For the treatment of interacting electrons in crystal lattices approximations based on the picture of effective sites, coupled in a self-consistent fashion, have proven very useful. Particularly in the presence of strong local correlations, a local approach to the problem, combining a powerful method for the short ranged interactions with the lattice propagation part of the dynamics, determines the quality of results to a large extent. For a considerable time the non crossing approximation (NCA) in direct perturbation theory, an approach originally developed by Keiter for the Anderson impurity model, built a standard for the description of the local dynamics of interacting electrons. In the last couple of years exact methods like the numerical renormalization group (NRG) as pioneered by Wilson, have surpassed this approximation as regarding the description of the low energy regime. We present an improved approximation level of direct perturbation theory for finite Coulomb repulsion U, the crossing approximation one (CA1) and discuss its connections with other generalizations of NCA. CA1 incorporates all processes up to fourth order in the hybridization strength V in a self-consistent skeleton expansion, retaining the full energy dependence of the vertex functions. We reconstruct the local approach to the lattice problem from the point of view of cumulant perturbation theory in a very general way and discuss the proper use of impurity solvers for this purpose. Their reliability can be tested in applications to e.g. the Hubbard model and the Anderson-lattice model. We point out shortcomings of existing impurity solvers and improvements gained with CA1 in this context. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Hellmut Keiter.
For the treatment of interacting electrons in crystal lattices approximations based on the picture of effective sites, coupled in a self-consistent fashion, have proven very useful. Particularly in the presence of strong local correlations, a local approach to the problem, combining a powerful method for the short ranged interactions with the lattice propagation part of the dynamics, determines the quality of results to a large extent. For a considerable time the non crossing approximation (NCA) in direct perturbation theory, an approach originally developed by Keiter for the Anderson impurity model, built a standard for the description of the local dynamics of interacting electrons. In the last couple of years exact methods like the numerical renormalization group (NRG) as pioneered by Wilson, have surpassed this approximation as regarding the description of the low energy regime. We present an improved approximation level of direct perturbation theory for finite Coulomb repulsion U, the crossing approximation one (CA1) and discuss its connections with other generalizations of NCA. CA1 incorporates all processes up to fourth order in the hybridization strength V in a self-consistent skeleton expansion, retaining the full energy dependence of the vertex functions. We reconstruct the local approach to the lattice problem from the point of view of cumulant perturbation theory in a very general way and discuss the proper use of impurity solvers for this purpose. Their reliability can be tested in applications to e.g. the Hubbard model and the Anderson-lattice model. We point out shortcomings of existing impurity solvers and improvements gained with CA1 in this context. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Hellmut Keiter.
We solve the impurity problem which arises within nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory for the Hubbard model by means of a self-consistent perturbation expansion around the atomic limit. While the lowest order, known as the noncrossing approximation (NCA), is reliable only when the interaction U is much larger than the bandwidth, low-order corrections to the NCA turn out to be sufficient to reproduce numerically exact Monte Carlo results in a wide parameter range that covers the insulating phase and the metal-insulator crossover regime at not too low temperatures. As an application of the perturbative strong-coupling impurity solver we investigate the response of the double occupancy in the Mott insulating phase of the Hubbard model to a dynamical change in the interaction or the hopping, a technique which has been used as a probe of the Mott insulating state in ultracold fermionic gases.
The local moment approach (LMA) has presented itself as a powerful semianalytical quantum impurity solver (QIS) in the context of the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) for the periodic Anderson model and it correctly captures the low-energy Kondo scale for the single impurity model, having excellent agreement with the Bethe ansatz and numerical renormalization group (NRG) results. However, the most common correlated lattice model, the Hubbard model, has not been explored well within the LMA+DMFT framework beyond the insulating phase. Here in our work, within the framework we complete the filling-interaction phase diagram of the single band Hubbard model at zero temperature. Our formalism is generic to any particle filling and can be extended to finite temperature. We contrast our results with another QIS, namely the iterated perturbation theory (IPT) and show that the second spectral moment sum rule improves better as the Hubbard interaction strength grows stronger in LMA, whereas it severely breaks down after the Mott transition in IPT. For the metallic case, the Fermi liquid (FL) scaling agreement with the NRG spectral density supports the fact that the FL scale emerges from the inherent Kondo physics of the impurity model. We also show that, in the metallic phase, the FL scaling of the spectral density leads to universality which extends to infinite frequency range at infinite correlation strength (strong coupling). At large interaction strength, the off half-filling spectral density forms a pseudogap near the Fermi level and filling-controlled Mott transition occurs as one approaches the half-filling. As a response property, we finally study the zero temperature optical conductivity and find universal features such as absorption peak position governed by the FL scale and a doping independent crossing point, often dubbed the isosbestic point in experiments.
In recent years the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method has been extended to the calculation of dynamic response functions and transport properties of magnetic impurity models. The approach can now be applied more widely to lattice models of strongly correlated electron systems by the use of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), in which the lattice problem is transformed into one for an effective impurity with an additional self-consistency constraint. We review these developments and assess the potential for further applications of this approach. We also discuss an alternative approach to renormalization, renormalized perturbation theory, in which the leading asymptotically exact results for the low temperature regime for a number of magnetic impurity models can be obtained within finite order perturbation theory.
