Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1703.06306 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Ladder physics in the spin fermion model

Alexei M. Tsvelik

Published May 22, 2017• 27 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A link is established between the spin fermion (SF) model of the cuprates and the approach based on the analogy between the physics of doped Mott insulators in two dimensions and the physics of fermionic ladders. This enables one to use nonperturbative results derived for fermionic ladders to move beyond the large-$N$ approximation in the SF model. It is shown that the paramagnon exchange postulated in the SF model has exactly the right form to facilitate the emergence of the fully gapped $d$-Mott state in the region of the Brillouin zone at the hot spots of the Fermi surface. Hence, the SF model provides an adequate description of the pseudogap.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.95.201112

Related papers

Ladderlike optical conductivity in the spin-fermion model

Laura Classen, Neil J. Robinson, Alexei M. Tsvelik

In the nested limit of the spin-fermion model for the cuprates, one-dimensional physics in the form of half-filled two-leg ladders emerges. We show that the renormalization group flow of the corresponding ladder is towards the $d$-Mott phase, a gapped spin-liquid with short-ranged $d$-wave pairing correlations, and reveals an intermediate $\mathrm{SO}(5)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{SO}(3)$ symmetry. We use the results of the renormalization group in combination with a memory-function approach to calculate the optical conductivity of the spin-fermion model in the high-frequency regime, where processes within the hot spot region dominate the transport. We argue that umklapp processes play a major role. For finite temperatures, we determine the resistivity in the zero-frequency (dc) limit. Our results show an approximate linear temperature dependence of the resistivity and a conductivity that follows a nonuniversal power law. A comparison to experimental data supports our assumption that the conductivity is dominated by the antinodal contribution above the pseudogap.

arXiv:1811.01103•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Mar 7, 2019•4 citations

Nonperturbative approach to full Mott behavior

Tudor D. Stanescu, Philip Phillips

Though most fermionic Mott insulators order at low temperatures, ordering is ancillary to their insulating behavior. Our emphasis here is on disentangling ordering from the intrinsic strongly correlated physics of a doped half-filled band. To this end, we focus on the two-dimensional Hubbard model. Because the charge gap arises from on-site correlations, we have been refining the nonperturbative approach of Matsumoto and Mancini [Phys. Rev. B 55, 2095 (1997)] which incorporates local physics. Crucial to this method is a self-consistent two-site dynamical cluster expansion which builds in the nearest-neighbor energy scale J. At half-filling, we find that the spectral function possesses a gap of order U and is devoid of any coherent quasiparticle peaks although ordering or charge fractionalization are absent. At low temperatures, local antiferromagnetic correlations emerge. In the doped case, we find that the Fermi surface exceeds the Luttinger volume. The breakdown of Luttinger's theorem in the underdoped regime is traced both to the dynamically generated Mott gap as well to a nonvanishing of the imaginary part of the self-energy at the Fermi level. Spectral weight transfer across the Mott gap also emerges as a ubiquitous feature of a doped Mott insulator and suggests that high- and low-energy scales are inseparable. Additionally in the underdoped regime, we find that a pseudogap exists in the single-particle density of states as well as in the heat capacity. The pseudogap (which is set by the energy scale ${t}^{2}/U)$ is argued to be a ubiquitous feature of a lightly doped Mott state and simply represents the fact that hole transport involves double occupancy. In analogy with the Mott gap and antiferromagnetism, we propose that ordering may also accompany the formation of a pseudogap. We suggest a current pattern within a one-band model that preserves translational but breaks time-reversal symmetry along the canonical x and y axes but not along $x=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}y$ that is consistent with the experimental observations. Finally, we show that the Hall coefficient in a doped Mott insulator must change sign at a doping level $x<1/3.$ The sign change is tied to a termination of strong correlation physics in the doped Mott state.

