Systems with strong electronic Coulomb correlations often display rich phase diagrams exhibiting different ordered phases involving spin, charge, or orbital degrees of freedom. The theoretical description of the interplay of the corresponding collective fluctuations giving rise to this phenomenology, however, remains a tremendous challenge. Here, we introduce a multichannel extension of the recently developed fluctuating field approach to competing collective fluctuations in correlated electron systems. The method is based on a variational optimization of a trial action that explicitly contains the order parameters of the leading fluctuation channels. It gives direct access to the free energy of the system, facilitating the distinction between stable and metastable phases of the system. We apply our approach to the extended Hubbard model in the weak to intermediate coupling regime where we find it to capture the interplay of competing charge density wave and antiferromagnetic fluctuations with qualitative agreement with more computationally expensive methods. The multichannel fluctuating field approach thus offers a promising route for a numerically low-cost treatment of the interplay between collective fluctuations in small to large systems.
Systems with strong electronic Coulomb correlations often display rich phase diagrams exhibiting different ordered phases involving spin, charge, or orbital degrees of freedom. The theoretical description of the interplay of the corresponding collective fluctuations giving rise to this phenomenology, however, remains a tremendous challenge. Here, we introduce a multichannel extension of the recently developed fluctuating field approach to competing collective fluctuations in correlated electron systems. The method is based on a variational optimization of a trial action that explicitly contains the order parameters of the leading fluctuation channels. It gives direct access to the free energy of the system, facilitating the distinction between stable and metastable phases of the system. We apply our approach to the extended Hubbard model in the weak to intermediate coupling regime where we find it to capture the interplay of competing charge density wave and antiferromagnetic fluctuations with qualitative agreement with more computationally expensive methods. The multichannel fluctuating field approach thus offers a promising route for a numerically low-cost treatment of the interplay between collective fluctuations in small to large systems.
Strongly correlated systems often display rich phase diagrams exhibiting different ordered phases involving spin, charge, pairing, or orbital degrees of freedom. The theoretical description of the competition between different instabilities in strongly correlated systems giving rise to this phenomenology, remains one of the holy grails of modern condensed matter theory. It poses a tremendous challenge of both conceptual and computational complexity, and thus the interplay of competing electronic fluctuations constitutes a roadblock to the understanding of the complex phase diagrams of a wide range of correlated quantum materials. This motivates the search for constructing simplified methods to study interplaying collective fluctuations.We introduce a multichannel extension of the recently developed fluctuating field approach to competing collective fluctuations in correlated electron systems. The method is based on a variational optimization of a trial action that explicitly contains the order parameters of the leading fluctuation channels. It gives direct access to the free energy of the system, facilitating the distinction between stable and metastable phases of the system.We apply our approach to the extended Hubbard model, a paradigmatic fermionic lattice model, occupying a prime place in condensed matter theory due to the potential relevance of its repulsive and attractive versions for both electronic materials and artificial systems.Utilising the technique to study the weak to intermediate coupling regime of the repulsive interaction, we find it to capture the interplay of competing charge density wave and antiferromagnetic fluctuations with qualitative agreement with more computationally expensive methods. In addition, the method allows access to excited-state properties, through the one-particle excitation spectrum, and many-body correlation effects, through the self-energy, directly on the real-frequency axis without using numerical analytic continuation techniques. The multichannel fluctuating field approach thus offers a promising route for a numerically low-cost treatment of the interplay between collective fluctuations in small to large systems.Using the introduced multichannel fluctuating field approach, we explore the phase diagram of the extended Hubbard model in both repulsive and attractive regimes, addressing the interplay of fluctuations in the antiferromagnetic, charge density wave, s-wave superconducting, and phase separation channels. Despite the fact that this model has been intensively studied for decades, our novel approach allows us to identify a novel phase that is characterised by the coexistence of collective s-wave superconducting and phase separation fluctuations. These findings resonate with previous observations of interplaying phase separation and superconducting phases in electronic systems, most importantly in high-temperature superconductors. In addition, the multichannel fluctuating field method allows to display the quintessential nature of the extended Hubbard model through the large variety of types of competitions which emerges from the interplaying instabilities. The general nature of the proposed theory, allowing to incorporate a variety of collective modes, makes it a promising tool for studying the interplay of collective fluctuations in strongly correlated fermionic systems.
Understanding competing instabilities in systems with correlated fermions remains one of the holy grails of modern condensed matter physics. Among the fermionic lattice models used to this effect, the extended Hubbard model occupies a prime place due to the potential relevance of its repulsive and attractive versions for both electronic materials and artificial systems. Using the recently introduced multichannel fluctuating field approach, we address the interplay of fluctuations in the charge density wave, s-wave superconducting, and phase separation channels in the attractive extended Hubbard model. Despite the fact that this model has been intensively studied for decades, our approach allows us to identify a phase that has not been analyzed before and which is characterized by the coexistence of collective s-wave superconducting and phase separation fluctuations. Our findings resonate with previous observations of interplaying phase separation and superconducting phases in electronic systems, most importantly in high-temperature superconductors.
