Mott-insulator phases of non-locally coupled 1D dipolar Bose gases

Abstract

We analyze the Mott-insulator phases of dipolar bosonic gases placed in neighboring but unconnected 1D traps. Whereas for short-range interactions the 1D systems are independent, the non-local dipole-dipole interaction induces a direct Mott-insulator to pair-superfluid transition which significantly modifies the boundaries of the lowest Mott-insulator phases. The lowest boundary of the lowest Mott regions becomes progressively constant as a function of the hopping rate, eventually inverting its slope, leading to a re-entrant configuration which is retained in 2D. We discuss the consequences of this effect on the spatial Mott-insulator plateaux in experiments with additional harmonic confinement, showing that anti-intuitively the plateaux may become wider for increasing hopping. Our results are also applicable to non-dipolar boson-boson mixtures.