We investigate the metal-insulator transition driven by the onsite repulsive interaction
U in an altermagnetic Hubbard model defined on a Lieb lattice. Using the slave-rotor approach at half-filling, we find that the system exhibits a cascade of interaction-driven phase transitions. As
U increases, the system evolves from a normal metal to an altermagnetic metal, then to an altermagnetic insulator, and eventually to an altermagnetic Mott insulator characterized by the complete suppression of the quasiparticle weight. These phases are supported by the calculation of the electronic spectral function, which features spin-split bands in both the metallic and insulating regimes. However, the spin splitting becomes substantially suppressed in the Mott-insulating phase. Our results suggest that the observation of spin splitting in the spectral function of
d-wave altermagnets with a Lieb-lattice-like structure may be limited to the weak-to-moderate correlation regime.
Altermagnetism is an unconventional form of magnetic order characterized by spin-split electronic bands and zero net magnetization. Here, the authors utilize a variational Monte Carlo approach to reveal the emergence of
d-wave altermagnetism in the Hubbard model on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice and demonstrate how strong electronic correlations manifest in the metal-insulator transition. The calculation of photoemission spectral functions highlights the presence of altermagnetic Zeeman splitting, also in the Mott insulating phase (and upon doping).
Altermagnetism represents a type of collinear magnetism, that is in some aspects distinct from ferromagnetism and from conventional antiferromagnetism. In contrast to the latter, sublattices of opposite spin are related by spatial rotations and not only by translations and inversions. As a result, altermagnets have spin-split bands leading to unique experimental signatures. Here, we show theoretically how a d-wave altermagnetic phase can be realized with ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices. We propose an altermagnetic Hubbard model with anisotropic next-nearest neighbor hopping and obtain the Hartree-Fock phase diagram. The altermagnetic phase separates in a metallic and an insulating phase and is robust over a large parameter regime. We show that one of the defining characteristics of altermagnetism, the anisotropic spin transport, can be probed with trap-expansion experiments.
We investigate the emergence of correlation-driven altermagnetism in simple and extended Hubbard model on geometrically frustrated lattice-clusters using exact diagonalization. By systematically tuning the degree of geometric frustration across different cluster geometries -- including the fully frustrated 3x3 torus, the partially frustrated 2x3 cylinder and the unfrustrated 2x4 cylindrical lattice -- we isolate the necessary conditions for compensated anisotropic spin order. At half-filling on 3x3 lattice, the average altermagnetic spin-response <Δ_spin> remains small despite robust local moment formation, indicating that localized moments alone are insufficient to break directional symmetry. In contrast, the introduction of a single mobile charge carrier (hole or electron) induces a finite <Δ_spin> that increases monotonically with on-site interaction U . This altermagnetic phase is characterized by a d-wave-like alternating sign structure in real-space correlations, a broad momentum-space distribution in the altermagnetic structure factor S_alm(q) and a distinct particle-hole asymmetry with significantly enhanced response for one-electron-doped system. We demonstrate that these correlations remain zero on the unfrustrated 2x4 lattice, establishing geometric frustration as a fundamental prerequisite. The inclusion of nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsion V weakens the altermagnetic correlations in 3x3 lattice through enhanced electronic localization but facilitates the onset of altermagnetic order in 2x3 lattice beyond a critical threshold. Finally, we show that the anisotropy parameter A is non-zero only for degenerate ground states, revealing that macroscopic symmetry breaking on finite clusters requires a confluence of geometric frustration and ground-state degeneracy.
Mott physics in topological bands has recently attracted considerable attention, particularly in the context of twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). However, the essential ingredients for stabilizing this physics remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate a quantum Mott semimetal phase as the ground state within a one-dimensional spinful Hubbard model featuring only one orbital per unit cell, protected by inversion and particle-hole symmetries. We start from a two-orbital model where a localized
f orbital on the A sublattice hybridizes with a delocalized
c orbital on the B sublattice. Projecting the
f-orbital Hubbard
U onto the active flat band yields a lattice model with Wannier orbitals centered on the B sublattice. Similar to TBG, a momentum-space scale
k∗ emerges, setting the interaction range in the projected model to
1/k∗. While the ground state is ferromagnetic with only the Hubbard
U, introducing an inter-site antiferromagnetic spin coupling
J stabilizes a Mott semimetal
∗ phase with a central charge
c=3. Using exact diagonalization (ED) and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods, we show that this phase hosts a spinful Dirac fermion coexisting with a neutral spin mode -- analogous to the fractionalized Fermi liquid (FL
∗) phase in higher dimensions. Furthermore, breaking particle-hole (PH) symmetry via dispersion transforms the Mott semimetal into a Mott insulator, which is separated from a distinct Mott insulating phase by a continuous transition with a polarization jump of
1/2. Our work provides the first unbiased evidence of a Mott semimetal ground state and demonstrates that this 1D model captures some essential aspects of TBG physics, despite lacking a Wannier obstruction.
In the first part of the present Thesis, the ground state (GS) properties of the quasi-one-dimensional AB₂ Hubbard model are investigated taking the effects of charge and spin quantum fluctuations on equal footing. Using a functional integral approach, combined with a perturbative expansion in the strong-coupling regime, we obtain the Lagrangian density associated with the charge (Grassmann fields) and spin [SU(2) gauge fields] degrees of freedom. In the strong-coupling regime, we derive a perturbative low-energy theory suitable to describe the ferrimagnetic phase at half filling and the phases in the hole-doped regime. At half filling, a perturbative spin-wave analysis allows us to find the GS energy, sublattice magnetizations, and total spin per unit cell in the Lieb ferrimagnetic GS of the effective quantum Heisenberg model, in very good agreement with previous results. In the challenging hole doping regime away from half filling, we derive the corresponding t-J Hamiltonian. Under the assumption that charge and spin quantum correlations are decoupled, the evolution of the second-order spin-wave modes in the doped regime unveils the occurrence of spatially modulated spin structures and the emergence of phase separation in the presence of resonatingvalence-bond (RVB) states. We also calculate the doping-dependent GS energy and total spin per unit cell, including both Zeeman and orbital contributions, in which case it is shown that the spiral ferrimagnetic order collapses at a critical hole concentration. Notably, our analytical results in the doped regime are in very good agreement with density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies, where our assumption of spin-charge decoupling is numerically supported by the formation of charge-density waves in anti-phase with the modulation of the magnetic structure. In the second part, motivated by analogy with photonic lattices, we examine the edge states of a one-dimensional trimer lattice in the phases with and without inversion symmetry protection. In contrast to the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, we show that the edge states in the inversion-symmetry broken phase of the trimer model turn out to be chiral, i.e., instead of appearing in pairs localized at opposite edges they can appear at a single edge. Interestingly, these chiral edge states remain robust to large amounts of disorder. In addition, we use the Zak phase to characterize the emergence of degenerate edge states in the inversion-symmetric phase of the trimer model. Furthermore, we capture the essentials of the whole family of trimers through a mapping onto the commensurate off-diagonal Aubry-André-Harper model, which allows us to establish a direct connection between chiral edge modes in the two models, including the calculation of Chern numbers.We thus suggest that the chiral edge modes of the trimer lattice have a topological origin inherited from this effective mapping. Also, we find a nontrivial connection between the topological phase transition point in the trimer lattice and the one in its associated two-dimensional parent system, in agreement with results in the context of Thouless pumping in photonic lattices.