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arXiv:2305.05980 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Wave function and spatial structure of polarons in an antiferromagnetic bilayer

Jens H. Nyhegn, Georg M. Bruun, K. Knakkergaard Nielsen

Published Aug 18, 2023• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Adding a dopant to an antiferromagnetic spin background disturbs the magnetic order and leads to the formation of a quasiparticle coined the magnetic polaron, which plays a central role in understanding strongly correlated materials. Recently, remarkably detailed insights into the spatial properties of such polarons have been obtained using atoms in optical lattices. Motivated by this we develop a nonperturbative scheme for calculating the wave function of the magnetic polaron in a bilayer antiferromagnet using the self-consistent Born approximation. The scheme includes an infinite number of spin waves, which is crucial for an accurate description of the most interesting regime of strong correlations. Utilizing the developed wave function, we explore the spatial structure of the polaron dressing cloud consisting of magnetically frustrated spins surrounding the hole. Mimicking the nonmonotonic behavior of the antiferromagnetic order, we find that the dressing cloud first decreases and then increases in size with increasing interlayer hopping. The increase reflects the decrease in the magnetic order as a quantum phase transition to a disordered state is approached for large interlayer hopping. We, furthermore, find that the symmetry of the ground state dressing cloud changes as the interlayer coupling increases. Our results should be experimentally accessible using quantum simulation with optical lattices.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.108.075141

