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Topological quantum phase transitions of attractive spinless fermions in a honeycomb lattice
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Topological quantum phase transitions of attractive spinless fermions in a honeycomb lattice

D. Poletti, C. Miniatura and B. Grémaud
Europhysics letters, Vol.93(3), p.37008
01/02/2011

Abstract

67.85.Lm 74.20.-z 74.20.Rp
We investigate a spinless Fermi gas trapped in a honeycomb optical lattice with attractive nearest-neighbor interactions. At zero temperature, the mean-field theory predicts three quantum phase transitions, two being topological. At low interactions, the system is semi-metallic. Increasing the interaction further, the semi-metal destabilizes into a fully gapped superfluid. At larger interactions, a topological transition occurs and this superfluid phase becomes gapless, with Dirac-like dispersion relations. Finally, increasing again the interaction, a second topological transition occurs and the gapless superfluid is replaced by a different fully gapped superfluid phase. We analyze these different quantum phases as the temperature and the lattice filling are varied.

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