Dimensional crossover of bound complexes in a two-species Bose-Hubbard lattice: correlations and dynamics

Abstract

We study the equilibrium and nonequilibrium formation of four-particle complexes in a balanced two-species Bose-Hubbard model with repulsive intra- and attractive inter-species interactions. Using exact diagonalization, we characterize the transition from weakly- to strongly-correlated dimer and tetramer states along the one- to two-dimensional crossover in coupled-chain geometries by combining local correlation signatures with global diagnostics such as the binding energy and interspecies entanglement entropy. We show that transverse connectivity between chains qualitatively reshapes the phase diagram, substantially enlarging the tetramer region and, in particular, stabilizing weakly bound tetramers when compared to the one-dimensional chains. By tuning the interchain hopping, we identify a transition from a degenerate manifold of spatially separated dimers to a localized tetramer ground state, driven by the lifting of one-dimensional configurational degeneracies and an associated kinetic-energy gain. Finally, we demonstrate interaction and geometric quench protocols to dynamically prepare these complexes with high fidelity. Our results provide a microscopic framework for engineering and probing few-body bosonic bound states in tunable lattice geometries.