No Arabic abstract
Looking for superconductors with higher transition temperature requires a guiding principle. In conventional superconductors, electrons pair up into Cooper pairs via the retarded attraction mediated by electron-phonon coupling. Higher-frequency phonon (or smaller atomic mass) leads to higher superconducting transition temperature, known as the isotope effect. Furthermore, superconductivity is the only instability channel of the metallic normal state. In correlated systems, the above simple scenario could be easily violated. The strong local interaction is poorly screened, and this conspires with a featured Fermi surface to promote various competing electronic orders, such as spin-density-wave, charge-density-wave and unconventional superconductivity. On top of the various phases, the effect of electron-phonon coupling is an intriguing issue. Using the functional renormalization group, here we investigated the interplay between the electron correlation and electron-phonon coupling in a prototype Hubbard-Holstein model on a square lattice. At half-filling, we found spin-density-wave and charge-density-wave phases and the transition between them, while no superconducting phase arises. Upon finite doping, d-wave/s-wave superconductivity emerges in proximity to spin-density-wave/charge-density-wave phases. Surprisingly, lower-frequency Holstein-phonons are either less destructive, or even beneficial, to the various phases, resulting in a negative isotope effect. We discuss the underlying mechanism behind and the implications of such anomalous effects.
We use an unbiased, continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method to address the possibility of a zero-temperature phase without charge-density-wave (CDW) order in the Holstein and, by extension, the Holstein-Hubbard model on the half-filled square lattice. In particular, we present results spanning the whole range of phonon frequencies, allowing us to use the well understood adiabatic and antiadiabatic limits as reference points. For all parameters considered, our data suggest that CDW correlations are stronger than pairing correlations even at very low temperatures. These findings are compatible with a CDW ground state that is also suggested by theoretical arguments.
We analyze the quantum phase diagram of the Holstein-Hubbard model using an asymptotically exact strong-coupling expansion. We find all sorts of interesting phases including a pair-density wave (PDW), a charge 4e (and even a charge 6e) superconductor, regimes of phase separation, and a variety of distinct charge-density-wave (CDW), spin-density-wave (SDW) and superconducting regimes. We chart the crossovers that occur as a function of the degree of retardation, i.e. the ratio of characteristic phonon frequency to the strength of interactions.
We present determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the hole-doped single-band Hubbard-Holstein model on a square lattice, to investigate how quasiparticles emerge when doping a Mott insulator (MI) or a Peierls insulator (PI). The MI regime at large Hubbard interaction $U$ and small relative electron-phonon coupling strength $lambda$ is quickly suppressed upon doping, by drawing spectral weight from the upper Hubbard band and shifting the lower Hubbard band towards the Fermi level, leading to a metallic state with emergent quasiparticles at the Fermi level. On the other hand, the PI regime at large $lambda$ and small $U$ persists out to relatively high doping levels. We study the evolution of the $d$-wave superconducting susceptibility with doping, and find that it increases with lowering temperature in a regime of intermediate values of $U$ and $lambda$.
By using variational wave functions and quantum Monte Carlo techniques, we investigate the interplay between electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in the two-dimensional Hubbard-Holstein model. Here, the ground-state phase diagram is triggered by several energy scales, i.e., the electron hopping $t$, the on-site electron-electron interaction $U$, the phonon energy $omega_0$, and the electron-phonon coupling $g$. At half filling, the ground state is an antiferromagnetic insulator for $U gtrsim 2g^2/omega_0$, while it is a charge-density-wave (or bi-polaronic) insulator for $U lesssim 2g^2/omega_0$. In addition to these phases, we find a superconducting phase that intrudes between them. For $omega_0/t=1$, superconductivity emerges when both $U/t$ and $2g^2/tomega_0$ are small; then, by increasing the value of the phonon energy $omega_0$, it extends along the transition line between antiferromagnetic and charge-density-wave insulators. Away from half filling, phase separation occurs when doping the charge-density-wave insulator, while a uniform (superconducting) ground state is found when doping the superconducting phase. In the analysis of finite-size effects, it is extremely important to average over twisted boundary conditions, especially in the weak-coupling limit and in the doped case.
A pair-density-wave (PDW) is a novel superconducting state with an oscillating order parameter. A microscopic mechanism that can give rise to it has been long sought but has not yet been established by any controlled calculation. Here we report a density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) study of an effective $t$-$J$-$V$ model, which is equivalent to the Holstein-Hubbard model in a strong-coupling limit, on long two-, four- and six-leg triangular cylinders. While a state with long-range PDW order is precluded in one dimension, we find strong quasi-long-range PDW order with a divergent PDW susceptibility as well as spontaneous breaking of time-reversal and inversion symmetries. Despite the strong interactions, the underlying Fermi surfaces and electron pockets around the $K$ and $K^prime$ points in the Brillouin zone can be identified. We conclude that the state is valley-polarized and that the PDW arises from intra-pocket pairing with an incommensurate center of mass momentum. In the two-leg case, the exponential decay of spin correlations and the measured central charge $capprox 1$ are consistent with an unusual realization of a Luther-Emery liquid.