jotzu, L. Tarruell, and T. Esslinger, Short-range quantum magnetism of ultracold fermions in an optical lattice, Science 340, 1307 (2013).
  9. R. A. Hart, P. M. Duarte, T.-L. Yang, X. Liu, T. Paiva, E. Khatami, R. T. Scalettar, N. Trivedi, D. A. Huse, and R. G. Hulet, Observation of antiferromagnetic correlations in the Hubbard model with ultracold atoms, Nature (London) 519, 211 (2015).
  10. L. W. Cheuk, M. A. Nichols, K. R. Lawrence, M. Okan, H. Zhang, E. Khatami, N. Trivedi, T. Paiva, M. Rigol, and M. W. Zwierlein, Observation of spatial charge and spin correlations in the 2d Fermi-Hubbard model, Science 353, 1260 (2016).
  11. J. Drewes, L. A. Miller, E. Cocchi, C. F. Chan, N. Wurz, M. Gall, D. Pertot, F. Brennecke, and M. Köhl, Antiferromagnetic correlations in two-dimensional fermionic Mott-insulating and metallic phases, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 170401 (2017).
  12. M. Golor, T. Reckling, L. Classen, M. M. Scherer, and S. Wessel, Ground-state phase diagram of the half-filled bilayer Hubbard model, Phys. Rev. B 90, 195131 (2014).
  13. R. Rüger, L. F. Tocchio, R. Valentí, and C. Gros, The phase diagram of the square lattice bilayer Hubbard model: A variational Monte Carlo study, New J. Phys. 16, 033010 (2014).
  14. S. S. Kancharla and S. Okamoto, Band insulator to Mott insulator transition in a bilayer Hubbard model, Phys. Rev. B 75, 193103 (2007).
  15. R. R. dos Santos, Magnetism and pairing in Hubbard bilayers, Phys. Rev. B 51, 15540 (1995).
  16. J. Koepsell, S. Hirthe, D. Bourgund, P. Sompet, J. Vijayan, G. Salomon, C. Gross, and I. Bloch, Robust bilayer charge pumping for spin- and density-resolved quantum gas microscopy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 010403 (2020).
  17. M. Gall, N. Wurz, J. Samland, C. F. Chan, and M. Köhl, Competing magnetic orders in a bilayer Hubbard model with ultracold atoms, Nature (London) 589, 40 (2021).
  18. J. Li, Y. Yu, A. M. Dudarev, and Q. Niu, Interaction broadening of Wannier functions and Mott transitions in atomic BEC, New J. Phys. 8, 154 (2006).
  19. S. Zhu and B. Wu, Interaction effects on Wannier functions for bosons in an optical lattice, Phys. Rev. A 92, 063637 (2015).
  20. M. Kremer, R. Sachdeva, A. Benseny, and T. Busch, Interaction-induced effects on Bose-Hubbard parameters, Phys. Rev. A 96, 063611 (2017).
  21. S. Kivelson, Wannier functions in one-dimensional disordered systems: Application to fractionally charged solitons, Phys. Rev. B 26, 4269 (1982).
  22. N. Marzari and D. Vanderbilt, Maximally localized generalized Wannier functions for composite energy bands, Phys. Rev. B 56, 12847 (1997).
  23. M. Modugno and G. Pettini, Maximally localized Wannier functions for ultracold atoms in one-dimensional double-well periodic potentials, New J. Phys. 14, 055004 (2012).
  24. A. M. Childs, Y. Su, M. C. Tran, N. Wiebe, and S. Zhu, Theory of trotter error with commutator scaling, Phys. Rev. X 11, 011020 (2021).
  25. J. Samland, Interacting Wannier functions in a superlattice - an iterative method, figshare (2025), https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28284857.v4

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation