Phase diagrams of antiferromagnetic spin-1 bosons on a square optical lattice with the quadratic Zeeman effect

We study the quadratic Zeeman effect (QZE) in a system of antiferromagnetic spin-1 bosons on a square lattice and derive the ground-state phase diagrams by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations and mean-field treatment. The QZE imbalances the populations of the magnetic sublevels sigma = +/- 1 and sigma = 0, and therefore affects the magnetic and mobility properties of the phases. Both methods show that the tip of the even Mott lobes, stabilized by singlet state, is destroyed when turning on the QZE, thus leaving the space to the superfluid phase. Contrariwise, the tips of odd Mott lobes remain unaffected. Therefore, the Mott-superfluid transition with even filling strongly depends on the strength of the QZE, and we show that the QZE can act as a control parameter for this transition at fixed hopping. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we elucidate the nature of the phase transitions and examine in detail the nematic order: the first-order Mott-superfluid transition with even filling observed in the absence of QZE becomes second order for weak QZE, in contradistinction to our mean-field results which predict a first-order transition in a larger range of QZE. Furthermore, a spin nematic order with director along the z axis is found in the odd Mott lobes and in the superfluid phase for energetically favored sigma = +/- 1 states. In the superfluid phase with even filling, the xy components of the nematic director remain finite only for moderate QZE.