Quantum degenerate Bose-Fermi mixtures on 1-D optical lattices

Abstract

We combine model mapping, exact spectral bounds, and a quantum Monte Carlo method to study the ground state phases of a mixture of ultracold bosons and spin-polarized fermions in a one-dimensional optical lattice. The exact boundary of the boson-demixing transition is obtained from the Bethe Ansatz solution of the standard Hubbard model. We prove that along a symmetry plane in the parameter space, the boson-fermion mixed phase is stable at all densities. This phase is a two-component Luttinger liquid for weak couplings or for incommensurate total density, otherwise it has a charge gap but retains a gapless mode of mixture composition fluctuations. The static density correlations are studied in these two limits and shown to have markedly different features.