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arXiv:2008.02723 · Physical Review Letters

Mott Metal-Insulator Transition from Steady-State Density Functional Theory

David Jacob, Gianluca Stefanucci, Stefan Kurth

Published Nov 19, 2020• 10 citations
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Abstract

We present a computationally efficient method to obtain the spectral function of bulk systems in the framework of steady-state density functional theory (i-DFT) using an idealized scanning tunneling microscope (STM) setup. We calculate the current through the STM tip and then extract the spectral function from the finite-bias differential conductance. The fictitious noninteracting system of i-DFT features an exchange-correlation (XC) contribution to the bias which guarantees the same current as in the true interacting system. Exact properties of the XC bias are established using Fermi-liquid theory and subsequently implemented to construct approximations for the Hubbard model. We show for two different lattice structures that the Mott metal-insulator transition is captured by i-DFT.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.125.216401

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We present a computationally efficient method to obtain the spectral function of bulk systems in the framework of steady-state density functional theory (i-DFT) using an idealized scanning tunneling microscope (STM) setup. We calculate the current through the STM tip and then extract the spectral function from the finite-bias differential conductance. The fictitious noninteracting system of i-DFT features an exchange-correlation (XC) contribution to the bias which guarantees the same current as in the true interacting system. Exact properties of the XC bias are established using Fermi-liquid theory and subsequently implemented to construct approximations for the Hubbard model. We show for two different lattice structures that the Mott metal-insulator transition is captured by i-DFT.
We describe the doping-driven Mott transition in the Hubbard model within the framework of steady-state density functional theory, or i-DFT. In order to access the many-body spectral function in i-DFT, an approximation to the exchange-correlation (xc) bias at arbitrary density and current is required. By making use of Fermi-liquid theory, we derive conditions on the xc bias of i-DFT in terms of the quasiparticle weight, thus establishing a clear connection between i-DFT and Fermi-liquid theory. The Fermi liquid conditions are then employed to guide the construction of an approximation to the xc bias functional. Numerical results obtained with this functional demonstrate that the doping-driven Mott transition can indeed be captured with i-DFT. More generally, our i-DFT approach to calculate spectral functions establishes an explicit form for the functional relationship between the many-body spectral function and the ground state electronic density.
In Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) the interacting electron problem is mapped into a noninteracting problem in an effective potential v(KS). It is known that the charge gap of the interacting system is different from the gap of the effective problem due to a jump Δxc in v(KS) when an electron is added but its magnitude and its role in the ubiquitous discrepancy between the experimental gaps and approximate DFT computations is poorly understood. Here we compute the exact v(KS) of a strongly interacting one-dimensional lattice model which can be driven from an ionic to a Mott insulating state. Presence of a "vacuum" region allows to determine the absolute value of v(KS). We show that in the ionic regime Δxc is determined by nearest-neighbor interaction, while in the Mott regime Δxc is determined by on-site Hubbard interaction.
In this study, the metal-insulator transition in the square-lattice Hubbard model at half-filling is revisited in relation to the DOS and spectral functions by means of the ladder dual fermion approximation (LDFA). For this purpose, a new expression of the two-body Green's function in the form of resolvents is proposed, which provides tractable and efficient means to calculate the local vertex function with the Lanczos exact diagonalization (ED) method. This makes it possible to use the Lanczos ED method as a solver of the effective impurity Anderson model for LDFA, opening up the way to access low temperatures for these perturbative extensions of the dynamical mean-field theory and to obtain accurate DOS and spectral functions on the real frequency axis by a new variant of the maximum entropy method. It is found that for $U\ensuremath{\le}3.5t$, as temperature decreases, the pseudogap formation due to antiferromagnetic correlations in the quasiparticle peak of the spectral function occurs at the XXX point $[\mathbit{k}=(\ensuremath{\pi},0)]$, spreads through the Fermi surface and ends at the M2{M}_{2}M2​ point $[\mathbit{k}=(\ensuremath{\pi}/2,\ensuremath{\pi}/2)]$. The almost simultaneous creation of the pseudogap and the loss of the Fermi liquid feature is consistent with that expected in the Slater regime. Although the pseudogap still appears in the quasi-particle-like single peak for $U\ensuremath{\ge}4.0t$, the Fermi-liquid feature is partially lost on the Fermi surface already at higher temperatures as expected in the Mott-Heisenberg regime, in which local spins are preformed at high temperatures. A sharp crossover from a pseudogap phase to a Mott insulator at finite ${U}^{*}\ensuremath{\approx}4.7t$ is found to occur below the temperature of the pseudogap formation similar to a previous study with the nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ model approach.
We present improvements of a recently introduced numerical method [E. Arrigoni et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 086403 (2013)] to compute steady-state properties of strongly correlated electronic systems out of equilibrium. The method can be considered as a nonequilibrium generalization of exact diagonalization based dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). The key modification for the nonequilibrium situation consists in addressing the DMFT impurity problem within an auxiliary system consisting of the correlated impurity, Nb{N}_{b}Nb​ uncorrelated bath sites, and two Markovian environments (sink and reservoir). Algorithmic improvements in the impurity solver allow to treat efficiently larger values of Nb{N}_{b}Nb​ than previously in DMFT. This increases the accuracy of the results and is crucial for a correct description of the physical behavior of the system in the relevant parameter range including a semiquantitative description of the Kondo regime. To illustrate the approach, we consider a monoatomic layer of correlated orbitals, described by the single-band Hubbard model, attached to two metallic leads. The nonequilibrium situation is driven by a bias voltage applied to the leads. For this system, we investigate the spectral function and the steady-state current-voltage characteristics in the weakly as well as in the strongly interacting limit. In particular, we investigate the nonequilibrium behavior of quasiparticle excitations within the Mott gap of the correlated layer. We find for low-bias voltage Kondo-type behavior in the vicinity of the insulating phase. In particular, we observe a splitting of the Kondo resonance as a function of the bias voltage.
We calculate the nonequilibrium electronic transport properties of a one-dimensional interacting chain at half filling, coupled to noninteracting leads. The interacting chain is initially in a Mott insulator state that is driven out of equilibrium by applying a strong bias voltage between the leads. For bias voltages above a certain threshold we observe the breakdown of the Mott insulator state and the establishment of a steady-state electronic current through the system. Based on extensive time-dependent density-matrix renormalization-group simulations, we show that this steady-state current always has the same functional dependence on voltage, independent of the microscopic details of the model and we relate the value of the threshold to the Lieb-Wu gap. We frame our results in terms of the Landau-Zener dielectric breakdown picture. Finally, we also discuss the real-time evolution of the current, and characterize the current-carrying state resulting from the breakdown of the Mott insulator by computing the double occupancy, the spin structure factor, and the entanglement entropy.
Density-functional theory (DFT) calculations yield useful ground-state energies and densities, while Green's function techniques (such as GW) are mostly used to produce spectral functions. From the Galitskii-Migdal formula, we extract the exchange correlation of DFT directly from a Green's function. This spectral representation provides an alternative to the fluctuation-dissipation theorem of DFT, identifying distinct single-particle and many-particle contributions. Results are illustrated on the uniform electron gas and the two-site Hubbard model.