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•Jan 1, 2007•0 citations
Adding a dopant to an antiferromagnetic spin background disturbs the magnetic order and leads to the formation of a quasiparticle coined the magnetic polaron, which plays a central role in understanding strongly correlated materials. Recently, remarkably detailed insights into the spatial properties of such polarons have been obtained using atoms in optical lattices. Motivated by this we develop a nonperturbative scheme for calculating the wave function of the magnetic polaron in a bilayer antiferromagnet using the self-consistent Born approximation. The scheme includes an infinite number of spin waves, which is crucial for an accurate description of the most interesting regime of strong correlations. Utilizing the developed wave function, we explore the spatial structure of the polaron dressing cloud consisting of magnetically frustrated spins surrounding the hole. Mimicking the nonmonotonic behavior of the antiferromagnetic order, we find that the dressing cloud first decreases and then increases in size with increasing interlayer hopping. The increase reflects the decrease in the magnetic order as a quantum phase transition to a disordered state is approached for large interlayer hopping. We, furthermore, find that the symmetry of the ground state dressing cloud changes as the interlayer coupling increases. Our results should be experimentally accessible using quantum simulation with optical lattices.
The properties of mobile impurities in quantum magnets are fundamental for our understanding of strongly correlated materials and may play a key role in the physics of high-temperature superconductivity. Hereby, the motion of hole-like defects through an antiferromagnet has been of particular importance. It creates magnetic frustrations that lead to the formation of a quasiparticle, whose complex structure continues to pose substantial challenges to theory and numerical simulations. In this article, we develop a nonperturbative theoretical approach to describe the microscopic properties of such magnetic polarons. Based on the self-consistent Born approximation, which is provenly accurate in the strong-coupling regime, we obtain a complete description of the polaron wave function by solving a set of Dyson-like equations that permit to compute relevant spin-hole correlation functions. We apply this new method to analyze the spatial structure of magnetic polarons in the strongly interacting regime and find qualitative differences from predictions of previously applied truncation schemes. Our calculations reveal a remarkably high spatial symmetry of the polaronic magnetization cloud and a surprising misalignment between its orientation and the polaron crystal momentum. The developed framework opens up an approach to the microscopic properties of doped quantum magnets and will enable detailed analyses of ongoing experiments based on cold-atom quantum simulations of the Fermi-Hubbard model.
The dynamics of charge carriers in lattices of quantum spins is a long standing and fundamental problem. Recently, a new generation of quantum simulation experiments based on atoms in optical lattices has emerged that gives unprecedented insights into the detailed spatial and temporal dynamics of this problem, which compliments earlier results from condensed matter experiments. Focusing on observables accessible in these new experiments, we explore here the equilibrium as well as nonequilibrium dynamics of a mobile hole in two coupled antiferromagnetic spin lattices. Using a self-consistent Born approximation, we calculate the spectral properties of the hole in the bilayer and extract the energy bands of the quasiparticles, corresponding to magnetic polarons that are either symmetric or antisymmetric under layer exchange. These two kinds of polarons are degenerate at certain momenta due to the antiferromagnetic symmetry, and we, furthermore, examine how the momentum of the ground-state polaron depends on the interlayer coupling strength. The long time dynamics of a hole initially created in one layer is shown to be characterized by oscillations between the two layers with a frequency given by the energy difference between the symmetric and the antisymmetric polaron. We finally demonstrate that the expansion velocity of a hole initially created at a given lattice site is governed by the ballistic motion of polarons for long times, and that it increases as a quantum phase transition to a disordered state is approached. While our linear spin wave theory does not include interlayer dimer correlations important close to the phase transition, this speedup is a physically robust prediction as it reflects the decreasing energy cost of hopping when the magnetic order decreases.
The two-layer square lattice quantum antiferromagnet with spins 12\frac{1}{2}21​ shows a magnetic order-disorder transition at a critical ratio of the interplane to intraplane couplings. We investigate the dynamics of a single hole in a bilayer antiferromagnet described by a $t\ensuremath{-}J$ Hamiltonian. To model the spin background we propose a ground-state wave function for the undoped system that covers both magnetic phases and includes transverse as well as longitudinal spin fluctuations. The photoemission spectrum is calculated using the spin-polaron picture for the whole range of the ratio of the magnetic couplings. This allows for the study of the hole dynamics on both sides of the magnetic order-disorder transition. For small interplane coupling we find a quasiparticle with properties known from the single-layer antiferromagnet, e.g., the dispersion minimum is at $(\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}/2,\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}/2).$ For large interplane coupling the hole dispersion is similar to that of a free fermion (with reduced bandwidth). The crossover between these two scenarios occurs inside the antiferromagnetic phase, which indicates that the hole dynamics is governed by the local environment of the hole.
Ultracold neutral atoms in optical lattices have become a powerful platform for the simulation of complex quantum systems. With our quantum gas microscope, we measure snapshots of the quantum many-body wavefunction by fully resolving the position and spin of each atom. I will present the application of this method to two quantum phases: The Haldane spin-1 phase is the prototype of a symmetry-protected topological phase, whose spin order is hidden in conventional two-point correlation functions. On our images, we can evaluate the characteristic string-correlator of this state and directly see the associated edge states of the system. In an antiferromagnetic background, holes get dressed by a surrounding cloud of ferromagnetic correlations. We study these magnetic polarons, which are a building block of the intricate physics of cuprates, by mapping out the spatial structure of the spin environment of individual holes. Upon increased doping, we observe the transition from this unusual polaronic metal to a Fermi Liquid and provide quantum-simulated results of the Fermi-Hubbard model as a benchmark for different theoretical approaches.
Abstract Tremendous recent progress in the quantum simulation of the Hubbard model paves the way to controllably study doped antiferromagnetic Mott insulators. Motivated by these experimental advancements, we numerically study the real-time dynamics of a single hole created in an antiferromagnet on a square lattice, as described by the t–J model. Initially, the hole spreads ballistically with a velocity proportional to the hopping matrix element. At intermediate to long times, the dimensionality as well as the spin background determine the hole dynamics. A hole created in the ground state of a two dimensional (2D) quantum antiferromagnet propagates again ballistically at long times but with a velocity proportional to the spin exchange coupling, showing the formation of a magnetic polaron. We provide an intuitive explanation of this dynamics in terms of a parton construction, which leads to a good quantitative agreement with the numerical tensor network state simulations. In the limit of infinite temperature and no spin exchange couplings, the dynamics can be approximated by a quantum random walk on a Bethe lattice with coordination number z ̃ = 4 . Adding Ising interactions corresponds to an effective disordered potential, which can dramatically slow down the hole propagation, consistent with subdiffusive dynamics. The study of the hole dynamics paves the way for understanding the microscopic constituents of this strongly correlated quantum state.
The understanding of matter does not only require a precise analysis of individual characteristics of the fundamental constituents, but also the study of their collective behavior.Solid state physics, and in particular research in strongly correlated electron systems, deals with such collective phenomena.The properties of the electrons, charge and spin quantum numbers, do not on their own explain the rich world of states of matter, however mutual interactions lead to various states or phases of matter.This work focuses on phases in quantum spin systems.On the basis of the Heisenberg model one (1D) and two dimensional (2D) spin lattices are investigated.In a first part the bilayer Heisenberg Model and the 2D Kondo necklace model are studied.Both models exhibit a quantum phase transition between an ordered and disordered phase.For small interlayer couplings the models have antiferromagnetic long-range order, which is destroyed by increasing the coupling.However, even in the disordered phase the models show global features in terms of collective excitations called magnons.Coming from the disordered phase the gapped magnons condense at a critical coupling and form the order of the ordered phase.Here, another interesting question arises, namely that of the coupling of a single doped hole to such critical fluctuations.A self-consistent Born approximation predicts that the doped hole couples to the magnons such that the quasiparticle residue vanishes at the quantum critical point.In this work the delicate question about the fate of the quasiparticle residue across the quantum phase transition is also tackled by means of large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations.Furthermore the dynamics of a single hole doped in the magnetic background is investigated.