No Arabic abstract
The LDA+DMFT method is a very powerful tool for gaining insight into the physics of strongly correlated materials. It combines traditional ab-initio density-functional techniques with the dynamical mean-field theory. The core aspects of the method are (i) building material-specific Hubbard-like many-body models and (ii) solving them in the dynamical mean-field approximation. Step (i) requires the construction of a localized one-electron basis, typically a set of Wannier functions. It also involves a number of approximations, such as the choice of the degrees of freedom for which many-body effects are explicitly taken into account, the scheme to account for screening effects, or the form of the double-counting correction. Step (ii) requires the dynamical mean-field solution of multi-orbital generalized Hubbard models. Here central is the quantum-impurity solver, which is also the computationally most demanding part of the full LDA+DMFT approach. In this chapter I will introduce the core aspects of the LDA+DMFT method and present a prototypical application.
Ab initio calculation of the electronic properties of materials is a major challenge for solid state theory. Whereas the experience of forty years has proven density functional theory (DFT) in a suitable, e.g. local approximation (LDA) to give a satisfactory description in case electronic correlations are weak, materials with strongly correlated, say d- or f-electrons remain a challenge. Such materials often exhibit colossal responses to small changes of external parameters such as pressure, temperature, and magnetic field, and are therefore most interesting for technical applications. Encouraged by the success of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) in dealing with model Hamiltonians for strongly correlated electron systems, physicists from the bandstructure and many-body communities have joined forces and have developed a combined LDA+DMFT method for treating materials with strongly correlated electrons ab initio. As a function of increasing Coulomb correlations, this new approach yields a weakly correlated metal, a strongly correlated metal, or a Mott insulator. In this paper, we introduce the LDA+DMFT by means of an example, LaMnO_3 . Results for this material, including the colossal magnetoresistance of doped manganites are presented. We also discuss advantages and disadvantages of the LDA+DMFT approach.
The puzzling absence of Pu magnetic moments in a PuAm environment is explored using the self-consistent Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT) calculations in combination with the Local Density Approximation. We argue that delta-Pu -Am alloys provide an ideal test bed for investigating the screening of moments from the single impurity limit to the dense limit. Several important effects can be studied: volume expansion, shift of the bare Pu on-site f energy level, and the reduction of the hybridization cloud resulting from the collective character of the Kondo effect in the Anderson lattice. These effects compensate each other and result in a coherence scale, which is independent of alloy composition, and is around 800K. We emphasize the role of the DMFT self-consistency condition, and multiplet splittings in Pu and Am atoms, in order to capture the correct value of the coherence scale in the alloy.
The electronic spectrum, energy gap and local magnetic moment of paramagnetic NiO are computed by using the local density approximation plus dynamical mean-field theory (LDA+DMFT). To this end the noninteracting Hamiltonian obtained within the local density approximation (LDA) is expressed in Wannier functions basis, with only the five anti-bonding bands with mainly Ni 3d character taken into account. Complementing it by local Coulomb interactions one arrives at a material-specific many-body Hamiltonian which is solved by DMFT together with quantum Monte-Carlo (QMC) simulations. The large insulating gap in NiO is found to be a result of the strong electronic correlations in the paramagnetic state. In the vicinity of the gap region, the shape of the electronic spectrum calculated in this way is in good agreement with the experimental x-ray-photoemission and bremsstrahlung-isochromat-spectroscopy results of Sawatzky and Allen. The value of the local magnetic moment computed in the paramagnetic phase (PM) agrees well with that measured in the antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase. Our results for the electronic spectrum and the local magnetic moment in the PM phase are in accordance with the experimental finding that AFM long-range order has no significant influence on the electronic structure of NiO.
The electron-doped Pr(2-x)Ce(x)CuO(4) (PCCO) compound in the pseudogap regime (x~0.15) was investigated using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and the generalized dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) with the k-dependent self-energy (LDA+DMFT+Sigma_k). Model parameters (hopping integral values and local Coulomb interaction strength) for the effective one-band Hubbard model were calculated by the local density approximation (LDA) with numerical renormalization group method (NRG) employed as an impurity solver in DMFT computations. An external k-dependent self-energy Sigma_k was used to describe interaction of correlated conducting electrons with short-range antiferromagnetic (AFM) pseudogap fluctuations. Both experimental and theoretical spectral functions and Fermi surfaces (FS) were obtained and compared demonstrating good semiquantitative agreement. For both experiment and theory normal state spectra of nearly optimally doped PCCO show clear evidence for a pseudogap state with AFM-like nature. Namely, folding of quasiparticle bands as well as presence of the hot spots and Fermi arcs were observed.
Recent experimental observations of magnetization plateau in metallic tetraboride $textrm{TmB}_{4}$ have created a lot of interest in these class of materials. Hysteretic longitudinal resistance and anomalous Hall Effect are other remarkable features in the rare-earth tetraborides which represent experimental realizations of Archimedean Shastry-Sutherland (SSL) lattice. Electronic band structures, calculated under GGA and GGA+SO approximations, show that $textrm{TmB}_{4}$ is a narrow band system with considerable correlation in its f-level. Strong correlation effects in this system are studied under single-site dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) [LDA+DMFT scheme] using multi-orbital generalization of iterated perturbation theory (MO-IPT). Pseudo-gap behaviour in spectral function and non-Fermi liquid behaviour of self-energy shows non-trivial strong correlation effects present in this geometrically frustrated metallic magnets. We also consider the extant, heather-to-neglected, strong atomic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) effects. While there is a significant change in the topology of the Fermi surface in the presence of SOC, the non-Fermi liquid behavior survives. The system can be modelled by an effective two orbital spinless Falicov-Kimball model together with two free band like states.