Magnetic properties of Hubbard model have been studied extensively. A theoretical description of these states, however, is not straight forward within conventional mean-field approach due to the electron correlation effects. Here we provide a slave spin theory of the magnetic states in the single band Hubbard model. By introducing an additional decomposition of the on-site Coulomb interaction in the magnetic channel in both the slave spin and the fermionic spinon sectors, we show a magnetic solution with renormalized quasiparticle spectral weight can be stabilized at both half-filling and finite doping. By comparing the energies of antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic states, we provide a ground-state phase diagram for generic electron filling. We further discuss possible generalization of the slave-spin method.
Magnetic properties of Hubbard model have been studied extensively. A theoretical description of these states, however, is not straight forward within conventional mean-field approach due to the electron correlation effects. Here we provide a slave spin theory of the magnetic states in the single band Hubbard model. By introducing an additional decomposition of the on-site Coulomb interaction in the magnetic channel in both the slave spin and the fermionic spinon sectors, we show a magnetic solution with renormalized quasiparticle spectral weight can be stabilized at both half-filling and finite doping. By comparing the energies of antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic states, we provide a ground-state phase diagram for generic electron filling. We further discuss possible generalization of the slave-spin method.
The cluster slave-spin method is introduced to systematically investigate the solutions of the Hubbard model including the symmetry-broken phases. In this method, the electron operator is factorized into a fermionic spinon describing the physical spin and a slave-spin describing the charge fluctuations. Following the U(1) formalism derived by Yu and Si [Phys. Rev. B 86, 085104 (2012)], it is shown that the self-consistent equations to explore various symmetry-broken density wave states can be constructed in general with a cluster of multiple slave-spin sites. We employ this method to study the antiferromagnetic (AFM) state in the single band Hubbard model with the two- and four-site clusters of slave spins. While the Hubbard gap, the charge gap due to the doubly occupied states, scales with the Hubbard interaction U as expected, the AFM gap $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$, the gap in the spinon dispersion in the AFM state, exhibits a crossover from the weak- to strong-coupling behaviors as U increases. Our cluster slave-spin method reproduces not only the traditional mean-field behavior of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\sim}U$ in the weak-coupling limit, but also the behavior of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\sim}{t}^{2}/U$ predicted by the superexchange mechanism in the strong-coupling limit. In addition, the holon-doublon correlator as functions of U and doping x is also computed, which exhibits a strong tendency toward the holon-doublon binding in the strong coupling regime. We further show that the quasiparticle weight obtained by the cluster slave-spin method is in a good agreement with the generalized Gutzwiller approximation in both AFM and paramagnetic states, and the results can be improved beyond the generalized Gutzwiller approximation as the cluster is enlarged from a single site to four sites. Our results demonstrate that the cluster slave-spin method can be a powerful tool to systematically investigate the strongly correlated system.
A slave-spin representation of fermion operators has recently been proposed for the half-filled single and multiband Hubbard model. We show that with the addition of a gauge variable, the formalism can be extended to finite doping. We solve the resulting spin problem using the cluster mean-field approximation. This approximation takes short-range correlations into account by exact diagonalization on the cluster, whereas long-range correlations beyond the size of clusters are treated at the mean-field level. In the limit where the cluster has only one site and the interaction strength U is infinite, this approach reduces to the Gutzwiller approximation. There are some qualitative differences when the size of the cluster is finite. We first compute the critical U for the Mott transition as a function of a frustrating nearest-neighbor interaction on lattices relevant for various correlated systems, namely, the cobaltates, the layered organic superconductors and the high-temperature superconductors. For the triangular lattice, we also study the extended Hubbard model with nearest-neighbor repulsion. In addition to a uniform metallic state, we find a $\sqrt{(3)}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\sqrt{(3)}$ charge density wave in a broad doping regime, including commensurate ones. We find that in the large U limit, intersite Coulomb repulsion V strongly suppresses the single-particle weight of the metallic state.
We construct a new U(1) slave-spin representation for the single-band Hubbard model in the large-U limit. The mean-field theory in this representation is more amenable to describe both the spin-charge-separation physics of the Mott insulator at half-filling and the strange metal behavior at finite doping. By employing a dynamical Green’s function theory for slave spins, we calculate the single-particle spectral function of electrons. The result is comparable to that in dynamical mean field theories. We then formulate a dynamical t/U expansion for the doped Hubbard model that reproduces the mean-field results at the lowest order of expansion. To the next order of expansion, it naturally yields an effective low-energy theory of a t–J model for spinons self-consistently coupled to an XXZ model for the slave spins. We show that the superexchange J is renormalized by doping, in agreement with the Gutzwiller approximation. Surprisingly, we find a new ferromagnetic channel of exchange interactions which survives in the infinite U limit, as a manifestation of the Nagaoka ferromagnetism.
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 $\ensuremath{\delta}>0$.
We introduce a slave-fermion formulation in which to study the charge dynamics of the half-filled Hubbard model on the square lattice. In this description, the charge degrees of freedom are represented by fermionic holons and doublons and the Mott-insulating characteristics of the ground state are the consequence of holon–doublon bound-state formation. The bosonic spin degrees of freedom are described by the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model, yielding long-ranged (Néel) magnetic order at zero temperature. Within this framework and in the self-consistent Born approximation, we perform systematic calculations of the average double occupancy, the electronic density of states, the spectral function and the optical conductivity. Qualitatively, our method reproduces the lower and upper Hubbard bands, the spectral-weight transfer into a coherent quasiparticle band at their lower edges and the renormalisation of the Mott gap, which is associated with holon–doublon binding, due to the interactions of both quasiparticle species with the magnons. The zeros of the Green function at the chemical potential give the Luttinger volume, the poles of the self-energy reflect the underlying quasiparticle dispersion with a spin-renormalised hopping parameter and the optical gap is directly related to the Mott gap. Quantitatively, the square-lattice Hubbard model is one of the best-characterised problems in correlated condensed matter and many numerical calculations, all with different strengths and weaknesses, exist with which to benchmark our approach. From the semi-quantitative accuracy of our results for all but the weakest interaction strengths, we conclude that a self-consistent treatment of the spin-fluctuation effects on the charge degrees of freedom captures all the essential physics of the antiferromagnetic Mott–Hubbard insulator. We remark in addition that an analytical approximation with these properties serves a vital function in developing a full understanding of the fundamental physics of the Mott state, both in the antiferromagnetic insulator and at finite temperatures and dopings.
We introduce the generalization of the slave-spin mean-field method to broken-symmetry phases. Through a variational approach we derive the single-particle energy shift in the mean-field equations which generates the appropriate self-consistent field responsible for the stabilization of the broken symmetry. With this correction the different flavors of the slave-spin mean field are actually the same method and they give identical results to Kotliar-Ruckenstein slave bosons and to the Gutzwiller approximation. We apply our formalism to the N\'eel antiferromagnetic state and study it in multiorbital models as a function of the number of orbitals and Hund's coupling strength, providing phase diagrams in the interaction-doping plane. We show that the doped antiferromagnet in proximity of half filling is typically unstable toward insulator-metal and magnetic-nonmagnetic phase separation. Hund's coupling extends the range of this antiferromagnet, and favors its phase separation.