The one-dimensional Holstein model and its generalizations have been studied extensively to understand the effects of electron-phonon interaction. The half-filled case is of particular interest, as it describes a transition from a metallic phase with a spin gap due to attractive backscattering to a Peierls insulator with charge-density-wave order. Our quantum Monte Carlo results support the existence of a metallic phase with dominant power-law charge correlations, as described by the Luther-Emery fixed point. We demonstrate that for Holstein and also for purely fermionic models the spin gap significantly complicates finite-size numerical studies, and explains inconsistent previous results for Luttinger parameters and phase boundaries. On the other hand, no such complications arise in spinless models. The correct low-energy theory of the spinful Holstein model is argued to be that of singlet bipolarons with a repulsive, mutual interaction. This picture naturally explains the existence of a metallic phase, but also implies that gapless Luttinger liquid theory is not applicable.
The one-dimensional Holstein model and its generalizations have been studied extensively to understand the effects of electron-phonon interaction. The half-filled case is of particular interest, as it describes a transition from a metallic phase with a spin gap due to attractive backscattering to a Peierls insulator with charge-density-wave order. Our quantum Monte Carlo results support the existence of a metallic phase with dominant power-law charge correlations, as described by the Luther-Emery fixed point. We demonstrate that for Holstein and also for purely fermionic models the spin gap significantly complicates finite-size numerical studies, and explains inconsistent previous results for Luttinger parameters and phase boundaries. On the other hand, no such complications arise in spinless models. The correct low-energy theory of the spinful Holstein model is argued to be that of singlet bipolarons with a repulsive, mutual interaction. This picture naturally explains the existence of a metallic phase, but also implies that gapless Luttinger liquid theory is not applicable.
Single- and two-particle excitation spectra of the one-dimensional, half-filled Holstein-Hubbard model are calculated using the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method. In the metallic phase, the results are consistent with a Luther-Emery liquid that has gapped spin and single-particle excitations but a gapless charge mode. However, given the initially exponential dependence of the spin gap on the backscattering matrix element, the numerical excitation spectra appear gapless in the weak-coupling regime, and therefore resemble those of a Luttinger liquid. The Mott phase has the expected charge gap and gapless spin excitations. The Peierls state shows a charge, spin, and single-particle gap, a soft phonon mode, backfolded shadow bands, and soliton excitations. Arguments and numerical evidence for the existence of a nonzero spin gap throughout the metallic phase are provided in terms of equal-time spin and charge correlation functions.
The renormalization group technique is applied to one-dimensional electron-phonon Hubbard models at half filling and zero temperature. For the Holstein-Hubbard model, the results of one-loop calculations are congruent with the phase diagram obtained by quantum Monte Carlo simulations in the (U,gph) plane for the phonon-mediated interaction gph and the Coulomb interaction U. The incursion of an intermediate phase between a fully gapped charge-density-wave state and a Mott antiferromagnet is supported along with the growth of its size with the molecular phonon frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$. We find additional phases enfolding the base boundary of the intermediate phase. A Luttinger liquid line is found below some critical ${U}^{*}\ensuremath{\approx}{g}_{\mathrm{ph}}^{*}$, followed at larger $U\ensuremath{\sim}{g}_{\mathrm{ph}}$ by a narrow region of bond-order-wave ordering which is either charge or spin gapped depending on U. For the Peierls-Hubbard model, the region of the (U,gph) plane with a fully gapped Peierls-bond-order-wave state shows a growing domination over the Mott gapped antiferromagnet as the Debye frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{D}$ decreases. A power-law dependence ${g}_{\mathrm{ph}}\ensuremath{\sim}{U}^{2\ensuremath{\eta}}$ is found to map out the boundary between the two phases, whose exponent is in good agreement with the existing quantum Monte Carlo simulations performed when a finite nearest-neighbor repulsion term V is added to the Hubbard interaction.
The interplay between electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions is studied in a one-dimensional lattice model by means of a variational Monte Carlo method based on generalized Jastrow-Slater wave functions. Here, the fermionic part is constructed by a pair-product state, which explicitly depends on the phonon configuration, thus including the electron-phonon coupling in a backflow-inspired way. We report the results for the Hubbard model in the presence of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger coupling to optical phonons, both at half filling and upon hole doping. At half filling, the ground state is either a translationally invariant Mott insulator, with gapless spin excitations, or a Peierls insulator, which breaks translations and has fully gapped excitations. Away from half filling, the charge gap closes in both Mott and Peierls insulators, turning the former into a conventional Luttinger liquid (gapless in all excitation channels). In the latter case, instead, a finite spin gap remains at small doping. Even though consistent with the general theory of interacting electrons in one dimension, the existence of such a phase (with gapless charge but gapped spin excitations) has never been demonstrated in a model with repulsive interaction and with only two Fermi points. Since the spin-gapped metal represents the one-dimensional counterpart of a superconductor, our results furnish evidence that a true off-diagonal long-range order may exist in the two-dimensional case.
The Hubbard-Holstein model describes fermions on a discrete lattice, with on-site repulsion between fermions and a coupling to phonons that are localized on sites. Generally, at half-filling, increasing the coupling g to the phonons drives the system towards a Peierls charge density wave state, whereas increasing the electron-electron interaction U drives the fermions into a Mott antiferromagnet. At low g and U, or when doped, the system is metallic. In one dimension, using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we study the case where fermions have a long-range coupling to phonons, with characteristic range $\ensuremath{\xi}$, interpolating between the Holstein and Fr\"ohlich limits. Without electron-electron interaction, the fermions adopt a Peierls state when the coupling to the phonons is strong enough. This state is destabilized by a small coupling range $\ensuremath{\xi}$ and leads to a collapse of the fermions, and, consequently, phase separation. Increasing interaction U will drive any of these three phases (metallic, Peierls, phase separation) into a Mott insulator phase. The phase separation region is once again present in the $U\ensuremath{\ne}0$ case, even for small values of the coupling range.
For the one-dimensional Holstein model, we show that the relations among the scaling exponents of various correlation functions of the Tomonaga Luttinger liquid (LL), while valid in the thermodynamic limit, are significantly modified by finite-size corrections. We obtain analytical expressions for these corrections and find that they decrease very slowly with increasing system size. The interpretation of numerical data on finite-size lattices in terms of LL theory must therefore take these corrections into account. As an important example, we re-examine the proposed metallic phase of the zero-temperature, half-filled one-dimensional Holstein model without employing the LL relations. In particular, using quantum Monte Carlo calculations, we study the competition between the singlet pairing and charge ordering. Our results do not support the existence of a dominant singlet pairing state.
The Hubbard-Holstein model is one of the central models that describe the competition between electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions. In one dimension and at half-filling, the interplay between an electronic spin-density wave and a phonon-driven charge-density wave is considered to stabilize an intermediate Luther-Emery liquid. Here we show that, once the extended metallic regime disappears, a narrow bond-order-wave phase emerges. We use an exact directed-loop quantum Monte Carlo method for retarded interactions to simulate system sizes of several hundred sites, necessary to observe the weak signatures of this novel phase. Our results suggest a second-order quantum phase transition between the two charge orders that only turns first-order at strong coupling. Our findings are reminiscent of the extended Hubbard model, but they are driven by competing frequency dependencies of the same dynamically-screened Hubbard interaction.