We study the quantum many-body ground states of electrons on the half-filled honeycomb lattice with short- and long-ranged density-density interactions as a model for graphene. To this end, we employ the recently developed truncated-unity functional renormalization group (TU-fRG) approach which allows for a high resolution of the interaction vertex' wave vector dependence. We connect to previous lattice quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) results which predict a stabilization of the semimetallic phase for realistic ab initio interaction parameters and confirm that the application of a finite biaxial strain can induce a quantum phase transition towards an ordered ground state. In contrast to lattice QMC simulations, the TU-fRG is not limited in the choice of tight-binding and interaction parameters to avoid the occurrence of a sign problem. Therefore, we also investigate a range of parameters relevant to the realistic graphene material which are not accessible by numerically exact methods. Although a plethora of charge-density waves arises under medium-range interactions, we find the antiferromagnetic spin-density wave to be the prevailing instability for long-range interactions. We further explore the impact of an extended tight-binding Hamiltonian with second-nearest-neighbor hopping and a finite chemical potential for a more accurate description of the band structure of graphene's ${p}_{z}$ electrons.
We study the quantum many-body ground states of electrons on the half-filled honeycomb lattice with short- and long-ranged density-density interactions as a model for graphene. To this end, we employ the recently developed truncated-unity functional renormalization group (TU-fRG) approach which allows for a high resolution of the interaction vertex' wave vector dependence. We connect to previous lattice quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) results which predict a stabilization of the semimetallic phase for realistic ab initio interaction parameters and confirm that the application of a finite biaxial strain can induce a quantum phase transition towards an ordered ground state. In contrast to lattice QMC simulations, the TU-fRG is not limited in the choice of tight-binding and interaction parameters to avoid the occurrence of a sign problem. Therefore, we also investigate a range of parameters relevant to the realistic graphene material which are not accessible by numerically exact methods. Although a plethora of charge-density waves arises under medium-range interactions, we find the antiferromagnetic spin-density wave to be the prevailing instability for long-range interactions. We further explore the impact of an extended tight-binding Hamiltonian with second-nearest-neighbor hopping and a finite chemical potential for a more accurate description of the band structure of graphene's pz electrons.
We investigate the quantum many-body instabilities for electrons on the honeycomb lattice at half filling with extended interactions, motivated by a description of graphene and related materials. We employ a recently developed fermionic functional renormalization group scheme, which allows for highly resolved calculations of wave-vector dependences in the low-energy effective interactions. We encounter the expected anti-ferromagnetic spin density wave for a dominant on-site repulsion between electrons, and charge order with different modulations for dominant pure nth nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions. Novel instabilities towards incommensurate charge density waves take place when nonlocal density interactions among several bond distances are included simultaneously. Moreover, for more realistic Coulomb potentials in graphene including enough nonlocal terms there is a suppression of charge order due to competition effects between the different charge ordering tendencies, and if the on-site term fails to dominate, the semimetallic state is rendered stable. The possibility of a topological Mott insulator being the favored tendency for dominating second-nearest-neighbor interactions is not realized in our results with high momentum resolution.
Interacting fermions on the half-filled honeycomb lattice with short-range repulsions have been suggested to host a variety of interesting many-body ground states, e.g., a topological Mott insulator. A number of recent studies of the spinless case in terms of exact diagonalization, the infinite density matrix renormalization group, and the functional renormalization group, however, indicate a suppression of the topological Mott insulating phase in the whole range of interaction parameters. Here, we complement the previous studies by investigating the quantum many-body instabilities of the physically relevant case of spin-1/2 fermions with onsite, nearest-neighbor, and second-nearest-neighbor repulsion. To this end, we employ the multipatch functional renormalization group for correlated fermions with refined momentum resolution observing the emergence of an antiferromagnetic spin-density wave and a charge-density wave for dominating onsite and nearest-neighbor repulsions, respectively. For dominating second-nearest neighbor interaction our results favor an ordering tendency towards a charge-modulated ground state over the topological Mott insulating state. The latter evades a stabilization as the leading instability by the additional onsite interaction.
