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arXiv:1207.2490 · Physical Review Letters

Superconductivity and the Pseudogap in the Two-Dimensional Hubbard Model

Emanuel Gull, Olivier Parcollet, Andrew J. Millis

Published May 22, 2013• 318 citations
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Abstract

Recently developed numerical methods have enabled the explicit construction of the superconducting state of the Hubbard model of strongly correlated electrons in parameter regimes where the model also exhibits a pseudogap and a Mott insulating phase. d(x(2)-y(2)) symmetry superconductivity is found to occur in proximity to the Mott insulator, but separated from it by a pseudogapped nonsuperconducting phase. The superconducting transition temperature and order parameter amplitude are found to be maximal at the onset of the normal-state pseudogap. The emergence of superconductivity from the normal state pseudogap leads to a decrease in the excitation gap. All of these features are consistent with the observed behavior of the copper-oxide superconductors.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.110.216405

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Recently developed numerical methods have enabled the explicit construction of the superconducting state of the Hubbard model of strongly correlated electrons in parameter regimes where the model also exhibits a pseudogap and a Mott insulating phase. d(x(2)-y(2)) symmetry superconductivity is found to occur in proximity to the Mott insulator, but separated from it by a pseudogapped nonsuperconducting phase. The superconducting transition temperature and order parameter amplitude are found to be maximal at the onset of the normal-state pseudogap. The emergence of superconductivity from the normal state pseudogap leads to a decrease in the excitation gap. All of these features are consistent with the observed behavior of the copper-oxide superconductors.
Abstract We investigate the interplay between the pseudogap state and d-wave superconductivity in the two-dimensional doped Hubbard model by employing an eight-site cluster dynamical mean-field theory method. By tuning electron hopping parameters, the strong-coupling pseudogap in the two-dimensional Hubbard model can be either enhanced or suppressed in the doped Mott insulator regime. We find that in underdoped cases, the closing of pseudogap leads to a significant enhancement of superconductivity, indicating competition between the two in the underdoped regime. In contrast, at large dopings, suppressing the pseudogap is accompanied by a concurrent decrease in the superconducting transition temperature T c, which can be attributed to a reduction in antiferromagnetic correlations behind both the pseudogap and superconductivity. We elucidate this evolving relationship between pseudogap and superconductivity across different doping regimes.
High-temperature superconductivity emerges upon doping a state of matter that is insulating because of interactions. A widely studied model considers one orbital per CuO2{\mathrm{CuO}}_{2}CuO2​ unit cell on a square lattice with a strong intraorbital repulsion that leads to a so-called Mott-Hubbard insulator. Here we solve a model that takes into account, within each unit cell, two oxygen orbitals where there is no electron-electron repulsion and a copper orbital with strong electron-electron repulsion. The insulating phase is a so-called charge-transfer insulator, not a Mott-Hubbard insulator. Using cluster dynamical mean-field theory with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo as an impurity solver and 12 atoms per cluster, we report the normal and superconducting phase diagram of this model as a function of doping, interaction strength, and temperature. As expected, the three-orbital model is consistent with the experimental observation that doped holes are located predominantly on oxygens, a result that goes beyond the one-orbital model. Nevertheless, the phase boundary between pseudogap and correlated metal, the Widom line, and the origin of the pairing energy (kinetic vs potential) are similar to the one-orbital model, demonstrating that these are emergent phenomena characteristic of doped Mott insulators, independently of many microscopic details. Broader implications are discussed.
An intricate interplay between superconductivity, pseudogap, and Mott transition, either bandwidth driven or doping driven, occurs in materials. Layered organic conductors and cuprates offer two prime examples. We provide a unified perspective of this interplay in the two-dimensional Hubbard model within cellular dynamical mean-field theory on a 2×2 plaquette and using the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method as impurity solver. Both at half filling and at finite doping, the metallic normal state close to the Mott insulator is unstable to d-wave superconductivity. Superconductivity can destroy the first-order transition that separates the pseudogap phase from the overdoped metal, yet that normal state transition leaves its marks on the dynamic properties of the superconducting phase. For example, as a function of doping one finds a rapid change in the particle-hole asymmetry of the superconducting density of states. In the doped Mott insulator, the dynamical mean-field superconducting transition temperature T(c)(d) does not scale with the order parameter when there is a normal-state pseudogap. T(c)(d) corresponds to the local pair formation temperature observed in tunneling experiments and is distinct from the pseudogap temperature.
The energetics of the interplay between superconductivity and the pseudogap in high-temperature superconductivity is examined using the eight-site dynamical cluster approximation to the two-dimensional Hubbard model. Two regimes of superconductivity are found: a weak-coupling/large-doping regime in which the onset of superconductivity causes a reduction in potential energy and an increase in kinetic energy, and a strong-coupling regime in which superconductivity is associated with an increase in potential energy and a decrease in kinetic energy. The crossover between the two regimes is found to coincide with the boundary of the normal-state pseudogap, providing further evidence of the unconventional nature of superconductivity in the pseudogap regime. However, the absence, in the strongly correlated but nonsuperconducting state, of discernibly nonlinear response to an applied pairing field suggests that resonating valence bond physics is not the origin of the kinetic-energy driven superconductivity.
Superconductivity in the cuprates exhibits many unusual features. We study the two-dimensional Hubbard model with plaquette dynamical mean-field theory to address these unusual features and relate them to other normal-state phenomena, such as the pseudogap. Previous studies with this method found that upon doping the Mott insulator at low temperature a pseudogap phase appears. The low-temperature transition between that phase and the correlated metal at higher doping is first-order. A series of crossovers emerge along the Widom line extension of that first-order transition in the supercritical region. Here we show that the highly asymmetric dome of the dynamical mean-field superconducting transition temperature Tc(d), the maximum of the condensation energy as a function of doping, the correlation between maximum Tc(D) and normal-state scattering rate, the change from potential-energy driven to kinetic-energy driven pairing mechanisms can all be understood as remnants of the normal state first-order transition and its associated crossovers that also act as an organizing principle for the superconducting state.
The pseudogap state of cuprate high-temperature superconductors has been often viewed as either a yet unknown competing order or a precursor state to superconductivity. While awaiting the resolution of the pseudogap problem in cuprates, we demonstrate that local pairing fluctuations, vortex liquid dynamics, and other precursor phenomena can emerge quite generally whenever fermionic excitations remain gapped across the superconducting transition, regardless of the gap origin. Our choice of a tractable model is a lattice band insulator with short-range attractive interactions between fermions in the sss-wave channel. An effective crossover between Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) and Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) regimes can be identified in any band insulator above two dimensions, while in two dimensions only the BEC regime exists. The superconducting transition is ``unconventional'' (non-pair-breaking) in the BEC regime, identified by either the bosonic mean field or XY\mathit{XY}XY universality class. The insulator adjacent to the superconductor in the BEC regime is a bosonic Mott insulator of Cooper pairs, which may be susceptible to charge density wave ordering. We construct a function of the many-body excitation spectrum whose nonanalytic changes define a sharp distinction between band and Mott insulators. The corresponding ``second-order transition'' can be observed out of equilibrium by driving a Cooper pair laser in the Mott insulator. We explicitly show that the gap for charged bosonic excitations lies below the threshold for Cooper pair breakup in any BEC regime, despite quantum fluctuations. Our discussion ends with a view of possible consequences for cuprates, where antinodal pair dynamics has certain features in common with our simple sss-wave picture.