Exact solution of the Bose-Hubbard model on the Bethe lattice

The exact solution of a quantum Bethe lattice model in the thermodynamic limit amounts to solve a functional self-consistent equation. In this paper we obtain this equation for the Bose-Hubbard model on the Bethe lattice, under two equivalent forms. The first one, based on a coherent-state path integral, leads in the large connectivity limit to the mean-field treatment of Fisher et al. [ Phys. Rev. B 40 546 (1989)] at the leading order, and to the bosonic dynamical mean field theory as a first correction, as recently derived by Byczuk and Vollhardt [ Phys. Rev. B 77 235106 (2008)]. We obtain an alternative form of the equation using the occupation number representation, which can be easily solved with an arbitrary numerical precision, for any finite connectivity. We thus compute the transition line between the superfluid and Mott insulator phases of the model, along with thermodynamic observables and the space and imaginary-time dependence of correlation functions. The finite connectivity of the Bethe lattice induces a richer physical content with respect to its infinitely connected counterpart: a notion of distance between sites of the lattice is preserved, and the bosons are still weakly mobile in the Mott insulator phase. The Bethe lattice construction can be viewed as an approximation to the finite-dimensional version of the model. We show indeed a quantitatively reasonable agreement between our predictions and the results of Quantum Monte Carlo simulations in two and three dimensions.