Investigating Polaron Transitions with Polar Molecules

We determine the phase diagram of a polaron model with mixed breathing-mode and Su-Schrieffer-Heeger couplings and show that it has two sharp transitions, in contrast to pure models which exhibit one (for Su-Schrieffer-Heeger coupling) or no (for breathing-mode coupling) transition. We then show that ultracold molecules trapped in optical lattices can be used as a quantum simulator to study precisely this mixed Hamiltonian, and that the relative contributions of the two couplings can be tuned with external electric fields. The parameters of current experiments place them in the region where one of the transitions occurs. We also propose a scheme to measure the polaron dispersion using stimulated Raman spectroscopy.