In this paper we address the behavior of the superfluid transition temperature
Tc in the attractive Hubbard model. The attractive Hubbard model can be regarded as the generalization of the BCS to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover to a lattice and, as such, may have implications for future optical lattice studies. Nevertheless, the BEC limit of the Hubbard model is very different from that of the better-studied Fermi gases, owing to the strong intersite repulsion between pairs. Here we address systematically the effects of pairing fluctuations for all filling fractions over the entire range of attractive interaction strength. A central conclusion of our work is that in a lattice, around half filling, the smooth evolution from the BCS to the BEC limits is interrupted:
Tc vanishes when the system approaches the bosonic regime with increasing interaction strength. We suggest that this interruption of crossover may signal a quantum critical transition to another form of superfluid not continuously connected to a BCS-like phase. A simple variational ansatz for an alternate ground state in this more strongly coupled superfluid is presented. A generalization of the (
s-wave) Hubbard model to
d-wave pairing allows us to address issues of relevance to high-
Tc superconductivity. The phase diagram (representing the pairing or pseudogap onset temperature
T∗ and
Tc) shows that here too one observes a vanishing of
Tc when
T∗ becomes sufficiently large. Given this predicted breakdown of the crossover, and given the striking similarity to features of the cuprate phase diagram, we suggest that future experiments on ultracold fermions in optical lattices should not be exclusively limited to the repulsive Hubbard model, but should address the attractive model in order to elucidate features of high-temperature superconductivity.
We study the superfluid properties of short-coherence-length superconductors described by the extended Hubbard model with on-site repulsive and intersite attractive interaction. We have analysed the superfluid stiffness and thermodynamic properties of the model versus electron concentration and pairing interaction on a two-dimensional square lattice with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbour hopping. The effects of phase fluctuations on anisotropic superconductivity of extended s-and d x 2 − y 2 -wave type were examined within the Kosterlitz–Thouless (KT) scenario. The KT critical temperatures were determined and compared with those from the BCS–Hartree–Fock approximation. The Uemura-type plots, i.e. the critical temperature versus zero-temperature phase stiffness, were obtained for both extended s- and d-wave pairings. The states with mixed (s ∗ and d x 2 − y 2 ) symmetry, and in particular the time-reversal breaking state of s + id symmetry, were analysed and the phase diagrams taking into account these states are presented. We also briefly discuss the crossover from BCS to local pair superconductivity for the d x 2 − y 2 -wave pairing. A comparison of the theoretical results with the experimental data, in particular those of T c versus λ −2 (0), for high- T c cuprate superconductors is made.
We use the variational cluster approximation to study the superconducting ground state in the two-dimensional attractive Hubbard model, putting particular emphasis on the significance of quantum fluctuations of the system. We first show that the order parameter is suppressed in comparison with that obtained using the mean-field theory owing to the effects of spatial fluctuations in two-dimensional systems. We then show that the calculated Bogoliubov quasiparticle spectra and condensation amplitude clearly exhibit the character of Cooper pairs in momentum space and that the pair coherence length
ξ evaluated from the condensation amplitude demonstrates a smooth crossover in real space from a weakly paired BCS state (
ξ≫a) to a BEC state of tightly bound pairs (
ξ≪a), where
a is the lattice constant. The calculated kinetic and potential energies in the superconducting and normal ground states indicate that the superconducting state in the weak-coupling region is driven by the gain in potential energy, while that in the strongcoupling region is driven by the gain in kinetic energy.
In order to develop our theoretical understanding of the superconducting state of strongly correlated electron systems, we investigate the many-body ground state of the attractive Hubbard model in infinite dimensions using the Gutzwiller-type projected BCS variational (GBCS) wave function. We first calculate various physical quantities by numerically evaluating analytical equations for systems in the thermodynamic limit. We then show that the GBCS wave function has the lowest energy when the gap parameter has a mixture of s wave and extended s wave pairing symmetry and that the ground state energy of the GBCS is lower than that of either the BCS or Fermi liquid at any electron density and any strength of the attractive interactions in our model. We also show that with infinite strength interactions, each pair of electrons with opposite spins forms a tightly bound pair on a lattice site (BEC-like state). We find a smooth crossover from a BCS-like state with large, overlapping Cooper pairs (for weakly attractive interactions) to a BEC-like state of composite bosons formed out of the tightly bound pairs of fermions (for strongly attractive interactions).
We model fermions with an attractive interaction in an optical lattice with a single-band Hubbard model away from half-filling with on-site attraction
U and nearest neighbor hopping
t. Our goal is to understand the crossover from BCS superfluidity in the weak attraction limit to the BEC of molecules in the strong attraction limit, with particular emphasis on how this crossover in an optical lattice differs from the much better studied continuum problem. We use a large-
N theory with Sp(2N) symmetry to study the fluctuations beyond mean field theory. At T=0, we calculate across the crossover various observables, including chemical potential, gap, ground state energy, speed of sound and compressibility. The superfluid density
ns is found to have non-trivial
U/t dependence in this lattice system. We show that the transition temperature
Tc scales with the energy gap in the weak coupling limit but crosses over to a
t2/U scaling in the BEC limit, where phase fluctuations controlled by
ns determine
Tc. We also find, quite contrary to our expectations, that in the strong coupling limit, the large-
N theory gives qualitatively wrong trends for compressibility. A comparison with a simple Hartree shifted BCS theory, which takes into account both pairing and Hartree shifts, and correctly recovers the atomic limit and the right qualitative trend for compressibility, reveals that the large-
N theory on the lattice, although considers a larger number of diagrams, is in fact inferior to the simpler Hartree shifted BCS theory. The failure of the large-
N approach is explained by noting (i) the importance of Hartree shift in lattice problems, and (ii) inability of the large-
N approach to treat particle-particle and particle-hole channels at equal footing at the saddle point level.
We consider fermions on a two-dimensional lattice interacting repulsively on the same site and attractively on the nearest-neighbor sites. The model is relevant, for instance, to study the competition between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in a Kondo lattice. We first solve the two-body problem to show that in the dilute and strong-coupling limit the s-wave Bose condensed state is always the ground state. We then consider the many-body problem and treat it at mean-field level by solving exactly the usual gap equation. This guarantees that the superconducting wave function correctly vanishes when the two fermions (with antiparallel spin) sit on the same site. This fact has important consequences for the superconducting state that are somewhat unusual. In particular this implies a radial node line for the gap function. When a next-neighbor hopping ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ is present we find that the s-wave state may develop nodes on the Fermi surface.