arXiv:cond-mat/0301254•Physical Review B•Jun 15, 2004•38 citations

Spin gap in doped ladder systems

Lorenzo Campos Venuti

A proper theoretical description of doped antiferromagnets is until now an unresolved issue. In this work we study chain and ladder systems, and in particularly we focus on the physically most interesting two leg ladder. Our starting point is the Spin Fermion model in which an antiferromagnetic background of localized spins interacts with mobile holes via a rotation invariant Kondo-like term. The interesting region of the phase diagram is that close to the Mott-insulator transition where the doping delta is zero. At zero doping in fact the system is an insulator and the spins organize themselves in a spin liquid, a rotational invariant state characterized by a finite correlation length and an energy gap (a spin gap) above the ground state. Such a state is also the ground state of a field theory, the non linear sigma model (NLsigmaM) which is recognized as the low energy effective theory for antiferromagnetic spin ladder. The first question we answer is how such a spin state evolves as one moves off from the Mott phase by increasing the doping. Integrating out the fermions in our model we obtain an effective theory for the spins which we are able to evaluate in the continuum limit. The effective theory is again a NLsigmaM with coupling constants which depend on the concentration of dopant holes. In contrast to existing mean field calculation our theory predicts a lowering of the spin gap with doping and a consequent increase in the correlation length. Indeed a lowering of the spin gap due to doping is also observed in numerical simulation and on NMR experiments on $Sr14-xCaxCu24O41 with which we obtain very good agreement. Secondly we concentrated on the behavior of the fermions. The general paradigm of interacting fermions in one dimension is that of the Luttinger Liquid characterized by bosonic excitations and spin charge separation. By generalizing our approach we are able to access the one particle fermion propagator as a quantity averaged over the NLsigmaM which controls the spin background. We see that in the limit of zero doping the quasiparticle weight Z is non-zero in a neighborhood of the Fermi energy. This in turn implies that the Luttinger liquid parameter Krho goes to one as the doping delta goes to zero as was first argued by Schulz. Our stronger result allows us to assert that in the very low doping regime the fermions constitute a Fermi liquid.

•Jan 1, 2004•0 citations

Spin scattering turns complex at strong coupling: the key to pseudogap and Fermi arcs in the Hubbard model

Friedrich Krien, Paul Worm, Patrick Chalupa-Gantner +2 more

We analyze the pseudogap phenomenon of hole-doped cuprates via a Feynman-diagrammatic inspection of the Hubbard model. Our approach captures the pivotal interplay between Mott localization and Fermi surface topology beyond weak-coupling spin fluctuations, which open a spectral gap near hot spots. We show that strong coupling and particle-hole asymmetry give rise to another mechanism: the spin-fermion vertex develops a large imaginary part. While its real part always suppresses the electronic lifetime, the imaginary part has a twofold effect. For antinodal fermions a gap opening is boosted; conversely, around the node Fermi arcs are protected.

•Jul 14, 2021•4 citations

Quantum-critical theory of the spin-fermion model and its application to cuprates: Normal state analysis

Ar. Abanov, Andrey V. Chubukov, Jörg Schmalian

We present the full analysis of the normal state properties of the spin-fermion model near the antiferromagnetic instability in two dimensions. The model describes low-energy fermions interacting with their own collective spin fluctuations, which soften at the antiferromagnetic transition. We argue that in 2D, the system has two typical energies—an effective spin-fermion interaction g¯ and an energy ωsf below which the system behaves as a Fermi liquid. The ratio of the two determines the dimensionless coupling constant for spin-fermion interaction λ2 ∝ g¯/ωsf. We show that λ scales with the spin correlation length and diverges at criticality. This divergence implies that the conventional perturbative expansion breaks down. We develop a novel approach to the problem—the expansion in either the inverse number of hot spots in the Brillouin zone, or the inverse number of fermionic flavours—which allows us to explicitly account for all terms which diverge as powers of λ, and treat the remaining, O(log λ) terms in the RG formalism. We apply this technique to study the properties of the spin-fermion model in various frequency and temperature regimes. We present the results for the fermionic spectral function, spin susceptibility, optical conductivity and other observables. We compare our results in detail with the normal state data for the cuprates, and argue that the spin-fermion model is capable of explaining the anomalous normal state properties of the high T c materials. We also show that the conventional {4 theory of the quantum-critical behaviour is inapplicable in 2D due to the singularity of the {4 vertex.

arXiv:cond-mat/0107421•Advances In Physics•Mar 1, 2003•544 citations

Doped high- T c cuprate superconductors elucidated in the light of zeros and poles of the electronic Green’s function

志朗 酒井, Yukitoshi Motome, Masatoshi Imada

We study electronic structure of hole- and electron-doped Mott insulators in the two-dimensional Hubbard model to reach a unified picture for the normal state of cuprate high-${T}_{c}$ superconductors. By using a cluster extension of the dynamical mean-field theory, we demonstrate that structure of coexisting zeros and poles of the single-particle Green's function holds the key to understand Mott physics in the underdoped region. We show evidence for the emergence of non-Fermi-liquid phase caused by the topological quantum phase transition of Fermi surface by analyzing low-energy charge dynamics. The spectra calculated in a wide range of energy and momentum reproduce various anomalous properties observed in experiments for the high-${T}_{c}$ cuprates. Our results reveal that the pseudogap in hole-doped cuprates has a $d$-wavelike structure only below the Fermi level while it retains non-$d$-wave structure with a fully opened gap above the Fermi energy even in the nodal direction due to a zero surface extending over the entire Brillouin zone. In addition to the non-$d$-wave pseudogap, the present comprehensive identifications of the spectral asymmetry as to the Fermi energy, the Fermi arc, and the back-bending behavior of the dispersion, waterfall, and low-energy kink, in agreement with the experimental anomalies of the cuprates, do not support that these originate from (the precursors of) symmetry breakings such as the preformed pairing and the $d$-density-wave fluctuations, but support that they are direct consequences of the proximity to the Mott insulator. Several possible experiments are further proposed to prove or disprove our zero mechanism.

