We analyze the stability of excitonic ground states in the two-band Hubbard model with additional electron-phonon and Hunds rule couplings using a combination of mean-field and variational cluster approaches. We show that both the interband Coulomb interaction and the electron-phonon interaction will cooperatively stabilize a charge density wave (CDW) state which typifies an excitonic CDW if predominantly triggered by the effective interorbital electron-hole attraction or a phononic CDW if mostly caused by the coupling to the lattice degrees of freedom. By contrast, the Hunds rule coupling promotes an excitonic spin density wave. We determine the transition between excitonic charge and spin density waves and comment on a fixation of the phase of the excitonic order parameter that would prevent the formation of a superfluid condensate of excitons. The implications for exciton condensation in several material classes with strongly correlated electrons are discussed.
Excitonic density-wave states realized by the quantum condensation of electron-hole pairs (or excitons) are studied in the two-band Hubbard model with Hunds rule coupling and the pair hopping term. Using the variational cluster approximation, we calculate the grand potential of the system and demonstrate that Hunds rule coupling always stabilizes the excitonic spin-density-wave state and destabilizes the excitonic charge-density-wave state and that the pair hopping term enhances these effects. The characteristics of these excitonic density-wave states are discussed using the calculated single-particle spectral function, density of states, condensation amplitude, and pair coherence length. Implications of our results in the materials aspects are also discussed.
The Holstein Model (HM) describes the interaction between fermions and a collection of local (dispersionless) phonon modes. In the dilute limit, the phonon degrees of freedom dress the fermions, giving rise to polaron and bipolaron formation. At higher densities, the phonons mediate collective superconducting (SC) and charge density wave (CDW) phases. Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations have considered both these limits, but have not yet focused on the physics of more general phonon spectra. Here we report QMC studies of the role of phonon dispersion on SC and CDW order in such models. We quantify the effect of finite phonon bandwidth and curvature on the critical temperature $T_{rm cdw}$ for CDW order, and also uncover several novel features of diagonal long range order in the phase diagram, including a competition between charge patterns at momenta ${bf q}=(pi,pi)$ and ${bf q}=(0,pi)$ which lends insight into the relationship between Fermi surface nesting and the wavevector at which charge order occurs. We also demonstrate SC order at half-filling in situations where nonzero bandwidth sufficiently suppresses $T_{rm cdw}$.
From systematic analysis of the high pulsed magnetic field resistance data of La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_{4}$ thin films, we extract an experimental phase diagram for several doping values ranging from the very underdoped to the very overdoped regimes. Our analysis highlights a competition between charge density waves and superconductivity which is ubiquitous between $x=0.08$ and $x=0.19$ and produces the previously observed double step transition. When suppressed by a strong magnetic field, superconductivity is resilient for two specific doping ranges centered around respectively $xapprox 0.09$ and $xapprox 0.19$ and the characteristic temperature for the onset of the competing charge density wave phase is found to vanish above $x = 0.19$. At $x=1/8$ the two phases are found to coexist exactly at zero magnetic field.
Recent studies of pairing and charge order in materials such as FeSe, SrTiO$_3$, and 2H-NbSe$_2$ have suggested that momentum dependence of the electron-phonon coupling plays an important role in their properties. Initial attempts to study Hamiltonians which either do not include or else truncate the range of Coulomb repulsion have noted that the resulting spatial non-locality of the electron-phonon interaction leads to a dominant tendency to phase separation. Here we present Quantum Monte Carlo results for such models in which we incorporate both on-site and intersite electron-electron interactions. We show that these can stabilize phases in which the density is homogeneous and determine the associated phase boundaries. As a consequence, the physics of momentum dependent electron-phonon coupling can be determined outside of the trivial phase separated regime.
We investigate the quasiparticle relaxation and low-energy electronic structure in undoped SrFe_2As_2 exhibiting spin-density wave (SDW) ordering using optical pump-probe femtosecond spectroscopy. A remarkable critical slowing down of the quasiparticle relaxation dynamics at the SDW transition temperature T_SDW = 200K is observed. From temperature dependence of the transient reflectivity amplitude we determine the SDW-state charge gap magnitude, 2Delta_SDW/k_BT_SDW=7.2+-1. The second moment of the Eliashberg function, lambda<(hbar omega)^2>=110+-10meV^2, determined from the relaxation time above T_SDW, is similar to SmFeAsO and BaFe_2As_2 indicating a rather small electron phonon coupling constant unless the electron-phonon spectral function (alpha^2F(omega) is strongly enhanced in the low-energy phonon region.