Since the genesis of condensed matter physics, strongly correlated fermionic systems have shown a variety of fascinating properties and remain a vital topic in the field. Such systems arise through electronic interaction, and despite decades of intensive research, no holistic approach to solving this problem has been found. During that time, physicists have compiled a wealth of individual experimental and theoretical results, which together give an invaluable insight into these materials, and, in some instances, can explain correlated phenomena. However, there are several systems that stubbornly refuse to fall completely in line with current theoretical descriptions, among them the high-
Tc cuprates and heavy fermion compounds. Although the two material classes have been around for the better part of the last 50 years, large portions of their respective phase diagram are still under intensive debate. Recent experiments in several electron-doped cuprates compounds, e.g. neodymium cerium copper oxide (Nd
2xCe
xCuO
4), reveal a charge ordering about an antiferromagnetic ground state. So far, it has not been conclusively clarified how this intertwining of charge and spin polarization comes about and how it can be reconciled with a rigorous theoretical description. The heavy-fermion semimetals, on the other hand, have enjoyed renewed scientific interest with the discovery of topological Kondo insulators, a new material class offering a unique interface of topology, symmetry breaking, and correlated phenomena. In this context, samarium hexaboride (SmB
6) has emerged as a prototypical system, which may feature a topological ground state. In this thesis, we present a spin rotational invariant auxiliary particle approach to investigate the propensities of interacting electrons towards forming new states of order. In particular, we study the onset of spin and charge order in high-
Tc cuprate systems and Kondo lattices, as well as the interplay of magnetism and topology. To that end, we use a sophisticated mean-field approximation of bosonic auxiliary particles augmented by a stability analysis of the saddle point via Gaussian fluctuations. The latter enables the derivation of dynamic susceptibilities, which describe the response of the system under external fields and offer a direct comparison to experiments. Both the mean-field and fluctuation formalisms require a numerical tool that is capable of extremizing the saddle point equations, on the one hand, and reliably solving a loop integral of the susceptibility-type, on the other. A full, from scratch derivation of the formalism tailored towards a software implementation, is provided and pedagogically reviewed. The auxiliary particle method allows for a rigorous description of incommensurate magnetic order and compares well to other established numerical and analytical techniques. Within our analysis, we employ the two-dimensional one-band Hubbard as well as the periodic Anderson model as minimal Hamiltonians for the high-
Tc cuprates and Kondo systems, respectively. For the former, we observe a regime of intertwined charge- and spin-order in the electron-doped regime, which matches recent experimental observations in the cuprate material Nd
2xCe
xCuO
4. Furthermore, we localize the emergence of a Kondo regime in the periodic Anderson model and establish the magnetic phase diagram of the two-band model for topological Kondo insulators. The emerging antiferromagnetic ground state can be characterized by its topological properties and shows, for a non-trivial phase, topologically protected hinge modes.
The study of strongly correlated materials remains one of the most challenging and active frontiers in condensed matter physics. In these systems, the intricate interplay between electrons' kinetic energy and their mutual Coulomb repulsion gives rise to a plethora of exotic phenomena, from high-temperature superconductivity to giant magnetoresistance, which cannot be explained by conventional one-electron theories. This necessitates the development and application of advanced theoretical and computational methods capable of capturing the essential physics of strong electronic correlations. A diverse array of numerical and analytical techniques has been developed to tackle the many-body problem. However, no single method serves as a panacea; each comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses, and their domains of applicability vary significantly. The choice of an appropriate approximation is therefore highly dependent on the specific physical system and the scientific question at hand. Different problems may benefit from different, and sometimes complementary, methodological perspectives. This thesis focuses primarily on the application and development of local or quasi-local approaches. The rationale for this focus is rooted in the physical reality of many key correlated materials, such as transition metal oxides, heavy-fermion systems or molecular solids like alkali-doped fullerenes, where the local on-site electronic interaction is the dominant energy scale. By prioritizing the accurate treatment of local physics, these methods provide a robust and computationally efficient approximation for understanding a wide range of material properties. Recent experimental and theoretical advancements—spanning the rich physics of multiorbital compounds, the precise control over interactions in ultracold atomic gases, and the complex interplay in electron-phonon coupled systems—have created an urgent need for theoretical frameworks that can deliver reliable and rapid insights. The methods explored in this work are meant to address these challenges, offering a balance between accuracy and computational feasibility. Given the variety of topics addressed, from methodological developments to their application in diverse physical contexts, this thesis will try to be as detailed and self-contained as necessary, providing a clear exposition of the underlying concepts and technical aspects.
