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Quantum bright solitons in the Bose-Hubbard model with site-dependent repulsive interactions

We introduce a one-dimensional (1D) spatially inhomogeneous Bose-Hubbard model (BHM) with the strength of the onsite repulsive interactions growing, with the discrete coordinate $z_{j}$, as $|z_{j}|^{α}$ with $α>0$. Recently, the analysis of the mean-field (MF) counterpart of this system has demonstrated self-trapping of robust unstaggered discrete solitons, under condition $α>1$. Using the numerically implemented method of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), we demonstrate that, in a certain range of interaction, the BHM also self-traps, in the ground state, into a soliton-like configuration, at $α>1$, and remains weakly localized at $α<1$. An essential quantum feature is a residual density in the background surrounding the soliton-like peak in the BHM ground state, while in the MF limit the finite-density background is absent. Very strong onsite repulsion eventually destroys soliton-like states, and, for integer densities, the system enters the Mott phase with a spatially uniform density