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arXiv:2408.01377 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Polaron formation in insulators and the key role of hole scattering processes in band insulators, charge density waves, and Mott transitions

Ivan Amelio, Giacomo Mazza, Nathan Goldman

Published Dec 4, 2024• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A mobile impurity immersed in a noninteracting Fermi sea is dressed by the gapless particle-hole excitations of the fermionic medium. This conventional Fermi-polaron setting is well described by the so-called ladder approximation, which consists of neglecting impurity-hole scattering processes. In this work, we analyze polaron formation in the context of insulating states of matter, considering increasing levels of correlation in the medium: band insulators originating from external periodic potentials, spontaneously formed charge density waves, and a Fermi-Hubbard system undergoing a metal-Mott insulator transition. The polaron spectral function is shown to exhibit striking signatures of the underlying fermionic background, such as the single-particle band gap, particle-hole symmetry and the transition to the Mott state. These signatures are identified within the framework of the Chevy ansatz, i.e., upon restricting the Hilbert space to single particle-hole excitations. Interestingly, we find that the ladder approximation is inaccurate in these band systems, due to the fact that the particle and hole scattering phase spaces are comparable. Our results provide a step forward in the understanding of polaron formation in correlated many-body media, which are relevant to both cold-atom and semiconductor experiments. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.110.235302

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A mobile impurity immersed in a noninteracting Fermi sea is dressed by the gapless particle-hole excitations of the fermionic medium. This conventional Fermi-polaron setting is well described by the so-called ladder approximation, which consists of neglecting impurity-hole scattering processes. In this work, we analyze polaron formation in the context of insulating states of matter, considering increasing levels of correlation in the medium: band insulators originating from external periodic potentials, spontaneously formed charge density waves, and a Fermi-Hubbard system undergoing a metal-Mott insulator transition. The polaron spectral function is shown to exhibit striking signatures of the underlying fermionic background, such as the single-particle band gap, particle-hole symmetry and the transition to the Mott state. These signatures are identified within the framework of the Chevy ansatz, i.e., upon restricting the Hilbert space to single particle-hole excitations. Interestingly, we find that the ladder approximation is inaccurate in these band systems, due to the fact that the particle and hole scattering phase spaces are comparable. Our results provide a step forward in the understanding of polaron formation in correlated many-body media, which are relevant to both cold-atom and semiconductor experiments. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Immersing a mobile impurity into a many-body quantum system represents a theoretically intriguing and experimentally effective way of probing its properties. In this work, we study the polaron spectral function in various environments, within the framework of Fermi-Hubbard models. Inspired by possible realizations in cold atoms and semiconductor heterostructures, we consider different configurations for the background Fermi gas, including charge density waves, multiple Fermi seas and pair superfluids. While our calculations are performed using an exact-diagonalization approach, hence limiting our analysis to systems of few interacting Fermi particles, we identify robust spectral features supported by theoretical results. Our work provides a benchmark for computations based on mean-field approaches and reveal surprising features of polaron spectra, inspiring new theoretical investigations.
We study the spectral function of two-leg Hubbard ladders with the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group method (tDMRG). The high-resolution spectrum displays features of spin-charge separation and a scattering continuum of excitations with coherent bands of bound states ``leaking'' from it. As the interleg hopping is increased, the continuum in the bonding channel moves to higher energies and spinon and holon branches merge into a single coherent quasiparticle band. Simultaneously, the spectrum undergoes a crossover from a regime with two minima at incommensurate values of kx{k}_{x}kx​ (a Mott insulator), to one with a single minimum at ${k}_{x}=\ensuremath{\pi}$ (a band insulator). We identify the presence of a continuum of scattering states consisting of a triplon and a polaron. We analyze the processes leading to quasiparticle formation by studying the time evolution of charge and spin degrees of freedom in real space after the hole is created. At short times, incoherent holons and spinons are emitted but after a characteristic time $\ensuremath{\tau}$ charge and spin form polarons that propagate coherently.
Understanding the interplay between charge and spin and its effects on transport is a ubiquitous challenge in quantum many-body systems.In the Fermi-Hubbard model, this interplay is thought to give rise to magnetic polarons, whose dynamics may explain emergent properties of quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductivity.In this work, we use a cold-atom quantum simulator to directly observe the formation dynamics and subsequent spreading of individual magnetic polarons.Measuring the density-and spin-resolved evolution of a single hole in a 2D Hubbard insulator with short-range antiferromagnetic correlations reveals fast initial delocalization and a dressing of the spin background, indicating polaron formation.At long times, we find that dynamics are slowed down by the spin exchange time, and they are compatible with a polaronic model with strong density and spin coupling.Our work enables the study of out-of-equilibrium emergent phenomena in the Fermi-Hubbard model, one dopant at a time.
The notion of a polaron, originally introduced in the context of electrons in ionic lattices, helps us to understand how a quantum impurity behaves when being immersed in and interacting with a many-body background. We discuss the impact of the impurities on the medium particles by considering feedback effects from polarons that can be realized in ultracold quantum gas experiments. In particular, we exemplify the modifications of the medium in the presence of either Fermi or Bose polarons. Regarding Fermi polarons we present a corresponding many-body diagrammatic approach operating at finite temperatures and discuss how mediated two- and three-body interactions are implemented within this framework. Utilizing this approach, we analyze the behavior of the spectral function of Fermi polarons at finite temperature by varying impurity-medium interactions as well as spatial dimensions from three to one. Interestingly, we reveal that the spectral function of the medium atoms could be a useful quantity for analyzing the transition/crossover from attractive polarons to molecules in three-dimensions. As for the Bose polaron, we showcase the depletion of the background Bose-Einstein condensate in the vicinity of the impurity atom. Such spatial modulations would be important for future investigations regarding the quantification of interpolaron correlations in Bose polaron problems.
Understanding the interplay between charge and spin and its effects on transport is a ubiquitous challenge in quantum many-body systems. In the Fermi-Hubbard model, this interplay is thought to give rise to magnetic polarons, whose dynamics may explain emergent properties of quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductivity. In this work, we use a cold-atom quantum simulator to directly observe the formation dynamics and subsequent spreading of individual magnetic polarons. Measuring the density- and spin-resolved evolution of a single hole in a 2D Hubbard insulator with short-range antiferromagnetic correlations reveals fast initial delocalization and a dressing of the spin background, indicating polaron formation. At long times, we find that dynamics are slowed down by the spin exchange time, and they are compatible with a polaronic model with strong density and spin coupling. Our work enables the study of out-of-equilibrium emergent phenomena in the Fermi-Hubbard model, one dopant at a time.
Polaron quasiparticles are formed when a mobile impurity is coupled to the elementary excitations of a many-particle background. In the field of ultracold atoms, the study of the associated impurity problem has attracted a growing interest over the last fifteen years. Polaron quasiparticle properties are essential to our understanding of a variety of paradigmatic quantum many-body systems realized in ultracold atomic gases and in the solid state, from imbalanced Bose–Fermi and Fermi–Fermi mixtures to fermionic Hubbard models. In this topical review, we focus on the so-called repulsive polaron branch, which emerges as an excited many-body state in systems with underlying attractive interactions such as ultracold atomic mixtures, and is characterized by an effective repulsion between the impurity and the surrounding medium. We give a brief account of the current theoretical and experimental understanding of repulsive polaron properties, for impurities embedded in both fermionic and bosonic media, and we highlight open issues deserving future investigations.