Transport-induced melting of crystals of Rydberg dressed atoms in a one-dimensional lattice

We discuss the many-body physics of an ensemble of Rydberg dressed atoms with van der Waals dipole-dipole interactions in a one-dimensional lattice. Using a strong coupling expansion and numerical density-matrix renormalization group simulations, we calculate the many-body phase diagram. A devil's staircase structure emerges with Mott-insulating phases at any rational filling fraction. Closed analytic expressions are given for the phase boundaries in second order of the tunneling amplitude and are shown to agree very well with the numerical results. The transition point where the incompressible phases melt due to the kinetic energy term depends strongly on the denominator of the filling fraction and varies over many orders of magnitude between different phases.