Spinor bosons in optical superlattices: a numerical study

Abstract

The ground state of spin-1 ultracold bosons trapped in a periodic one-dimensional optical superlattice is studied. The two sites of the unit cell have an energy shift between them, whose competition with the spin-dependent strength is the main focus of this paper. Charge density wave (CDW) phases appear for semi-integer and integer densities, leading to rich phase diagrams with Mott insulator, superfluid and CDW phases. The spin-dependent interaction favors insulator phases for integer densities and disfavors CDW phases for semi-integer densities, which tend to disappear. Also, quantum phase transitions at finite values of the spin-dependent strength were observed. For integer densities, Mott insulator-superfluid-CDW insulator transitions appear for an energy shift lower (higher) than the local repulsion for the global density $\rho=1$ ($\rho=2$).