No Arabic abstract
While the Hubbard model is the standard model to study Mott metal-insulator transitions, it is still unclear to which extent it can describe metal-insulator transitions in real solids, where non-local Coulomb interactions are always present. By using a variational principle, we clarify this issue for short- and long-ranged non-local Coulomb interactions for half-filled systems on bipartite lattices. We find that repulsive non-local interactions generally stabilize the Fermi-liquid regime. The metal-insulator phase boundary is shifted to larger interaction strengths to leading order linearly with non-local interactions. Importantly, non-local interactions can raise the order of the metal-insulator transition. We present a detailed analysis of how the dimension and geometry of the lattice as well as the temperature determine the critical non-local interaction leading to a first-order transition: for systems in more than two dimensions with non-zero density of states at the Fermi energy the critical non-local interaction is arbitrarily small; otherwise it is finite.
In contrast to the Hubbard model, the extended Hubbard model, which additionally accounts for non-local interactions, lacks systemic studies of thermodynamic properties especially across the metal-insulator transition. Using a variational principle, we perform such a systematic study and describe how non-local interactions screen local correlations differently in the Fermi-liquid and in the insulator. The thermodynamics reveal that non-local interactions are at least in parts responsible for first-order metal-insulator transitions in real materials.
We explore the ground-state properties of the two-band Hubbard model with degenerate electronic bands, parametrized by nearest-neighbor hopping $t$, intra- and inter-orbital on-site Coulomb repulsions $U$ and $U^prime$, and Hund coupling $J$, focusing on the case with $J>0$. Using Jastrow-Slater wave functions, we consider both states with and without magnetic/orbital order. Electron pairing can also be included in the wave function, in order to detect the occurrence of superconductivity for generic electron densities $n$. When no magnetic/orbital order is considered, the Mott transition is continuous for $n=1$ (quarter filling); instead, at $n=2$ (half filling), it is first order for small values of $J/U$, while it turns out to be continuous when the ratio $J/U$ is increased. A significant triplet pairing is present in a broad region around $n=2$. By contrast, singlet superconductivity (with $d$-wave symmetry) is detected only for small values of the Hund coupling and very close to half filling. When including magnetic and orbital order, the Mott insulator acquires antiferromagnetic order for $n=2$; instead, for $n=1$ the insulator has ferromagnetic and antiferro-orbital orders. In the latter case, a metallic phase is present for small values of $U/t$ and the metal-insulator transition becomes first order. In the region with $1<n<2$, we observe that ferromagnetism (with no orbital order) is particularly robust for large values of the Coulomb repulsion and that triplet superconductivity is strongly suppressed by the presence of antiferromagnetism. The case with $J=0$, which has an enlarged SU(4) symmetry due to the interplay between spin and orbital degrees of freedom, is also analyzed.
We design an efficient and balanced approach that captures major effects of collective electronic fluctuations in strongly correlated fermionic systems using a simple diagrammatic expansion on a basis of dynamical mean-field theory. For this aim we perform a partial bosonization of collective fermionic fluctuations in leading channels of instability. We show that a simultaneous account for different bosonic channels can be done in a consistent way that allows to avoid the famous Fierz ambiguity problem. The present method significantly improves a description of an effective screened interaction $W$ in both, charge and spin channels, and has a great potential for application to realistic $GW$-like calculations for magnetic materials.
We investigate the behavior of the periodic Anderson model in the presence of $d$-$f$ Coulomb interaction ($U_{df}$) using mean-field theory, variational calculation, and exact diagonalization of finite chains. The variational approach based on the Gutzwiller trial wave function gives a critical value of $U_{df}$ and two quantum critical points (QCPs), where the valence susceptibility diverges. We derive the critical exponent for the valence susceptibility and investigate how the position of the QCP depends on the other parameters of the Hamiltonian. For larger values of $U_{df}$, the Kondo regime is bounded by two first-order transitions. These first-order transitions merge into a triple point at a certain value of $U_{df}$. For even larger $U_{df}$ valence skipping occurs. Although the other methods do not give a critical point, they support this scenario.
We study two identical fermions, or two hard-core bosons, in an infinite chain and coupled to phonons by interactions that modulate their hopping as described by the Peierls/Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. We show that exchange of phonons generates effective nearest-neighbor repulsion between particles and also gives rise to interactions that move the pair as a whole. The two-polaron phase diagram exhibits two sharp transitions, leading to light dimers at strong coupling and the flattening of the dimer dispersion at some critical values of the parameters. This dimer (quasi)self-trapping occurs at coupling strengths where single polarons are mobile. This illustrates that, depending on the strength of the phonon-mediated interactions, the coupling to phonons may completely suppress or strongly enhance quantum transport of correlated particles.