Eur. Phys. J. B 68, 427-433 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2009-00056-0

Unconventional quantum phases in lattice bosonic mixtures

¹ C.N.I.S.M. and Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Torino, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
² Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Via Ponte don Melillo, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy
³ CNR-INFM Coherentia, Napoli, Italy, CNISM Unità di Salerno, and INFN Sezione di Napoli, Gruppo collegato di Salerno, Baronissi (SA), Italy
⁴ Institute for Scientific Interchange, Viale Settimio Severo 65, 10133 Torino, Italy
⁵ CNR-INFM, S3, National Research Center, via Campi 213/a, 41100 Modena, Italy
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Parma, V.le G.P. Usberti n.7/A, 43100 Parma, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a pierfrancesco.buonsante@polito.it

Received: 4 July 2008
Revised: 15 January 2009
Published online: 18 February 2009

Abstract

We consider strongly interacting boson-boson mixtures on one-dimensional lattices and, by adopting a qualitative mean-field approach, investigate their quantum phases as the interspecies repulsion is increased. In particular, we analyze the low-energy quantum emulsion metastable states occurring at large values of the interspecies interaction, which are expected to prevent the system from reaching its true ground state. We argue a significant decrease in the visibility of the time-of-flight images in the case of these spontaneously disordered states.