Both insulating and conducting electronic behaviors have been experimentally seen in clean bilayer graphene samples at low temperature, and there is still no consensus on the nature of the interacting ground state at half filling and in the absence of a magnetic field. Theoretically, several possibilities for the insulating ground states have been predicted for weak interaction strength. However, a recent renormalization-group calculation on a Hubbard model for charge-neutral bilayer graphene with short-range interactions suggests the emergence of low-energy Dirac fermions that would stabilize the metallic phase for weak interactions. Using a nonperturbative projective quantum Monte Carlo, we calculate the ground state for bilayer graphene using a realistic model for the Coulomb interaction that includes both short-range and long-range contributions. We find that a finite critical on-site interaction is needed to gap bilayer graphene and the transition belongs to the Gross-Neveu universality class, thereby confirming the Hubbard model expectations even in the presence of a long-range Coulomb potential, in agreement with our theoretical analysis. In addition, we also find that the critical on-site interactions necessary to destabilize the metallic ground state decrease with increasing interlayer coupling.
We investigate magnetic and charge correlations in graphene by using the formulation of extended dynamical mean-field theory (E-DMFT) for two-sublattice systems. First, we map the average nonlocal interaction onto the effective static interaction between different sublattices, which is treated together with the local interaction within an effective two-orbital local model. The remaining part of the nonlocal interaction is considered by introducing an effective retarded interaction within the E-DMFT approach. The nonlocal susceptibilities in the charge and spin channel are further evaluated in the ladder approximation. We verify the applicability of the proposed method to describe the effect of uniformly screened long-range Coulomb potential $\ensuremath{\propto}1/r$, as well as screened realistic long-range electron interactions [T. O. Wehling et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 236805 (2011)] in graphene. We show that the developed approach describes a competition of semimetal, spin density wave (SDW), and charge-density-wave (CDW) correlations. The obtained phase diagram is in a good agreement with recent results of the functional renormalization group (fRG) for finite large graphene nanoflakes and scaling analysis of quantum Monte Carlo data on finite clusters. Similarly to the previously obtained results within the fRG approach, the realistic screening of Coulomb interaction by $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ bands causes moderate (strong) enhancement of critical long-range interaction strength, needed for the SDW (CDW) instability, compared to the results for the uniformly screened Coulomb potential.
We use the truncated-unity functional renormalization group (TUFRG) to study many-body instabilities of correlated electrons in graphene doped near the van Hove singularity (VHS). The system is described by an extended Hubbard model including several Coulomb repulsions between neighboring sites. With the repulsion parameters, which turn out to be suitable for low-energy consideration of graphene, we find a spin-bond-order phase in the vicinity of the VHS. This phase gives way to a spin-density-wave phase when involving a weak additional screening. The ground-state phase diagram is presented in the space of the doping level and the screening parameter. We describe in detail both of these spin-ordered states by using recently developed TUFRG + mean-field (MF) scheme, i.e. a combined approach of TUFRG and MF theory. The collinear states are energetically preferable in both cases of the spin bond order and the spin-density wave. But if the third-nearest-neighbor hopping is absent, these spin orders become chiral. The band structures of two collinear spin-ordered states are presented, revealing the metallic behavior of the system.
Despite being relevant to better understand the properties of honeycomblike systems, as graphene-based compounds, the electron-phonon interaction is commonly disregarded in theoretical approaches. That is, the effects of phonon fields on interacting Dirac electrons is an open issue, in particular when investigating long-range ordering. Thus, here we perform unbiased quantum Monte Carlo simulations to examine the Hubbard-Holstein model (HHM) in the half-filled honeycomb lattice. By performing careful finite-size scaling analysis, we identify semimetal-to-insulator quantum critical points, and determine the behavior of the antiferromagnetic and charge-density wave phase transitions. We have, therefore, established the ground state phase diagram of the HHM for intermediate interaction strength, determining its behavior for different phonon frequencies. Our findings provide quantitative and qualitative descriptions of the model at intermediate coupling strengths, and may shed light on the emergence of many-body properties in honeycomblike systems.