arXiv:1611.00626 · Physical Review A
Trap effects and the continuum limit of the Hubbard model in the presence of a harmonic potential
Davide Nigro
Abstract
We discuss how to perform the continuum limit of the $d$-dimensional Hubbard model in the presence of a harmonic confining potential at zero temperature and fixed particle number. While for $d\ensuremath{\ge}3$ the system can be mapped into a noninteracting two-component Fermi gas in a harmonic trap, for $d=1$ and 2 the two-body interaction is described by a Dirac $\ensuremath{\delta}$. We show that the properties of this continuum limit can be put in one-to-one correspondence with those obtained by applying the trap-size scaling formalism to the confined Hubbard model in the so called dilute regime (fixed number of particles and weak confinement). The correspondence for $d<3$ has been tested, in the case of two particles with opposite spin, by comparing numerical exact-diagonalization results of the lattice system with those obtained in the continuum limit.