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Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 190406 (2006) [4 pages]

Quantum Stripe Ordering in Optical Lattices

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Congjun Wu1, W. Vincent Liu2, Joel Moore3,4, and Sankar Das Sarma5
1Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
3Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
4Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
5Condensed Matter Theory Center, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

Received 28 June 2006; published 10 November 2006

We predict the robust existence of a novel quantum orbital stripe order in the p-band Bose-Hubbard model of two-dimensional triangular optical lattices with cold bosonic atoms. An orbital angular momentum moment is formed on each site exhibiting a stripe order both in the superfluid and Mott-insulating phases. The stripe order spontaneously breaks time-reversal, lattice translation, and rotation symmetries. In addition, it induces staggered plaquette bond currents in the superfluid phase. Possible signatures of this stripe order in the time of flight experiment are discussed.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.190406
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.190406
PACS:
05.30.Jp, 03.75.Lm, 73.43.Nq, 74.50.+r