arXiv:1004.2569•Physical Review B•Oct 4, 2010•113 citations
A link is established between the spin fermion (SF) model of the cuprates and the approach based on the analogy between the physics of doped Mott insulators in two dimensions and the physics of fermionic ladders. This enables one to use nonperturbative results derived for fermionic ladders to move beyond the large-NNN approximation in the SF model. It is shown that the paramagnon exchange postulated in the SF model has exactly the right form to facilitate the emergence of the fully gapped ddd-Mott state in the region of the Brillouin zone at the hot spots of the Fermi surface. Hence, the SF model provides an adequate description of the pseudogap.
In the nested limit of the spin-fermion model for the cuprates, one-dimensional physics in the form of half-filled two-leg ladders emerges. We show that the renormalization group flow of the corresponding ladder is towards the ddd-Mott phase, a gapped spin-liquid with short-ranged ddd-wave pairing correlations, and reveals an intermediate $\mathrm{SO}(5)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{SO}(3)$ symmetry. We use the results of the renormalization group in combination with a memory-function approach to calculate the optical conductivity of the spin-fermion model in the high-frequency regime, where processes within the hot spot region dominate the transport. We argue that umklapp processes play a major role. For finite temperatures, we determine the resistivity in the zero-frequency (dc) limit. Our results show an approximate linear temperature dependence of the resistivity and a conductivity that follows a nonuniversal power law. A comparison to experimental data supports our assumption that the conductivity is dominated by the antinodal contribution above the pseudogap.
Though most fermionic Mott insulators order at low temperatures, ordering is ancillary to their insulating behavior. Our emphasis here is on disentangling ordering from the intrinsic strongly correlated physics of a doped half-filled band. To this end, we focus on the two-dimensional Hubbard model. Because the charge gap arises from on-site correlations, we have been refining the nonperturbative approach of Matsumoto and Mancini [Phys. Rev. B 55, 2095 (1997)] which incorporates local physics. Crucial to this method is a self-consistent two-site dynamical cluster expansion which builds in the nearest-neighbor energy scale J. At half-filling, we find that the spectral function possesses a gap of order U and is devoid of any coherent quasiparticle peaks although ordering or charge fractionalization are absent. At low temperatures, local antiferromagnetic correlations emerge. In the doped case, we find that the Fermi surface exceeds the Luttinger volume. The breakdown of Luttinger's theorem in the underdoped regime is traced both to the dynamically generated Mott gap as well to a nonvanishing of the imaginary part of the self-energy at the Fermi level. Spectral weight transfer across the Mott gap also emerges as a ubiquitous feature of a doped Mott insulator and suggests that high- and low-energy scales are inseparable. Additionally in the underdoped regime, we find that a pseudogap exists in the single-particle density of states as well as in the heat capacity. The pseudogap (which is set by the energy scale t2/U){t}^{2}/U)t2/U) is argued to be a ubiquitous feature of a lightly doped Mott state and simply represents the fact that hole transport involves double occupancy. In analogy with the Mott gap and antiferromagnetism, we propose that ordering may also accompany the formation of a pseudogap. We suggest a current pattern within a one-band model that preserves translational but breaks time-reversal symmetry along the canonical x and y axes but not along $x=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}y$ that is consistent with the experimental observations. Finally, we show that the Hall coefficient in a doped Mott insulator must change sign at a doping level x<1/3.x<1/3.x<1/3. The sign change is tied to a termination of strong correlation physics in the doped Mott state.
A proper theoretical description of doped antiferromagnets is until now an unresolved issue. In this work we study chain and ladder systems, and in particularly we focus on the physically most interesting two leg ladder. Our starting point is the Spin Fermion model in which an antiferromagnetic background of localized spins interacts with mobile holes via a rotation invariant Kondo-like term. The interesting region of the phase diagram is that close to the Mott-insulator transition where the doping delta is zero. At zero doping in fact the system is an insulator and the spins organize themselves in a spin liquid, a rotational invariant state characterized by a finite correlation length and an energy gap (a spin gap) above the ground state. Such a state is also the ground state of a field theory, the non linear sigma model (NLsigmaM) which is recognized as the low energy effective theory for antiferromagnetic spin ladder. The first question we answer is how such a spin state evolves as one moves off from the Mott phase by increasing the doping. Integrating out the fermions in our model we obtain an effective theory for the spins which we