No Arabic abstract
Superconductivity develops from an attractive interaction between itinerant electrons that creates electron pairs which condense into a macroscopic quantum state--the superconducting state. On the other hand, magnetic order in a metal arises from electrons localized close to the ionic core and whose interaction is mediated by itinerant electrons. The dichotomy between local moment magnetic order and superconductivity raises the question of whether these two states can coexist and involve the same electrons. Here we show that the single 4f-electron of cerium in CeRhIn5 simultaneously produces magnetism, characteristic of localization, and superconductivity that requires itinerancy. The dual nature of the 4f-electron allows microscopic coexistence of antiferromagnetic order and superconductivity whose competition is tuned by small changes in pressure and magnetic field. Electronic duality contrasts with conventional interpretations of coexisting spin-density magnetism and superconductivity and offers a new avenue for understanding complex states in classes of materials.
We investigate the origin of ubiquitous low energy kinks found in Angle Resolved Photoemission (ARPES) experiments in a variety of correlated matter. Such kinks are unexpected from weakly interacting electrons and hence identifying their origin should lead to fundamental insights in strongly correlated matter. We devise a protocol for extracting the kink momentum and energy from the experimental data which relies solely on the two asymptotic tangents of each dispersion curve, away from the feature itself. It is thereby insensitive to the different shapes of the kinks as seen in experiments. The body of available data is then analyzed using this method. We proceed to discuss two alternate theoretical explanations of the origin of the kinks. Some theoretical proposals invoke local Bosonic excitations (Einstein phonons or other modes with spin or charge character), located exactly at the energy of observed kinks, leading to a momentum independent self energy of the electrons. A recent alternate is the theory of extremely correlated Fermi liquids (ECFL). This theory predicts kinks in the dispersion arising from a momentum dependent self energy of correlated electrons. We present the essential results from both classes of theories, and identify experimental features that can help distinguish between the two mechanisms. The ECFL theory is found to be consistent with currently available data on kinks in the nodal direction of cuprate superconductors, but conclusive tests require higher resolution energy distribution curve data.
Correlations between electrons and the effective dimensionality are crucial factors that shape the properties of an interacting electron system. For example, the onsite Coulomb repulsion, U, may inhibit, or completely block the intersite electron hopping, t, and depending on the ratio U/t, a material may be a metal or an insulator. The correlation effects increase as the number of allowed dimensions decreases. In 3D systems, the low energy electronic states behave as quasiparticles (QP), while in 1D systems, even weak interactions break the quasiparticles into collective excitations. Dimensionality is particularly important for a class of new exotic low-dimensional materials where 1D or 2D building blocks are loosely connected into a 3D whole. Small interactions between the blocks may induce a whole variety of unusual transitions. Here, we examine layered systems that in the direction perpendicular to the layers display a crossover from insulating-like, at high temperatures, to metallic-like character at low temperatures, while being metallic over the whole temperature range within the layers. We show that this change in effective dimensionality correlates with the existence or non-existence of coherent quasiparticles within the layers.
A novel hybrid scheme is proposed. The {it ab initio} LDA calculation is used to construct the Wannier functions and obtain single electron and Coulomb parameters of the multiband Hubbard-type model. In strong correlation regime the electronic structure within multiband Hubbard model is calculated by the Generalized Tight-Binding (GTB) method, that combines the exact diagonalization of the model Hamiltonian for a small cluster (unit cell) with perturbation treatment of the intercluster hopping and interactions. For undoped La$_2$CuO$_4$ and Nd$_2$CuO$_4$ this scheme results in charge transfer insulators with correct values of gaps and dispersions of bands in agreement to the ARPES data.
Numerical simulations of strongly correlated electron systems suffer from the notorious fermion sign problem which has prevented progress in understanding if systems like the Hubbard model display high-temperature superconductivity. Here we show how the fermion sign problem can be solved completely with meron-cluster methods in a large class of models of strongly correlated electron systems, some of which are in the extended Hubbard model family and show s-wave superconductivity. In these models we also find that on-site repulsion can even coexist with a weak chemical potential without introducing sign problems. We argue that since these models can be simulated efficiently using cluster algorithms they are ideal for studying many of the interesting phenomena in strongly correlated electron systems.
The multielectron LDA+GTB approach has been developed to calculate electronic structure of strongly correlated cuprates. At low energies the effective Hamiltonian of the $t - t - t - {t_ bot } - {J^ * } - {J_ bot }$-model has been derived with parameters coming from the ab initio calculation for LSCO. The electronic structure of LSCO has been calculated self-consistently with the short-range antiferromagnetic order for various doping level. Two Lifshitz-type quantum phase transitions with Fermi surface topology changes have been found at dopings $x_{c1}=0.15$ and $x_{c2}=0.24$. Its effect on normal and superconducting properties has been calculated. The interatomic exchange parameter and its pressure dependence has been calculated within LDA+GTB scheme. The magnetic mechanisms of d-wave pairing induced by static and dynamical spin correlations are discussed. Simultaneous treatment of magnetic and phonon pairing results in the conclusion that both contributions are of the same order. For two layer cuprates like YBCO the interlayer hopping and exchange effects on the electronic structure and doping dependence of $T_c$ is discussed as well as the Coulomb interaction induced mechanism of pairing.