Thermal phase transitions in the attractive extended Bose-Hubbard model with three-body constraint

By means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations implemented with a two-loop update scheme, the finite-temperature phase diagram of a three-body constrained attractive Bose lattice gas is investigated. The nature of the thermal phase transitions around the dimer superfluid and the atomic superfluid is unveiled. We find that the Z₂ symmetry breaking transitions between these two superfluid phases are of first order even at nonzero temperatures. More interestingly, the thermal transition from the dimer superfluid to the normal fluid is found to be consistent with the Kosterlitz-Thouless type but giving an anomalous universal stiffness jump. It demonstrates that this transition is driven by unbinding of pairs of fractional vortices.