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arXiv:2306.11096

Hubbard Model on Triangular Lattice: Role of Charge Fluctuations

Ji-Si Xu, Zheng Zhu, Kai Wu, Zheng-Yu Weng

Published Jun 19, 2023• 1 citation
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Abstract

A chiral spin liquid (CSL) phase has been recently reported in the Hubbard model on a triangular lattice at half-filling. It emerges in an intermediate coupling regime, which is sandwiched between a $120^\circ$ antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase and a metallic phase as a function of on-site repulsion $U$. In this work, we examine how the charge fluctuation may cause the CSL and complex phase diagram. We first identify an exact sign structure of the model at arbitrary temperature, sample size, and doping, which is reduced from the original Fermi exchange signs of the electrons by finite $U$. In particular, the spin and charge degrees of freedom are generally entangled via the phase-string in the sign structure. By precisely switching off such a phase-string, the CSL phase is shown to disappear, with only the $120^\circ$ AFM order remaining down to weak $U$ by a density matrix renormalization group calculation. Here the charge fluctuation is effectively decoupled from the AFM background, which is a $120^\circ$ AFM order due to a geometric Berry phase in the sign structure of the triangular lattice. General implications for the Mott physics will also be discussed.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2306.11096

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A chiral spin liquid (CSL) phase has been recently reported in the Hubbard model on a triangular lattice at half-filling. It emerges in an intermediate coupling regime, which is sandwiched between a 120∘120^\circ120∘ antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase and a metallic phase as a function of on-site repulsion UUU. In this work, we examine how the charge fluctuation may cause the CSL and complex phase diagram. We first identify an exact sign structure of the model at arbitrary temperature, sample size, and doping, which is reduced from the original Fermi exchange signs of the electrons by finite UUU. In particular, the spin and charge degrees of freedom are generally entangled via the phase-string in the sign structure. By precisely switching off such a phase-string, the CSL phase is shown to disappear, with only the 120∘120^\circ120∘ AFM order remaining down to weak UUU by a density matrix renormalization group calculation. Here the charge fluctuation is effectively decoupled from the AFM background, which is a 120∘120^\circ120∘ AFM order due to a geometric Berry phase in the sign structure of the triangular lattice. General implications for the Mott physics will also be discussed.
A chiral spin liquid (CSL) phase has been recently reported in the Hubbard model on a triangular lattice. It emerges in an intermediate coupling regime at half-filling, which is sandwiched between a ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase and a metallic phase as a function of on-site repulsion UUU. In this work, we examine the mechanism of the CSL and complex phase diagram via analytic analysis and numerical density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. First, we identify an exact Berry-phase-like sign structure in the partition function of the model at arbitrary UUU, which is originated from the Fermi sign structure at U=0U=0U=0.The spin and charge degrees of freedom are generally entangled via a singular phase string in such a many-body sign structure. In the large-UUU limit, the suppression of the charge fluctuation at half-filling can render the phase string ineffective, resulting in the AFM order. However, if one precisely switches off such a phase string in the DMRG calculation, the ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ AFM is shown to survive all the way down to a much weaker UUU without the emergence of the CSL and metallic phases. It indicates that the phase-string sign structure plays the key role to mediate the mutual interaction between the charge and spin fluctuations, which results in the CSL and metallic phases at finite UUU. General implications for the Mott physics in the Hubbard model will also be discussed.
