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arXiv:1602.02280 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Pseudogap and superconductivity in two-dimensional doped charge-transfer insulators

Lorenzo Fratino, P. Sémon, G. Sordi, A.–M. S. Tremblay

Published Jun 24, 2016• 31 citations
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Abstract

High-temperature superconductivity emerges upon doping a state of matter that is insulating because of interactions. A widely studied model considers one orbital per ${\mathrm{CuO}}_{2}$ 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.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.93.245147

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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.
For doped two-dimensional Mott insulators in their normal state, the challenge is to understand the evolution from a conventional metal at high doping to a strongly correlated metal near the Mott insulator at zero doping. To this end, we solve the cellular dynamical mean-field equations for the two-dimensional Hubbard model using a plaquette as the reference quantum impurity model and continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method as impurity solver. The normal-state phase diagram as a function of interaction strength UUU, temperature TTT, and filling nnn shows that, upon increasing nnn toward the Mott insulator, there is a surface of first-order transition between two metals at nonzero doping. That surface ends at a finite temperature critical line originating at the half-filled Mott critical point. Associated with this transition, there is a maximum in scattering rate as well as thermodynamic signatures. These findings suggest a new scenario for the normal-state phase diagram of the high temperature superconductors. The criticality surmised in these systems can originate not from a T === 0 quantum critical point, nor from the proximity of a long-range ordered phase, but from a low temperature transition between two types of metals at finite doping. The influence of Mott physics therefore extends well beyond half-filling.
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 refers to an enigmatic state of matter with unusual physical properties found below a characteristic temperature T* in hole-doped high-temperature superconductors. Determining T* is critical for understanding this state. Here we study the simplest model of correlated electron systems, the Hubbard model, with cluster dynamical mean-field theory to find out whether the pseudogap can occur solely because of strong coupling physics and short nonlocal correlations. We find that the pseudogap characteristic temperature T* is a sharp crossover between different dynamical regimes along a line of thermodynamic anomalies that appears above a first-order phase transition, the Widom line. The Widom line emanating from the critical endpoint of a first-order transition is thus the organizing principle for the pseudogap phase diagram of the cuprates. No additional broken symmetry is necessary to explain the phenomenon. Broken symmetry states appear in the pseudogap and not the other way around.
Abstract We present a T = 0 K renormalization group (RG) phase diagram for the hole-doped 2D Hubbard model on the square lattice. The RG method employed is nonperturbative in treating quantum fluctuations of the single-particle occupation number via the unitarily decoupling of one electronic state at every RG step. As a result, the RG phase diagram possesses the quantum fluctuation energy scale (ω) as one of its axes. Using effective Hamiltonians and wavefunctions for the low-energy many-body eigenstates for the doped Mott liquid obtained from the stable fixed point of the RG flows, we demonstrate the collapse of the pseudogap for charge excitations (Mottness) at a quantum critical point (QCP) possessing a nodal non-Fermi liquid with superconducting fluctuations, and spin-pseudogapping near the antinodes. The QCP is characterised using both thermodynamic and quantum information-theoretic measures. d-wave superconducting order is shown to arise from this quantum critical state of matter. The pseudogap phase possesses a variety of fluctuations that lead to several symmetry-broken phases at low-energies. Benchmarking of the ground state energy per particle and the double-occupancy fraction obtained from a finite-size scaling analysis against existing numerical results yields excellent agreement. We present detailed insight into the T = 0 origin of several experimentally observed findings in the cuprates, including Homes law and Planckian dissipation. We also establish that the heirarchy of temperature scales for the pseudogap (T PG), onset temperature for pairing (T ons), formation of the Mott liquid (T ML) and superconductivity (T C) obtained from our analysis is quantitatively consistent with that observed experimentally for some members of the cuprates. Our results offer insight on the ubiquitous origin of superconductivity in doped Mott insulating states, and pave the way towards a systematic search for higher superconducting transition temperatures in such systems.
The three-band model relevant to high-temperature copper-oxide superconductors is solved using single-site dynamical mean field theory and a tight-binding parametrization of the copper and oxygen bands. For a band filling of one hole per unit cell the metal/charge-transfer-insulator phase diagram is determined. The electron spectral function, optical conductivity, and quasiparticle mass enhancement are computed as functions of electron and hole doping for parameters such that at one hole per cell the paramagnetic phase is insulating and for parameters such that at one hole per unit cell the paramagnetic phase is metallic. The optical conductivity is computed using the Peierls phase approximation for the optical matrix elements. The calculation includes the physics of ``Zhang-Rice singlets.'' The effects of antiferromagnetism on the magnitude of the gap and the relation between correlation strength and doping-induced changes in state density are determined. Three-band and one-band models are compared. The two models are found to yield quantitatively consistent results for all energies less than about 4 eV including energies in the vicinity of the charge-transfer gap. Parameters on the insulating side of the metal/charge-transfer insulator phase boundary lead to gaps which are too large and near-gap conductivities which are too small relative to data. The results place the cuprates clearly in the intermediate correlation regime, on the paramagnetic metal side of the metal/charge-transfer insulator phase boundary.