Leggett's bound and superfluidity in strongly interacting bosons

Abstract

A density-based superfluid bound called Leggett's bound has been proved to be a good estimator of the superfluid fraction for cold atomic gases in the mean-field regime. Here, we investigate the accuracy of such bound in the strongly interacting regime, where the mean-field approach fails. Combining quantum Monte Carlo, Gross-Pitaevskii equation and field-theory calculations, we demonstrate that the bound serves as a reliable estimator of the superfluid fraction for strongly interacting bosons at 2D-1D dimensional crossover at low temperatures. By further presenting two counterexamples where the bound predicts trivial results, we shed light on the conditions under which the Leggett's bound serves as a good predictor.