We give an elementary introduction to a recent diagrammatic extension of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) coined dynamical vertex approximation (D$Γ$A). This approach contains the important local correlations of DMFT, giving, among others, rise to quasiparticle renormalizations, Mott-Hubbard transitions and magnetism, but also non-local correlations beyond. The latter are at the very essence of many physical phenomena in strongly correlated elecectron systems. As correlations are treated equally on all length scales, D$Γ$A allows us to describe physical phenomena such as magnons, quantum criticality, and the interplay between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity. We review results hitherto obtained for the Hubbard model in dimensions d=3, 2, and 1.
We give an elementary introduction to a recent diagrammatic extension of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) coined dynamical vertex approximation (DΓA). This approach contains the important local correlations of DMFT, giving, among others, rise to quasiparticle renormalizations, Mott-Hubbard transitions and magnetism, but also non-local correlations beyond. The latter are at the very essence of many physical phenomena in strongly correlated elecectron systems. As correlations are treated equally on all length scales, DΓA allows us to describe physical phenomena such as magnons, quantum criticality, and the interplay between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity. We review results hitherto obtained for the Hubbard model in dimensions d=3, 2, and 1.
We give an elementary introduction to a recent diagrammatic extension of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) coined dynamical vertex approximation (DΓA). This approach contains the important local correlations of DMFT, giving, among others, rise to quasiparticle renormalizations, Mott-Hubbard transitions and magnetism, but also non-local correlations beyond. The latter are at the very essence of many physical phenomena in strongly correlated elecectron systems. As correlations are treated equally on all length scales, DΓA allows us to describe physical phenomena such as magnons, quantum criticality, and the interplay between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity. We review results hitherto obtained for the Hubbard model in dimensions d = 3, 2, and 1.
We develop a diagrammatic approach with local and nonlocal self-energy diagrams, constructed from the local irreducible vertex. This approach includes the local correlations of dynamical mean-field theory and long-range correlations beyond. It allows us, for example, to describe (para)magnons and weak localization effects---in strongly correlated systems. As a first application, we study the interplay between nonlocal antiferromagnetic correlations and the strong local correlations emerging in the vicinity of a Mott-Hubbard transition.
Almost 50 years after the invention of the Hubbard model [1–3] and despite modern petaflop supercomputers, a precise analysis of the criticality of this most basic model for electronic correlations has not been achieved so far, at least not in three dimensions. Dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) [4–6] was a big step forward to quantitatively calculate the three dimensional Hubbard model since the major contribution of electronic correlations, i.e., the local ones, are well captured within this theory. Local correlations give rise to quasiparticle renormalization, the Mott-Hubbard transition, magnetism, and even more subtle issues such as kinks in a purely electronic models [7]. However, non-local spatial correlations are also naturally generated by a purely local Hubbard interaction, and, as it is well known, they become of essential importance in the vicinity of secondorder phase transitions. As these correlations are neglected in DMFT, this scheme can provide only for a conventional mean-field (MF) description of the critical properties. To overcome this shortcoming cluster extensions to DMFT such as the dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) and cluster-DMFT have been proposed, see Ref. 8 for a review. In these approaches non-local correlations beyond DMFT are taken into account, however only within the range of the cluster size; and due to computational limitations the actual size of the cluster is severely restricted to about 3-5 sites for each direction. Hence, short-range correlations are included by these approaches, whereas long-range ones are not. Nonetheless, Kent et al. [9] were able to extrapolate the cluster size of so-called Betts clusters to infinity, albeit assuming from the very beginning the critical exponents to be those of the Heisenberg model. This way they extrapolated the critical temperature of the paramagnetic-toantiferromagnetic phase transition which was found to be in agreement with earlier quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations of Staudt et al. [10] on finite lattices.
