Spectral properties of strongly correlated bosons in two-dimensional optical lattices

Spectral properties of the two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, which emulates ultracold gases of atoms confined in optical lattices, are investigated by means of the variational cluster approach. The phase boundary of the quantum phase transition from Mott phase to superfluid phase is calculated and compared to recent work. Moreover the single-particle spectral functions in both the first and the second Mott lobe are presented and the corresponding densities of states and momentum distributions are evaluated. A qualitatively similar intensity distribution of the spectral weight can be observed for spectral functions in the first and the second Mott lobe.