The main focus of the present thesis lies on the development and application of numerical approaches based on quantum lattice models to describe collective excitations in strongly correlated materials. To this end, an efficient and balanced dual triply irreducible local expansion (D-TRILEX) approach that captures the major effects of spatial correlations in strongly correlated fermionic systems is presented, which is based on partial bosonization of the collective electronic fluctuations. Thereby, a specific choice of the bare interaction in the corresponding channel of instability allows a simultaneous description of collective excitations in different channels without facing the Fierz ambiguity problem which usually arises in methods based on partial bosonization. Compared to more elaborate methods, D-TRILEX does not require the computation of the numerically expensive four-point vertex. Furthermore, taking into account only the leading longitudinal contribution of the bosonic modes to the self-energy reduces the complexity of the diagrammatic structure drastically making the method applicable to more complex realistic multi-orbital systems. As the main result of this thesis, the D-TRILEX approach is introduced and its limit of applicability is studied by applying it to the two-dimensional single-band Hubbard model. Performing a comprehensive diagrammatic analysis by comparing D-TRILEX with methods, which consider different sets of diagrams and different approximations for the four-point vertex, we find that contributions that are not considered by the partially bosonized approximation of the four-point vertex have only a minor effect on electronic degrees of freedom and the longitudinal bosonic modes taking into account in D-TRILEX self-energy are the leading ones in a broad range of control parameters. After investigating the applicability of the D-TRILEX approach we apply the method to study collective electronic effects in the hole-doped InSe monolayers using a realistic electronic-structure model. Thereby, we find that due to the weakly screened long-range Coulomb interaction the system shows a charge density waves phase for the broad range of considered parameters, however, inside this regime we have found a coexisting ferromagnetic phase. D-TRILEX can be considered as an approximation of the more elaborate dual boson (DB) theory, which accounts for local correlations within the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) and nonlocal correlations perturbatively. As a further result of this thesis, we investigate the weak coupling regime of the two-dimensional single-band Hubbard model within the ladder DB approximation and compare our results to the numerically exact diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo (DiagMC) method. We find that the DB method qualitatively captures all the different regimes. Even quantitatively DB shows a good agreement with the exact results for single- and two-particle quantities at high and moderate temperatures. However, the ladder approximation slightly underestimates the strong antiferromagnetic fluctuations that appear in the system at low temperatures. As the final result of this thesis, we perform a parametrization of the local four-point vertex in terms of the (three-point) Hedin vertex and screened interactions in the framework of single-boson exchange (SBE) decomposition. Similar to the D-TRILEX approach the computational costs are reduced by neglecting the interaction-irreducible part of the four-point vertex. The approximated vertex is used to calculate the DMFT susceptibility for different interaction strengths at different temperatures. We find that the approximation shows a good agreement in the limits of weak and strong couplings. Thereby, our study highlights the importance of the Hedin vertex for local vertex corrections.
We derive an efficient and unbiased method for computing order parameters in correlated electron systems with competing instabilities. Charge, magnetic, and pairing fluctuations above the energy scale of spontaneous symmetry breaking are taken into account by a functional renormalization group flow, while the formation of order below that scale is treated in mean-field theory. The method captures fluctuation-driven instabilities such as d-wave superconductivity. As a first application we study the competition between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in the ground state of the two-dimensional Hubbard model.
Systems with competing orders are of great interest in condensed matter physics. When\ntwo phases have comparable energies, novel interplay effects such can be induced by tuning an appropriate parameter. In this thesis, we study two problems of competing orders - (i) ultracold atom gases with competing superfluidity and Charge Density Wave(CDW) orders, and (ii) low dimensional antiferromagnets with Neel order competing against various disordered ground states. \n\nIn the first part of the thesis, we study the\n attractive Hubbard model which could soon be realized in ultracold atom experiments. Close to half-filling, the superfluid ground state competes with a low-lying CDW phase. We study the collective excitations of the superfluid using the Generalized Random Phase Approximation (GRPA) and strong-coupling spin wave analysis.\n The competing CDW phase manifests as a roton-like excitation. We characterize the collective mode spectrum, setting benchmarks for experiments.\n\nWe drive competition between orders by imposing superfluid flow. Superflow leads to various instabilities: in particular, we find a dynamical instability associated with CDW order. We also find a novel dynamical incommensurate instability analogous to exciton condensation in semiconductors.\n\nIn the second part, inspired by experiments on Bi3Mn4O12(NO3)(BMNO), we first study the interlayer dimer state in spin-S bilayer antiferromagnets. At a critical bilayer coupling strength, condensation of triplet excitations leads to Neel order. In describing this transition, bond operator mean field theory suffers from systematic deviations. We bridge these deviations by taking into account corrections arising from higher spin excitations. The interlayer dimer state shows a field induced Neel transition, as seen in BMNO. Our results are relevant to the quantitative modelling of spin-S dimerized systems. \n\nWe then study the J1−J2 model on the honeycomb lattice with frustrating next-nearest neighbour exchange.\n For J2>J1/6, quantum and thermal fluctuations lead to ‘lattice nematic’\nstates. For S=1/2, this lattice nematic takes the form of a valence bond solid.\n\nWith J2<J1 /6, quantum fluctuations melt Neel order so as to give rise to a field induced Neel transition. This scenario can explain the observed properties of BMNO.\n\nWe discuss implications for the honeycomb lattice Hubbard model.
The extended Hubbard Hamiltonian is a widely accepted model for uncovering the effects of strong correlations on the phase diagram of low-dimensional systems, and a variety of theoretical techniques have been applied to it. In this paper the world-line quantum Monte Carlo method is used to study spin, charge, and bond order correlations of the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model in the presence of coupling to the lattice. A static alternating lattice distortion (the ionic Hubbard model) leads to enhanced charge density wave correlations at the expense of antiferromagnetic order. When the lattice degrees of freedom are dynamic (the Hubbard-Holstein model), we show that a similar effect occurs even though the charge asymmetry must arise spontaneously. Although the evolution of the total energy with lattice coupling is smooth, the individual components exhibit sharp crossovers at the phase boundaries. Finally, we observe a tendency for bond order in the region between the charge and spin density wave phases.