This chapter, like the previous one, describes quantum Monte Carlo methods for the simulation of a system of interacting electrons at nonzero temperature. Here, we target a particular class of problems, characterized by a small number of correlated sites or orbitals, that we call impurity problems. While we could apply the methods of the previous chapter to such impurity models, the algorithms discussed here are more advantageous not only because they work in continuous imaginary time and hence lack the Trotter approximation error inherent to the previous methods, but also because they manipulate determinants of matrices of smaller size, which can be handled more efficiently. At the same time, the continuous-time approach is applicable to broader classes of impurity problems. Driving the development of these continuous-time impurity solvers was the desire to perform more efficient simulations of correlated lattice models within the framework of dynamical mean-field theory. This formalism maps the lattice problem onto an impurity problem, whose parameters are determined by a self-consistency condition. In some cases, the self-consistent solution gives a good approximation of the properties of the original lattice problem. When we combine this dynamical mean-field approximation with the local-density approximation for electronic structure calculations, we obtain a powerful scheme for electronic structure calculations of strongly correlated materials. In this chapter we discuss the most important classes of impurity models, sketch the basics of the dynamical mean-field approximation, and detail the different variants of continuous-time impurity solvers. Quantum impurity models A quantum impurity model describes an atom or molecule embedded in some host with which it exchanges electrons, spin, and energy. This exchange allows the impurity to make transitions between different quantum states, and in the presence of interactions within or between the impurity orbitals, these transitions lead to nontrivial dynamical properties. Quantum impurity models play a prominent role, for example, in the theoretical description of the magnetic and electric properties of dilute metal alloys and in theoretical studies of quantum dots and molecular conductors. These models also appear as an auxiliary problem whose solution yields the dynamical mean-field description of correlated lattice models.
An essential role for the description of correlated quantum many-particle systems is played by impurity problems. These consist of a small number of localized orbitals, where the electrons are subject to a Coulomb-interaction, coupled to noninteracting bath degrees of freedom. Impurity models are used for the description of magnetic impurities in metals, of quantum points in nanostructures, and in the context of the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT). For their solution a large number of numerical methods exists. We mention here quantum Monte Carlo methods, the numerical renormalization group, or the exact diagonalization method. In this thesis we introduce a new approach to impurity problems, which is based on the functional renormalization group (fRG). In contrast to the methods mentioned above this approach is approximative, but it can be applied with comparatively lower numerical effort. The aim of this thesis is to examine the advantages and limits of this method. An important role in this connection is played by the single impurity Anderson model (SIAM), which is already understood very well with other methods and is seen as a prototype for models with strong local correlations. The spin fluctuations of this model are governed by the so-called Kondo energy scale and a central question of this thesis is whether this scale can be reproduced with our approach. We begin with a short introduction to the Green's function formalism for correlated quantum many particle systems. Then the fRG flow equations for the one-particle irreducible vertex functions are deduced, and several approximation schemes are discussed. In chapter 4 we introduce the fRG scheme used in this thesis. At first the SIAM is mapped to a semi-infinite chain, in which the interacting orbital is given by the first site of this chain. The system is then subdivided into two parts. The first part, which is called 'core', consists of the interacting orbital and the first L bath sites. The remaining bath sites form the second part. At the beginning both parts are decoupled from each other such that the core can be solved exactly. Starting with this exact solution the coupling between the core and the remaining bath sites is switched on slowly in a renormalization group flow. This way it is possible to calculate the one-particle and two-particle correlation functions on the correlated site. We call this flow scheme 'hybridization flow'. The flow equations are formulated in an effective theory on the first bath site outside the core, which turns out to be advantageous compared to other implementations of the hybridization flow. In chapter 5 this hybridization flow method is applied to the SIAM with semi-elliptic bath density of states. We discuss the differences which arise for different core-sizes (L = 0,1,2,3) and for different truncations of the fRG flow equations. In the cases L=0 and L=2 the local Fermi liquid properties of the SIAM and the associated Kondo scale can not be reproduced in both approximation schemes. For the core sizes L=1 and L=3 the ground state of the core is already a spin singlet state in the beginning of the flow and the Fermi liquid properties are reproduced. The Kondo energy scale, which determines the width of the central quasi-particle peak and the size of the local spin-susceptibility, is however not accurately resolved. This is partly due to the finite temperature used in our implementation such that for larger interaction strength the temperature is above the Kondo energy scale. The application of the hybridization flow method to quantum impurity problems in the context of the DMFT is discussed in chapter 6. In this approach lattice models with a local interaction, like the Hubbard model, are mapped to an effective impurity problem for a single lattice site embedded in a dynamical mean field representing the influence of the other electrons. This scheme is exact in infinitely many dimensions and a nonperturbative approximation method for finite-dimensional systems. In particular the Mott metal-insulator transition in the Hubbard model is successfully described by this method. One class of quantities, which is easily accessible from the hybridization flow scheme, is given by the local two-particle correlation functions. These play an essential role in non-local extensions of the DMFT. Therefore we mainly focus on these quantities. At first we apply our flow scheme to the Hubbard model on the Bethe lattice in infinite dimensions and calculate the local one-particle irreducible vertex functions in the insulating and the metallic phase in good agreement with previous calculations, which use the exact diagonalization method as impurity solver. After this we extend our flow scheme to a cluster DMFT method, which includes short-range antiferromagnetic correlations and calculate again the local and non-local vertex functions for the two-dimensional Hubbard model. We compare these to the results of the single-site DMFT.
We study the single impurity Anderson model (SIAM) using the equations of motion method (EOM), the non-crossing approximation (NCA), the one-crossing approximation (OCA), and Wilson's numerical renormalization group (NRG). We calculate the density of states and the linear conductance focusing on their dependence on the chemical potential and on the temperature paying special attention to the Kondo and Coulomb blockade regimes for a large range of model parameters. We report that some standard approximations based on the EOM technique display a rather unexpected poor behavior in the Coulomb blockade regime even at high temperatures. Our study offers a critical comparison between the different methods as well as a detailed compilation of the shortcomings and limitations due the approximations involved in each technique, thus allowing for a cost-benefit analysis of the different solvers that considers both numerical precision and computational performance.