are able to evaluate in the continuum limit. The effective theory is again a NLsigmaM with coupling constants which depend on the concentration of dopant holes. In contrast to existing mean field calculation our theory predicts a lowering of the spin gap with doping and a consequent increase in the correlation length. Indeed a lowering of the spin gap due to doping is also observed in numerical simulation and on NMR experiments on $Sr14-xCaxCu24O41 with which we obtain very good agreement. Secondly we concentrated on the behavior of the fermions. The general paradigm of interacting fermions in one dimension is that of the Luttinger Liquid characterized by bosonic excitations and spin charge separation. By generalizing our approach we are able to access the one particle fermion propagator as a quantity averaged over the NLsigmaM which controls the spin background. We see that in the limit of zero doping the quasiparticle weight Z is non-zero in a neighborhood of the Fermi energy. This in turn implies that the Luttinger liquid parameter Krho goes to one as the doping delta goes to zero as was first argued by Schulz. Our stronger result allows us to assert that in the very low doping regime the fermions constitute a Fermi liquid.
We analyze the pseudogap phenomenon of hole-doped cuprates via a Feynman-diagrammatic inspection of the Hubbard model. Our approach captures the pivotal interplay between Mott localization and Fermi surface topology beyond weak-coupling spin fluctuations, which open a spectral gap near hot spots. We show that strong coupling and particle-hole asymmetry give rise to another mechanism: the spin-fermion vertex develops a large imaginary part. While its real part always suppresses the electronic lifetime, the imaginary part has a twofold effect. For antinodal fermions a gap opening is boosted; conversely, around the node Fermi arcs are protected.
We present the full analysis of the normal state properties of the spin-fermion model near the antiferromagnetic instability in two dimensions. The model describes low-energy fermions interacting with their own collective spin fluctuations, which soften at the antiferromagnetic transition. We argue that in 2D, the system has two typical energies—an effective spin-fermion interaction g¯ and an energy ωsf below which the system behaves as a Fermi liquid. The ratio of the two determines the dimensionless coupling constant for spin-fermion interaction λ2 ∝ g¯/ωsf. We show that λ scales with the spin correlation length and diverges at criticality. This divergence implies that the conventional perturbative expansion breaks down. We develop a novel approach to the problem—the expansion in either the inverse number of hot spots in the Brillouin zone, or the inverse number of fermionic flavours—which allows us to explicitly account for all terms which diverge as powers of λ, and treat the remaining, O(log λ) terms in the RG formalism. We apply this technique to study the properties of the spin-fermion model in various frequency and temperature regimes. We present the results for the fermionic spectral function, spin susceptibility, optical conductivity and other observables. We compare our results in detail with the normal state data for the cuprates, and argue that the spin-fermion model is capable of explaining the anomalous normal state properties of the high T c materials. We also show that the conventional {4 theory of the quantum-critical behaviour is inapplicable in 2D due to the singularity of the {4 vertex.
We study electronic structure of hole- and electron-doped Mott insulators in the two-dimensional Hubbard model to reach a unified picture for the normal state of cuprate high-Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ superconductors. By using a cluster extension of the dynamical mean-field theory, we demonstrate that structure of coexisting zeros and poles of the single-particle Green's function holds the key to understand Mott physics in the underdoped region. We show evidence for the emergence of non-Fermi-liquid phase caused by the topological quantum phase transition of Fermi surface by analyzing low-energy charge dynamics. The spectra calculated in a wide range of energy and momentum reproduce various anomalous properties observed in experiments for the high-Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ cuprates. Our results reveal that the pseudogap in hole-doped cuprates has a ddd-wavelike structure only below the Fermi level while it retains non-ddd-wave structure with a fully opened gap above the Fermi energy even in the nodal direction due to a zero surface extending over the entire Brillouin zone. In addition to the non-ddd-wave pseudogap, the present comprehensive identifications of the spectral asymmetry as to the Fermi energy, the Fermi arc, and the back-bending behavior of the dispersion, waterfall, and low-energy kink, in agreement with the experimental anomalies of the cuprates, do not support that these originate from (the precursors of) symmetry breakings such as the preformed pairing and the ddd-density-wave fluctuations, but support that they are direct consequences of the proximity to the Mott insulator. Several possible experiments are further proposed to prove or disprove our zero mechanism.