Fully occupied or unoccupied bands in a solid are often considered inert and irrelevant to a materials low-energy properties. But the discovery of enhanced superconductivity in heavily electron-doped FeSe-derived superconductors poses questions about
the possible role of incipient bands (those laying close to but not crossing the Fermi level) in pairing. To answer this question, researchers have studied pairing correlations in the bilayer Hubbard model, which has an incipient band for large interlayer hopping $t_perp$, using many-body perturbation theory and variational methods. They have generally found that superconductivity is enhanced as one of the bands approaches the Liftshiz transition and even when it becomes incipient. Here, we address this question using the nonperturbative quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) to study the bilayer Hubbard models pairing correlations. We find that the model has robust $s_pm$ pairing correlations in the large $t_perp$ limit, which can become stronger as one band is made incipient. While this behavior is linked to changes in the effective interaction, we further find that it is counteracted by a suppression of the intrinsic pair-field susceptibility and does not translate to an increased $T_c$. Our results demonstrate that the highest achievable transition temperatures in the bilayer Hubbard model occur when the system has two bands crossing the Fermi level.
The dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) is a quantum cluster extension to the single-site dynamical mean-field theory that incorporates spatially nonlocal dynamic correlations systematically and nonperturbatively. The DCA$^+$ algorithm addresses th
e cluster shape dependence of the DCA and improves the convergence with cluster size by introducing a lattice self-energy with continuous momentum dependence. However, we show that the DCA$^+$ algorithm is plagued by a fundamental problem when its self-consistency equations are formulated using the bare Greens function of the cluster. This problem is most severe in the strongly correlated regime at low doping, where the DCA$^+$ self-energy becomes overly metallic and local, and persists to cluster sizes where the standard DCA has long converged. In view of the failure of the DCA$^+$ algorithm, we propose to complement DCA simulations with a post-interpolation procedure for single-particle and two-particle correlation functions to preserve continuous momentum dependence and the associated benefits in the DCA. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this practical approach with results for the half-filled and hole-doped two-dimensional Hubbard model.
We discuss the influence of momentum-dependent correlations on the superconducting gap structure in iron-based superconductors. Within the weak coupling approach including self-energy effects at the one-loop spin-fluctuation level, we construct a dim
ensionless pairing strength functional which includes the effects of quasiparticle renormalization. The stationary solution of this equation determines the gap function at $T_c$. The resulting equations represent the simplest generalization of spin fluctuation pairing theory to include the effects of an anisotropic quasiparticle weight. We obtain good agreement with experimentally observed anisotropic gap structures in LiFeAs, indicating that the inclusion of quasiparticle renormalization effects in the existing weak-coupling theories can account for the observed anomalies in the gap structure of Fe-based superconductors.
The nature and mechanism of superconductivity in the extremely electron-doped FeSe based superconductors continues to be a matter of debate. In these systems, the hole-like band has moved below the Fermi energy, and various spin-fluctuation theories
involving pairing between states near the electron Fermi surface and states of this incipient band have been proposed. Here, using a dynamic cluster quantum Monte Carlo calculation for a bilayer Hubbard model we show that the pairing in these systems can be understood in terms of an effective retarded attractive interaction between electrons near the electron Fermi surface.
Using random-phase approximation spin-fluctuation theory, we study the influence of the hybridization between iron $d$-orbitals and pnictide $p$-orbitals on the superconducting pairing state in iron-based superconductors. The calculations are perform
ed for a 16-orbital Hubbard-Hund tight-binding model of BaFe$_2$As$_2$ that includes the As-$p$ orbital degrees of freedom in addition to the Fe-$d$ orbitals and compared to calculations for a 10-orbital Fe-$d$ only model. In both models we find a leading $s^pm$ pairing state and a subleading $d_ {x^2-y^2}$-wave state in the parent compound. Upon doping, we find that the $s^pm$ state remains the leading state in the 16-orbital model up to a doping level of 0.475 electrons per unit cell, at which the hole Fermi surface pockets at the zone center start to disappear. This is in contrast to the 10-orbital model, where the $d$-wave state becomes the leading state at a doping of less than 0.2 electrons. This improved stability of $s^pm$ pairing is found to arise from a decrease of $d_{xy}$ orbital weight on the electron pockets due to hybridization with the As-$p$ orbitals and the resulting reduction of near $(pi,pi)$ spin-fluctuation scattering which favors the competing $d$-wave state. These results show that the orbital dependent hybridization of Fermi surface Bloch states with the usually neglected $p$-orbital states is an important ingredient in an improved itinerant pairing theory.
We study the interplay between the electron-phonon (e-ph) and on-site electron-electron (e-e) interactions in a three-orbital Hubbard-Holstein model on an extended one-dimensional lattice using determinant quantum Monte Carlo. For weak e-e and e-ph i
nteractions, we observe a competition between an orbital-selective Mott phase (OSMP) and a (multicomponent) charge-density-wave (CDW) insulating phase, with an intermediate metallic phase located between them. For large e-e and e-ph couplings, the OSMP and CDW phases persist, while the metallic phase develops short-range orbital correlations and becomes insulating when both the e-e and e-ph interactions are large but comparable. Many of our conclusions are in line with those drawn from a prior dynamical mean field theory study of the two-orbital Hubbard-Holstein model [Phys. Rev. B 95, 12112(R) (2017)] in infinite dimension, suggesting that the competition between the e-ph and e-e interactions in multiorbital Hubbard-Holstein models leads to rich physics, regardless of the dimension of the system.
Evidence for the presence of high energy magnetic excitations in overdoped La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ (LSCO) has raised questions regarding the role of spin-fluctuations in the pairing mechanism. If they remain present in overdoped LSCO, why does $T_c$
decrease in this doping regime? Here, using results for the dynamic spin susceptibility ${rm Im}chi(q,omega)$ obtained from a determinantal quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) calculation for the Hubbard model we address this question. We find that while high energy magnetic excitations persist in the overdoped regime, they lack the momentum to scatter pairs between the anti-nodal regions. It is the decrease in the spectral weight at large momentum transfer, not observed by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS), which leads to a reduction in the $d$-wave spin-fluctuation pairing strength.
Observation of robust superconductivity in some of the iron based superconductors in the vicinity of a Lifshitz point where a spin density wave instability is suppressed as the {hole} band drops below the Fermi energy raise questions for spin-fluctua
tion theories. Here we discuss spin-fluctuation pairing for a bilayer Hubbard model, which goes through such a Lifshitz transition. We find s$_pm$ pairing with a transition temperature that peaks beyond the Lifshitz point and a gap function that has essentially the same magnitude but opposite sign on the incipient hole band as it does on the electron band that has a Fermi surface.
