No Arabic abstract
We study the Mott transition occurring for bosonic Hubbard models in one, two, and three spatial dimensions, by means of a variational wave function benchmarked by Greens function Monte Carlo calculations. We show that a very accurate variational wave function, constructed by applying a long-range Jastrow factor to the non-interacting boson ground state, can describe the superfluid-insulator transition in any dimensionality. Moreover, by mapping the quantum averages over such a wave function into the the partition function of a classical model, important insights into the insulating phase are uncovered. Finally, the evidence in favor of anomalous scenarios for the Mott transition in two dimensions are reported whenever additional long-range repulsive interactions are added to the Hamiltonian.
The Mott-Anderson transition in the disordered charge-transfer model displays several new features in comparison to what is found in the disordered single-band Hubbard model, as recently demonstrated by large-scale computational (statistical dynamical mean field theory) studies. Here we show that a much simpler typical medium theory approach (TMT-DMFT) to the same model is able to capture most qualitative and even quantitative aspects of the phase diagram, the emergence of an intermediate electronic Griffiths phase, and the critical behavior close to the metal-insulator transition. Conceptual and mathematical simplicity of the TMT-DMFT formulation thus makes it possible to gain useful new insight into the mechanism of the Mott-Anderson transition in these models.
We study the Mott metal-insulator transition in the two-band Hubbard model with different hopping amplitudes $t_1$ and $t_2$ for the two orbitals on the two-dimensional square lattice by using {it non-magnetic} variational wave functions, similarly to what has been considered in the limit of infinite dimensions by dynamical mean-field theory. We work out the phase diagram at half filling (i.e., two electrons per site) as a function of $R=t_2/t_1$ and the on-site Coulomb repulsion $U$, for two values of the Hunds coupling $J=0$ and $J/U=0.1$. Our results are in good agreement with previous dynamical mean-field theory calculations, demonstrating that the non-magnetic phase diagram is only slightly modified from infinite to two spatial dimensions. Three phases are present: a metallic one, for small values of $U$, where both orbitals are itinerant; a Mott insulator, for large values of $U$, where both orbitals are localized because of the Coulomb repulsion; and the so-called orbital-selective Mott insulator (OSMI), for small values of $R$ and intermediate $U$s, where one orbital is localized while the other one is still itinerant. The effect of the Hunds coupling is two-fold: on one side, it favors the full Mott phase over the OSMI; on the other side, it stabilizes the OSMI at larger values of $R$.
We examine finite-temperature phase transitions in the two-orbital Hubbard model with different bandwidths by means of the dynamical mean-field theory combined with the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method. It is found that there emerges a peculiar slope-reversed first-order Mott transition between the orbital-selective Mott phase and the Mott insulator phase in the presence of Ising-type Hunds coupling. The origin of the slope-reversed phase transition is clarified by the analysis of the temperature dependence of the energy density. It turns out that the increase of Hunds coupling lowers the critical temperature of the slope-reversed Mott transition. Beyond a certain critical value of Hunds coupling the first-order transition turns into a finite-temperature crossover. We also reveal that the orbital-selective Mott phase exhibits frozen local moments in the wide orbital, which is demonstrated by the spin-spin correlation functions.
We analyze the Coulomb interacting problem in undoped graphene layers by using an excitonic variational ansatz. By minimizing the energy, we derive a gap equation which reproduces and extends known results. We show that a full treatment of the exchange term, which includes the renormalization of the Fermi velocity, tends to suppress the phase transition by increasing the critical coupling at which the excitonic instability takes place.
We analyze the nature of Mott metal-insulator transition in multiorbital systems using dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). The auxiliary multiorbital quantum impurity problem is solved using continuous time quantum Monte Carlo (CTQMC) and the rotationally invariant slave-boson (RISB) mean field approximation. We focus our analysis on the Kanamori Hamiltonian and find that there are two markedly different regimes determined by the nature of the lowest energy excitations of the atomic Hamiltonian. The RISB results at $Tto0$ suggest the following rule of thumb for the order of the transition at zero temperature: a second order transition is to be expected if the lowest lying excitations of the atomic Hamiltonian are charge excitations, while the transition tends to be first order if the lowest lying excitations are in the same charge sector as the atomic ground state. At finite temperatures the transition is first order and its strength, as measured e.g. by the jump in the quasiparticle weight at the transition, is stronger in the parameter regime where the RISB method predicts a first order transition at zero temperature. Interestingly, these results seem to apply to a wide variety of models and parameter regimes.