Paper detail

Cluster stability driven by quantum fluctuations

By means of an accurate path-integral Monte Carlo we investigate a two-dimensional ensemble of particles interacting via a Lifshitz-Petrich-Gaussian potential. In particular, analysing structures described by a commensurate ratio between the two wave numbers that mark the pattern, the Lifshitz-Petrich-Gaussian boson model may display a stable and well-defined stripe phase lacking any global phase coherence but featuring a superfluid signal along the stripe direction only. Upon increasing quantum fluctuations and quantum-mechanical exchange of bosons, the double-degeneration of the negative minima in the Fourier transform of the potential is removed at the expense of a density modulation peculiar to a cluster triangular crystal. We also show that this last structure possess all features adhering to the definition of a supersolid phase.