Two-dimensional density-matrix renormalization group method is employed to examine the ground-state phase diagram of the Hubbard model on the triangular lattice at half-filling. The calculation reveals two discontinuities in the double occupancy with increasing the repulsive Hubbard interaction UUU at ${U}_{\mathrm{c}1}\ensuremath{\sim}7.8t$ and ${U}_{\mathrm{c}2}\ensuremath{\sim}9.9t$ (ttt being the hopping integral), indicating that there are three phases separated by first-order transitions. The absence of any singularity in physical quantities for $0\ensuremath{\le}U<{U}_{\mathrm{c}1}$ implies a metallic phase in this regime. For U>Uc2U>{U}_{\mathrm{c}2}U>Uc2​, the local spin density induced by an applied pinning magnetic field exhibits a three sublattice feature, which is compatible with the ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ N\'eel-ordered state realized in the limit of $U\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$. For Uc1<U<Uc2{U}_{\mathrm{c}1}<U<{U}_{\mathrm{c}2}Uc1​<U<Uc2​, a response to the applied pinning magnetic field is comparable to that in the metallic phase with a relatively large spin correlation length, but showing neither valence bond nor chiral magnetic order, which therefore resembles gapless spin liquid. However, the spin structure factor for the intermediate phase exhibits the maximum at the K\mathrm{K}K and ${\mathrm{K}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ points in the momentum space, which is not compatible to spin liquid with a large spinon Fermi surface. The calculation also finds that the pairing correlation function monotonically decreases with increasing UUU and thus the superconductivity is unlikely in the intermediate phase.
At strong repulsion, the triangular-lattice Hubbard model is described by s=1/2 spins with nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic Heisenberg interactions and exhibits conventional 120° order. Using the infinite density matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization, we study the effect of the additional four-spin interactions naturally generated from the underlying Mott-insulator physics of electrons as the repulsion decreases. Although these interactions have historically been connected with a gapless ground state with emergent spinon Fermi surface, we find that, at physically relevant parameters, they stabilize a chiral spin liquid (CSL) of Kalmeyer-Laughlin (KL) type, clarifying observations in recent studies of the Hubbard model. We then present a self-consistent solution based on a mean-field rewriting of the interaction to obtain a Hamiltonian with similarities to the parent Hamiltonian of the KL state, providing a physical understanding for the origin of the CSL.
Motivated by experimental studies that have found signatures of a quantum spin liquid phase in organic crystals whose structure is well described by the two-dimensional triangular lattice, we study the Hubbard model on this lattice at half filling using the infinite-system density matrix renormalization group (iDMRG) method. On infinite cylinders with finite circumference, we identify an intermediate phase between observed metallic behavior at low interaction strength and Mott insulating spin-ordered behavior at strong interactions. Chiral ordering from spontaneous breaking of time-reversal symmetry, a fractionally quantized spin Hall response, and characteristic level statistics in the entanglement spectrum in the intermediate phase provide strong evidence for the existence of a chiral spin liquid in the full two-dimensional limit of the model.
Quantum spin liquids emerging near the metal-insulator transition have been a longstanding issue in physics. Here, the author identifies a chiral spin liquid in the half-filled triangular-lattice Hubbard model using state-of-the-art non-Abelian density matrix renormalization. By computing the spin chirality order parameter with unprecedented system sizes and high accuracy, the findings extrapolate toward the two-dimensional limit, impacting theoretical research and experimental realizations in ultracold-atom optical lattices and transition-metal dichalcogenide moir\'e materials.
Twisted transition metal dichalcogenides offer an exceptionally tunable moiré platform for studying correlation physics beyond conventional condensed matter systems. In particular, the intriguing interplay between the displacement field and the twist angle remains to be fully resolved. In this paper, we use large-scale density matrix renormalization group simulations to study the minimal moiré Hubbard model on a triangular lattice at half-filling, where the displacement field effect is captured by a spin-dependent staggered flux. We find that the displacement field significantly enriches the triangular Hubbard phase diagram in several qualitative ways. It rapidly destabilizes the chiral spin liquid phase beyond a narrow weak-field regime, induces pronounced chiral correlations in the strong-coupling 120∘120^\circ120∘-antiferromagnetic phase, and stabilizes incommensurate spin-density wave phases at weaker coupling. We further find signatures of a continuous transition between the chiral spin liquid and chiral antiferromagnetic phases at a finite displacement field, potentially driven by spinon condensation. Our results uncover rich displacement-field-driven many-body physics and provide useful guidance for future experiments in moiré superlattice systems.