English

Minimal Model for Disorder-induced Missing Moment of Inertia in Solid $^4$He

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks 2015-06-25 v5 Superconductivity

Abstract

The absence of a missing moment inertia in clean solid 4^4He suggests that the minimal experimentally relevant model is one in which disorder induces superfluidity in a bosonic lattice. To this end, we explore the relevance of the disordered Bose-Hubbard model in this context. We posit that a clean array 4^4He atoms is a self-generated Mott insulator, that is, the 4^4He atoms constitute the lattice as well as the `charge carriers'. With this assumption, we are able to interpret the textbook defect-driven supersolids as excitations of either the lower or upper Hubbard bands. In the experiments at hand, disorder induces a closing of the Mott gap through the generation of mid-gap localized states at the chemical potential. Depending on the magnitude of the disorder, we find that the destruction of the Mott state takes place for d+z>4d+z>4 either through a Bose glass phase (strong disorder) or through a direct transition to a superfluid (weak disorder). For d+z<4d+z<4, disorder is always relevant. The critical value of the disorder that separates these two regimes is shown to be a function of the boson filling, interaction and the momentum cut off. We apply our work to the experimentally observed enhancement 3^3He impurities has on the onset temperature for the missing moment of inertia. We find quantitative agreement with experimental trends.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0612505,
  title  = {Minimal Model for Disorder-induced Missing Moment of Inertia in Solid $^4$He},
  author = {Jiansheng Wu and Philip Phillips},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0612505},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

9 pages, 5 figures: Extended version of previous paper in which the pase diagram for the disordered Bose-Hubbard model is computed using mean-field theory and one-loop RG. The criterion for the Bose glass is derived explicitly. (a few typos are corrected)