By using numerically exact determinantal Monte Carlo we show that the dilute Fermi gas quantum critical theory quantitatively describes the behavior of the density and compressibility along the Mott/metal crossover in the two-dimensional Hubbard model for temperatures somewhat less than (roughly half) the tunneling but greater than (roughly twice) the superexchange energy. In contrast, we find that other observables such as the kinetic energy, doubly occupied sites, and magnetization in a finite Zeeman field are poorly described by the same dilute Fermi gas universality class. In addition to these findings' fundamental interest, they are relevant to cold atom systems, where the intermediate temperature regime is currently in experimental reach.
Even though the Hubbard model is one of the most fundamental models of highly correlated electrons, analytical and numerical data describing its thermodynamics at nonzero magnetization are relatively scarce. We present a detailed investigation of the thermodynamic properties for the one-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model in the presence of an arbitrary magnetic field for all values of the filling fraction and temperatures as low as $T\ensuremath{\sim}0.005t.$ Our analysis is based on the system of integral equations derived in the quantum transfer matrix framework. We determine the critical exponents of the quantum phase transitions and also provide analytical derivations for some of the universal functions characterizing the thermodynamics in the vicinities of the quantum critical points. Extensive numerical data for the specific heat, susceptibility, compressibility, and entropy are reported. The experimentally relevant double occupancy presents an interesting doubly nonmonotonic temperature dependence at intermediate values of the interaction strength and also at large repulsion and magnetic fields close to the critical value. The susceptibility in zero magnetic field has a logarithmic singularity at low temperatures for all filling factors similar to the behavior of the same quantity in the spin-1/2 isotropic Heisenberg model. We determine the density profiles for a harmonically trapped system and show that while the total density profile seems to depend mainly on the value of chemical potential at the center of the trap the distribution of phases in the inhomogeneous system changes dramatically as we increase the magnetic field.
At the Mott transition, electron-electron interaction changes a metal, in which electrons are itinerant, to an insulator, in which electrons are localized. This phenomenon is central to quantum materials. Here we contribute to its understanding by studying the two-dimensional Hubbard model at finite temperature with plaquette cellular dynamical mean-field theory. We provide an exhaustive thermodynamic description of the correlation-driven Mott transition of the half-filled model by calculating pressure, charge compressibility, entropy, kinetic energy, potential energy, and free energy across the first-order Mott transition and its high-temperature crossover (Widom line). The entropy is extracted from the Gibbs-Duhem relation and shows complex behavior near the transition, marked by discontinuous jumps at the first-order boundary, singular behavior at the Mott endpoint, and inflections marking sharp variations in the supercritical region. The free energy allows us to identify the thermodynamic phase boundary, to discuss phases stability and metastability, and to touch upon nucleation and spinodal decomposition mechanisms for the transition. We complement this thermodynamic description of the Mott transition by an information-theoretic description. We achieve this by calculating the local entropy, which is a measure of entanglement, and the single-site total mutual information, which quantifies quantum and classical correlations. These information-theoretic measures exhibit characteristic behaviors that allow us to identify the first-order coexistence regions, the Mott critical endpoint and the crossovers along the Widom line in the supercritical region.
We use the two-step density-matrix renormalization group method to elucidate the long-standing issue of the universality class of the Mott transition in the Hubbard model in two dimensions. We studied a spatially anisotropic two-dimensional Hubbard model with a nonperfectly nested Fermi surface at half-filling. We find that unlike the pure one-dimensional case where there is no metallic phase, the quasi-one-dimensional model displays a genuine metal-insulator transition at a finite value of the interaction. The critical exponent of the correlation length is found to be $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\approx}1.0$. This implies that the fermionic Mott transition belongs to the universality class of the 2D Ising model.
Transport measurements on the cuprates suggest the presence of a quantum critical point (QCP) hiding underneath the superconducting dome near optimal hole doping. We provide numerical evidence in support of this scenario via a dynamical cluster quantum Monte Carlo study of the extended two-dimensional Hubbard model. Single-particle quantities, such as the spectral function, the quasi-particle weight and the entropy, display a crossover between two distinct ground states: a Fermi liquid at low filling and a nonFermi liquid with a pseudo-gap at high filling. Both states are found to cross over to a marginal Fermi-liquid state at higher temperatures. For finite next-nearest-neighbour hopping t � , we find a classical critical point at temperature Tc. This classical critical point is found to be associated with a phase-separation transition between a compressible Mott gas and an incompressible Mott liquid corresponding to the Fermi liquid and the pseudo-gap state, respectively. Since the critical temperature Tc extrapolates to zero
Quantum critical points exist at zero temperature, yet, experimentally their influence seems to extend over a large part of the phase diagram of systems such as heavy-fermion compounds and high-temperature superconductors. Theoretically, however, it is generally not known over what range of parameters the physics is governed by the quantum critical point. We answer this question for the spin-density wave to Fermi-liquid quantum critical point in the two-dimensional Hubbard model. This problem is in the d =2, z =2 universality class. We use the two-particle self-consistent approach, which is accurate from weak to intermediate coupling, and whose critical behavior is the same as for the self-consistent-renormalized approach of Moriya. Despite the presence of logarithmic corrections, numerical results demonstrate that quantum critical scaling for the static magnetic susceptibility can extend up to very high temperatures but that the commensurate to incommensurate crossover leads to deviations to scaling.
We study the thermodynamics near the generic (density-driven) superfluid--Mott-insulator transition in the three-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model using the nonperturbative renormalization-group approach. At low energy, the physics is controlled by the Gaussian fixed point and becomes universal. Thermodynamic quantities can then be expressed in terms of the universal scaling functions of the dilute Bose gas universality class while the microscopic physics enters only via two nonuniversal parameters, namely, the effective mass
m∗ and the ``scattering length''
a∗ of the elementary excitations at the quantum critical point between the superfluid and Mott-insulating phases. A notable exception is the condensate density in the superfluid phase which is proportional to the quasiparticle weight
Zqp of the elementary excitations. The universal regime is defined by ${m}^{*}{a}^{*}{}^{2}T\ensuremath{\ll}1$ and ${m}^{*}{a}^{*}{}^{2}|\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}|\ensuremath{\ll}1$ or, equivalently, $|\overline{n}\ensuremath{-}{\overline{n}}_{c}|{a}^{*}{}^{3}\ensuremath{\ll}1$, where $\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}=\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{c}$ is the chemical potential shift from the quantum critical point $(\ensuremath{\mu}={\ensuremath{\mu}}_{c},\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}T=0)$ and $\overline{n}\ensuremath{-}{\overline{n}}_{c}$ the doping with respect to the commensurate density
nc of the
T=0 Mott insulator. We compute
Zqp,
m∗, and
a∗ and find that they vary strongly with both the ratio
t/U between hopping amplitude and onsite repulsion and the value of the (commensurate) density
nc. Finally, we discuss the experimental observation of universality and the measurement of
Zqp,
m∗, and
a∗ in a cold-atomic gas in an optical lattice.