In this paper, we investigate how nonlocal correlations affect, selectively, the physics of correlated electrons over different energy scales, from the Fermi level to the band edges. This goal is achieved by applying a diagrammatic extension of dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), the dynamical vertex approximation $(\mathrm{D}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}\mathrm{A})$, to study several spectral and thermodynamic properties of the unfrustrated Hubbard model in two and three dimensions. Specifically, we focus first on the low-energy regime by computing the electronic scattering rate and the quasiparticle mass renormalization for decreasing temperatures at a fixed interaction strength. This way, we obtain a precise characterization of the several steps through which the Fermi-liquid physics is progressively destroyed by nonlocal correlations. Our study is then extended to a broader energy range, by analyzing the temperature behavior of the kinetic and potential energy, as well as of the corresponding energy distribution functions. Our findings allow us to identify a smooth but definite evolution of the nature of nonlocal correlations by increasing interaction: They either increase or decrease the kinetic energy w.r.t. DMFT depending on the interaction strength being weak or strong, respectively. This reflects the corresponding evolution of the ground state from a nesting-driven (Slater) to a superexchange-driven (Heisenberg) antiferromagnet (AF), whose fingerprints are, thus, recognizable in the spatial correlations of the paramagnetic phase. Finally, a critical analysis of our numerical results of the potential energy at the largest interaction allows us to identify possible procedures to improve the ladder-based algorithms adopted in the dynamical vertex approximation.
In systems of indistinguishable particles, correlations between the quantum degrees of freedom can give rise to collective modes where particles behave coherently together over some correlation length and time, thereby forming quasiparticles. One example of such quasiparticle would be the π-ton [66], describing the binding of two particle-hole pairs via the exchange of momentum corresponding to the antiferromagnetic (AFM) wave vector. These quasiparticles would emerge in the vicinity of an AFM ordering instability [66, 119, 120] and nonlocal correlations are crucial to describe them. Especially, in systems out of equilibrium, nonlocality can give rise to prethermal states wherein the distribution function can be momentum-dependent [92, 119], and nonthermal exotic physics can be observed and manipulated [40, 68, 79, 84, 93, 132, 147, 157–159]. To be able to model and simulate systems out of equilibrium is a challenge. A few numerical methods such as nonequilibrium Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT) [44] have been used extensively [5]. Nonequilibrium DMFT is designed to treat nonperturbatively the local time-dependent single-particle correlations. Since phenomena such as quantum criticality, high-Tc superconductivity or the creation of π-tons via light-matter coupling stem from nonlocal two-particle correlations, one needs to resort to diagrammatic extensions to DMFT [103] and other methods to effectively describe them, such as the post-processing DMFT treatment of vertex corrections, which will be introduced. The Two-Particle Self-Consistent approach (TPSC) and its variants figure among those methods that include nonlocal two-particle and single-particle correlations in a self-consistent way [121, 122]. TPSC and its variants have the ability to capture the effect of the growing spin fluctuations (paramagnons) in the self-energy when close to amagnetic phase transition leading to the breakdown of the Fermi-liquid quasiparticles at the Fermi level: this would mark the onset of a pseudo-gap [145, 152]. It fulfils the Mermin-Wagner theorem in two dimensions, the Pauli principle, and various two-particle local sum-rules [152]. In the works embodied in this thesis, numerical methods have been designed to access nonequilibrium regimes, by changing model parameters across time, allowing for nonlocal correlations to be properly included. With these new algorithms at hand, the π-tons were studied in the optical conductivity and magnetic response [119, 120] as well as spin and charge fluctuations in the 2D and 3D single-band Hubbard model [121, 122]. It is demonstrated by means of those methods that nonlocal two-particle vertex corrections can underpin prethermal states and could generate transient nonthermal states such as low-energy charge excitations associated with nonthermal negative temperatures. It is also shown that states lying close to the Fermi level control the thermalization timescale and that lattice hopping quenches changing the unit-cell dimensionality could allow one to play around with the charge and spin scattering channels.
While key effects of the many-body problem---such as Kondo and Mott physics---can be understood in terms of on-site correlations, non-local fluctuations of charge, spin, and pairing amplitudes are at the heart of the most fascinating and unresolved phenomena in condensed matter physics. Here, we review recent progress in diagrammatic extensions to dynamical mean-field theory for ab initio materials calculations. We first recapitulate the quantum field theoretical background behind the two-particle vertex. Next we discuss latest algorithmic advances in quantum Monte Carlo simulations for calculating such two-particle quantities using worm sampling and vertex asymptotics, before giving an introduction to the ab initio dynamical vertex approximation (AbinitioDΓA). Finally, we highlight the potential of AbinitioDΓA by detailing results for the prototypical correlated metal SrVO3.