For doped two-dimensional Mott insulators in their normal state, the challenge is to understand the evolution from a conventional metal at high doping to a strongly correlated metal near the Mott insulator at zero doping. To this end, we solve the cellular dynamical mean-field equations for the two-dimensional Hubbard model using a plaquette as the reference quantum impurity model and continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method as impurity solver. The normal-state phase diagram as a function of interaction strength
U, temperature
T, and filling
n shows that, upon increasing
n toward the Mott insulator, there is a surface of first-order transition between two metals at nonzero doping. That surface ends at a finite temperature critical line originating at the half-filled Mott critical point. Associated with this transition, there is a maximum in scattering rate as well as thermodynamic signatures. These findings suggest a new scenario for the normal-state phase diagram of the high temperature superconductors. The criticality surmised in these systems can originate not from a T
= 0 quantum critical point, nor from the proximity of a long-range ordered phase, but from a low temperature transition between two types of metals at finite doping. The influence of Mott physics therefore extends well beyond half-filling.
We investigate the evolution of the Mott insulators in the triangular lattice Hubbard Model, as a function of hole doping $\ensuremath{\delta}$ in both the strong and intermediate coupling limits. Using the advanced density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method, at light hole doping $\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\lesssim}10%$, we find a significant difference between strong and intermediate couplings. Notably, at intermediate coupling an unusual metallic state emerges, with short ranged spin correlations but long ranged spin-chirality order. Moreover, no clear Fermi surface or wave vector is observed, this chiral metal also exhibits staggered loop current, which breaks the translational symmetry. These features disappear on increasing interaction strength or on further doping. At strong coupling, the 120 degree magnetic order of the insulating magnet persists for light doping, and produces hole pockets with a well-defined Fermi surface. On further doping, $\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\approx}10%\ensuremath{\sim}20%$ SDW order and coherent hole Fermi pockets are found at both strong and intermediate couplings. At even higher doping $\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}20%$, the SDW order is suppressed and the spin-singlet Cooper pair correlations are simultaneously enhanced. We also briefly comment on the strong particle-hole asymmetry of the model.
The cluster slave-spin method is employed to investigate systematically the ground state properties of the Hubbard model on a square lattice with doping $\ensuremath{\delta}$ and coupling strength
U being its parameters. At half-filling, a relation between the staggered magnetization
M and the antiferromagnetic (AFM) gap ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\text{AFM}}$ is established in the small
U limit to compare with that from the Hartree-Fock theory, and a first-order metal-insulator Mott transition in the paramagnetic state is substantiated, which is characterized by discontinuities and hystereses at
UMott=10t. The interaction
Uc for the crossover in the AFM state, separating the weak- and strong-coupling regimes, is found to remain almost unchanged with large dopings, and smaller than
UMott at half-filling because of long range AFM correlations. Finally, an overall phase diagram in the $U\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\delta}$ plane is presented, which is composed of four regimes: the AFM insulator at half-filling, the AFM metal with the compressibility $\ensuremath{\kappa}>0$ or $\ensuremath{\kappa}<0$, and the paramagnetic metal, as well as three phase transitions: (i) From the AFM metal to the paramagnetic metal, (ii) between the AFM metal phases with positive and negative $\ensuremath{\kappa}$, and (iii) separating the AFM insulating phase at $\ensuremath{\delta}=0$ from the AFM metal phase for $\ensuremath{\delta}>0$.
The electronic structure of the lightly hole-doped triangular-lattice moir\'e Hubbard model is studied within cluster perturbation theory (CPT) using 13-site clusters for a fixed doping concentration
p=1/13 varying the Coulomb parameter
U and the hopping phase parameter $\ensuremath{\phi}$ related to the spin-orbital interaction. We have also developed a rather simple generalized mean-field approximation (GMFA) containing the amplitude of the spin correlations as a free parameter to fit the CPT data. The evolution of the Fermi surface and the pseudogap with the parameters $\ensuremath{\phi}$ and
U is explained from the viewpoint of the short-range magnetic order. The geometric frustration and the additional model parameter related to the spin-orbital interaction result in a more rich physics of the pseudogap state compared to the case of a more conventional square lattice.
We apply the recently developed slave fermion approach to study the doped Mott insulator in the one-band Hubbard and Hubbard-Heisenberg models. Our results produce several subtle features in the electron spectra and confirm the key role of antiferromagnetic (AFM) correlations in the appearance of the pseudogap. Upon hole doping, the electron spectra exhibit a single peak near the Fermi energy in the local approximation of the Hubbard model where AFM correlations are not included. When AFM correlations are included through an explicit mean-field Heisenberg interaction, a second peak emerges at slightly lower energy and pushes the other peak to higher energy, so that a pseudogap emerges between the two peaks at small doping. Both peaks grow rapidly with increasing doping and eventually merge together, where the pseudogap no longer exists. Detailed analyses of the spectral evolution with doping and the strength of the Heisenberg interaction confirm that the lower-energy peak comes from a polaronic mechanism due to the holon-spinon interaction in the AFM-correlated background and the higher-energy peak arises from the holon hybridization to form the electron quasiparticles. Thus, the pseudogap arises from the interplay of the polaronic and hybridization mechanisms. Our results are in good agreement with previous numerical calculations using the dynamical mean-field theory and its cluster extensions, but give a clearer picture of the underlying physics. Our work provides a promising perspective for clarifying the nature of doped Mott insulators and may serve as a starting point for more elaborate investigations in the future.
The Mott transition is observed experimentally in materials that are magnetically frustrated so that long-range order does not hide the Mott transition at finite temperature. The Hubbard model on the triangular lattice at half filling is a paradigmatic model to study the interplay of interactions and frustration on the normal-state phase diagram. We use the dynamical cluster approximation with continuous-time auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo to solve this model for 1-, 4-, 6-, 12-, and 16-site clusters with detailed analysis performed for the 6-site cluster. We show that (a) for every cluster there is an inflection point in the double occupancy as a function of interaction, defining a Widom line that extends above the critical point of the first-order Mott transition; (b) the presence of this line and the cluster size dependence argue for the observability of the Mott transition at finite temperature in the thermodynamic limit; and (c) the loss of spectral weight in the metal-to-Mott-insulator transition as a function of temperature and for strong interactions is momentum dependent, the hallmark of a pseudogap. That pseudogap spans a large region of the phase diagram near the Mott transition.