Critical, statistical, and thermodynamical properties of lattice models

Abstract

In this thesis we investigate zero temperature and low temperature properties - critical, statistical and thermodynamical - of lattice models in the contexts of bosonic cold atom systems, magnetic materials, and non-interacting particles on various lattice geometries. We study quantum phase transitions in the Bose-Hubbard model with higher body interactions, as relevant for optical lattice experiments of strongly interacting bosons, in one and two dimensions; the universality of the Mott insulator to superfluid transition is found to remain unchanged for even large three body interaction strengths. A systematic renormalization procedure is formulated to fully re-sum these higher (three and four) body interactions into the two body terms. In the strongly repulsive limit, we analyse the zero and low temperature physics of interacting hard-core bosons on the kagome lattice at various fillings. Evidence for a disordered phase in the Ising limit of the model is presented; in the strong coupling limit, the transition between the valence bond solid and the superfluid is argued to be first order at the tip of the solid lobe.