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arXiv:2502.07252 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Finite-temperature kinetic ferromagnetism in the square-lattice Hubbard model

Robert C. Newby, Ehsan Khatami

Published Jun 6, 2025• 6 citations
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Abstract

While the exact phase diagram of the Fermi-Hubbard model remains poorly understood despite decades of progress, nearly 60 years ago Nagaoka proved that a single dopant in an otherwise half-filled Hubbard system can bring about ferromagnetism through kinetic means. The phenomenon was recently observed with ultracold atoms in triangular optical lattices. Here, we explore the kinetic ferromagnetism within the square lattice Hubbard model and its strong-coupling counterpart, the $t\ensuremath{-}J$ model, at finite temperatures in the thermodynamic limit via numerical linked-cluster expansions. We find evidence of ferromagnetic Nagaoka polarons at dopings up to $\ensuremath{\sim}30%$ away from half filling for a variety of interaction strengths and at temperatures as low as 0.2 of the hopping energy. We map out the boundaries of this phase through analyzing various correlation functions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.111.245120

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Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jun 17, 2024•7 citations
While the exact phase diagram of the Fermi-Hubbard model remains poorly understood despite decades of progress, nearly 60 years ago Nagaoka proved that a single dopant in an otherwise half-filled Hubbard system can bring about ferromagnetism through kinetic means. The phenomenon was recently observed with ultracold atoms in triangular optical lattices. Here, we explore the kinetic ferromagnetism within the square lattice Hubbard model and its strong-coupling counterpart, the t\ensuremath−Jt\ensuremath{-}Jt\ensuremath−J model, at finite temperatures in the thermodynamic limit via numerical linked-cluster expansions. We find evidence of ferromagnetic Nagaoka polarons at dopings up to \ensuremath∼30\ensuremath{\sim}30%\ensuremath∼30 away from half filling for a variety of interaction strengths and at temperatures as low as 0.2 of the hopping energy. We map out the boundaries of this phase through analyzing various correlation functions.
We use density matrix renormalization group to investigate the phase diagram of the Fermi Hubbard model on a triangular lattice with densities above half-filling, 1≤n<21 \leq n < 21≤n<2. We discuss the important role of kinetic magnetism and magnetic polarons. For strong interactions and low doublon dopings, attractive interaction between polarons results in phase separation between the fully polarized state at finite doping and the commensurate spin-density wave state at half-filling. For intermediate interaction strength and small doping, competition between antiferromagnetic superexchange and kinetic magnetism gives rise to the incommensurate spin density wave (I-SDW) phase. Fully polarized ferromagnetic (FPF) phase for weak interactions is limited to dopings close to the van Hove singularity in the density of states. With increasing interactions the FPF phase expands to lower dopings. For strong interactions it reaches the low doping regime and is better understood as arising from proliferation of Nagaoka-type ferromagnetic polarons. Other phases that we find include a partially polarized phase, another type of I-SDW at high densities, and Müller-Hartmann ferromagnetism close to the band insulating regime.
The Kagome lattice Fermi-Hubbard model is one of the most physically rich, and at the same time most challenging, models to study in strongly-correlated physics. Among its special features are geometric frustration and a flat energy band that create conditions favorable to ferromagnetism near the band insulating limit. Here, we utilize two exact finite-temperature methods, the numerical linked-cluster expansion and the determinant quantum Monte Carlo, to study the extent as well as doping and interaction dependence of ferromagnetic correlations and other thermodynamic properties of the model. We find that repulsive interactions enhance ferromagnetic correlations at high electron densities and that increasing the interaction strength, extends the region with strong ferromagnetic correlations towards half filling, smoothly connecting it to Nagaoka ferromagnetism near the Mott insulating region. We also use the charge compressibility to obtain an accurate estimate for the critical interaction strength for the metal-insulator transition at half filling. These results improve our understanding of the magnetic tendencies of the model away from half filling and pave the way for further studies, including with ultracold atoms in optical lattices.