In recent years, nano-sized systems involving local charge or spin states have received wide interests because of their potential application in emerging fields such as quantum information and quantum computation. For instance, organometallic molecular complexes may serve as building blocks of quantum storage devices, because the spin-unpaired d or f electrons at transition metal centers may be employed to construct spin qubits. Moreover, if the system contains strong electron-electron interaction, the involving local quantum states are subject to prominent electron correlation effects (such as the Kondo effect). Theoretically, spatially confined nano-systems are often described by quantum impurity models. Thus the accurate prediction of the intrinsic properties of quantum impurity systems and the deep understanding on the response and evolution of local quantum states under external fields or in dissipative environment are fundamentally important for the design and fabrication of quantum devices. The accurate characterization of quantum coherence, correlation, and entanglement in quantum impurity systems remains a great challenge. Enormous efforts have been made to achieve this goal. A variety of theoretical methods have been developed, including the numerical renormalization group method, the quantum Monte Carlo method, and many others. However, all the existing methods are subject to certain limitations regarding accuracy or efficiency. Therefore, we choose to view this problem from a new perspective—the perspective of open quantum systems. Over the past decade, we have developed a formally exact quantum dissipation theory, the hierarchical equations of motion (HEOM) theory, for fermionic open systems. The HEOM theory captures the combined effects of system-environment dissipation, many-body interaction, and non-Markovian memory in a nonperturbative manner. It is capable of addressing static and dynamic responses of system observables in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium situations. We have implemented the HEOM method in our self-designed computer program HEOM-QUICK. We have also devised a series of advanced algorithms which substantially enhance the numerical efficiency of HEOM. The HEOM-QUICK program thus provides an accurate, efficient, and versatile theoretical tool for the investigation of strongly correlated quantum impurity systems. We have applied the HEOM method to study a variety of problems associated with quantum impurity systems. These include the intrinsic properties of quantum impurity models and lattice models, the transient current response of quantum dots to ac voltages, the thermopower and local heating effect in nonequilibrium quantum dots, and the tuning of local spin states in adsorbed molecular magnets. In particular, the HEOM method has been combined with density functional theory (DFT) method, and thus allows for first-principles-based simulation on the precise tuning of local spin states in adsorbed magnetic molecules. Numerical simulations have discovered or reproduced many important quantum phenomena that are essential for relevant experiments, including the Kondo effect, Mott metal-insulator transition, quantum memristive effect, etc. This paper gives a brief overview of our development of the HEOM method for fermionic open systems, as well as its applications to various strongly correlated quantum impurity systems.
We describe a new microscopic approach for analyzing interacting electron systems with local moments or, in principle, any local order parameter. We specialize attention to the doped Mott insulator phase of the Hubbard model, where standard weak-coupling perturbation methods fail. A rotationally invariant Stratonovich-Hubbard field is introduced to decouple the static spin components of the interaction at each site. Charge degrees of freedom are then treated by ``slave'' Hartree-Fock in the presence of a spatially varying random spin field. The effective action reduces to a classical Heisenberg model at half filling, insuring that the system has (i) finite-range order at T>0 with an exponentially diverging correlation length and (ii) a one-electron Mott-Hubbard gap in the presence of disorder. Away from half-filling properties are determined by strongly non-Gaussian fluctuations in the amplitude and orientation of the local spin fields. The saddle point equations of the theory at zero temperature reduce to inhomogeneous Hartree-Fock, so that disordering of domain walls at finite temperature is in principle included. We present preliminary small system results for the intermediate and large interaction regimes obtained by Monte Carlo simulation of random spin field configurations.
The failure of conventional band theory to describe strongly correlated materials—high-Tc superconductors, Mott insulators, and strange metals—reveals a fundamental incompleteness in our current understanding of electron–electron interactions. In this work, I propose a unified continuum-interaction formalism that treats electronic behavior not as a perturbation around independent quasiparticles, but as an emergent quantum collective governed by non-local correlations. Using an extended Hubbard–Landau functional, a correlation-driven spectral reconstruction model, and a tensor-network-inspired coarse-graining operator, I derive a framework capable of capturing insulating, metallic, and incoherent regimes within a single mathematical structure. This approach suggests that the breakdown of band theory is not an anomaly but an inevitable manifestation of collective entanglement. I discuss analytical consequences, numerical implications, limitations, and future research directions toward a full predictive theory of correlated quantum matter.
We review the recently proposed extension of the Gutzwiller approximation, M. Schiro' and M. Fabrizio, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 076401 (2010), designed to describe the out-of-equilibrium time-evolution of a Gutzwiller-type variational wave function for correlated electrons. The method, which is strictly variational in the limit of infinite lattice-coordination, is quite general and flexible, and it is applicable to generic non-equilibrium conditions, even far beyond the linear response regime. As an application, we discuss the quench dynamics of a single-band Hubbard model at half-filling, where the method predicts a dynamical phase transition above a critical quench that resembles the sharp crossover observed by time-dependent dynamical mean field theory. We next show that one can actually define in some cases a multi-configurational wave function combination of a whole set of mutually orthogonal Gutzwiller wave functions. The Hamiltonian projected in that subspace can be exactly evaluated and is equivalent to a model of auxiliary spins coupled to non-interacting electrons, closely related to the slave-spin theories for correlated electron models. The Gutzwiller approximation turns out to be nothing but the mean-field approximation applied to that spin-fermion model, which displays, for any number of bands and integer fillings, a spontaneous
Z2 symmetry breaking that can be identified as the Mott insulator-to-metal transition.