We study kinetic magnetism for the Fermi-Hubbard models in triangular type lattices, including a zigzag ladder, four- and six-legged triangular cylinders and a full two-dimensional triangular lattice. We focus on the regime of strong interactions, U≫tU\gg tU≫t and filling factors around one electron per site. For temperatures well above the hopping strength, the Curie-Weiss form of the magnetic susceptibility suggests effective antiferromagnetic correlations for systems that are hole doped with respect to ν=1ν=1ν=1, and ferromagnetic correlations for systems with electron dopings. We show that these correlations arise from magnetic polaron dressing of charge carrier propagating in a spin incoherent Mott insulator. Effective interactions corresponding to these correlations can strongly exceed the magnetic super-exchange energy. In the case of hole doping, antiferromagnetic polarons originate from kinetic frustration of individual holes in a triangular lattice. In the case of electron doping, Nagaoka type ferromagnetic correlations are induced by propagating doublons. These results provide a theoretical explanation of recent experimental results in moire TMDC materials. To understand many-body states arising from antiferromagentic polarons at low temperatures, we study hole doped systems in finite magnetic fields. At low dopings and intermediate magnetic fields we find a magnetic polaron phase, separated from the fully polarized state by a metamagnetic transition. With decreasing magnetic field the system shows a tendency to phase separate, with hole rich regions forming antiferromagnetic spinbags. We demonstrate that direct observations of magnetic polarons in triangular lattices can be achieved in experiments with ultracold atoms, which allow measurements of three point hole-spin-spin correlations.
We investigate, using the density-matrix renormalization group, the evolution of the Nagaoka state with ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ hopping that frustrates the hole kinetic energy in the $U=\ensuremath{\infty}$ Hubbard model on the square and anisotropic triangular lattices. We find that the Nagaoka ferromagnet survives up to a rather small ${t}_{c}^{\ensuremath{'}}/t\ensuremath{\sim}0.2.$ At this critical value, there is a transition to an antiferromagnetic phase that depends on the lattice: a Q=(Q,0)\mathbf{Q}=(Q,0)Q=(Q,0) spiral order, which continuously evolves with ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, for the triangular lattice and the usual $\mathbf{Q}=(\ensuremath{\pi},\ensuremath{\pi})$ N\'eel order for the square lattice. Remarkably, the local magnetization takes its classical value for all considered ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ (${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}/t\ensuremath{\le}1$). Our results show that the recently found classical kinetic antiferromagnetism, a perfect counterpart of Nagaoka ferromagnetism, is a generic phenomenon in these kinetically frustrated electronic systems.
The Nagaoka $(U=\ensuremath{\infty})$ limit of the Hubbard model on a square lattice is mapped onto the itinerant-localized Kondo model at infinitely strong coupling. Such a model is well suited to perform quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations to compute spin correlation functions. For periodic boundary conditions, this model is shown to exhibit no short-range ferromagnetic (FM) spin correlations at any doping $\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\ge}0.01$ and at finite temperature T=0.1t.T=0.1t.T=0.1t. Our simulations give no indication that there is a tendency towards ferromagnetic ordering in the ground state, with more than one hole. Employing on the other hand the open boundary conditions (or mixed boundary conditions) may result in the qualitatively different results for the thermodynamic limit depending on the way one chooses to approach this limit. These observations imply that the relevant thermodynamic limit remains unclear.
We provide numerical evidence of the Nagaoka's theorem in the SU(N)\mathrm{SU}(N)SU(N) Fermi-Hubbard model on various cluster geometries, such as the square, the honeycomb, and the triangular lattices. In particular, by diagonalizing several finite-size clusters, we show that for one hole away from filling 1/N1/N1/N, the itinerant ferromagnetism arises for UUU (the positive on-site interaction) larger than Uc{U}_{c}Uc​ (the value at the transition), which depends strongly on the coordination number zzz and on NNN, the number of degenerate orbitals, that we vary from N=2N=2N=2 to 6 in our simulations. We prove that Uc{U}_{c}Uc​ is a nondecreasing function of NNN. In addition, we find that the lattice dependency is rooted in the kinetic energy of the hole. We find that large coordination numbers zzz lower the value of Uc{U}_{c}Uc​. Complementary, we explore the effect of long-range hopping on the appearance of itinerant ferromagnetism, and we demonstrate that it acts as an increased coordination number, protecting the ferromagnetic phase at small UUU. Finally, the effects of both the presence of some additional holes and the finite size of the clusters are briefly discussed.