The interplay between charge and spin dynamics is at the heart of strongly correlated materials. Inspired by recent quantum simulation experiments, we develop a conserving diagrammatic method to describe the Fermi-Hubbard model for strong repulsion and small hole doping away from the half-filled anti-ferromagnetic ground state. We show that doping leads to four hole pockets in the Brillouin zone formed by magnetic polarons, which become increasingly damped with hole concentration. Likewise, the magnon spectrum of the anti-ferromagnet softens and dampens with doping due to hole-induced magnetic frustration. This gives rise to a suppression of the anti-ferromagnetic correlations in agreement with recent experiments. We then calculate the response of the system to a lattice modulation and recover the qualitative difference between in-phase and out-of-phase modulations seen in experiments, which was interpreted as signs of pseudogap physics. Our results indicate that the complex competition between spin and charge degrees of freedom and the emergence of the pseudogap phase may be usefully analyzed for small dopings, where systematic theories can be developed.
The interplay between charge and spin dynamics is at the heart of strongly correlated materials. Inspired by recent quantum simulation experiments, we develop a conserving diagrammatic method to describe the Fermi-Hubbard model for strong repulsion and small hole doping away from the half-filled anti-ferromagnetic ground state. We show that doping leads to four hole pockets in the Brillouin zone formed by magnetic polarons, which become increasingly damped with hole concentration. Likewise, the magnon spectrum of the anti-ferromagnet softens and dampens with doping due to hole-induced magnetic frustration. This gives rise to a suppression of the anti-ferromagnetic correlations in agreement with recent experiments. We then calculate the response of the system to a lattice modulation and recover the qualitative difference between in-phase and out-of-phase modulations seen in experiments, which was interpreted as signs of pseudogap physics. Our results indicate that the complex competition between spin and charge degrees of freedom and the emergence of the pseudogap phase may be usefully analyzed for small dopings, where systematic theories can be developed.
Field-theoretic methods are used to investigate the large-U Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice at half-filling and in the hole-doped regime. Within the framework of a functional-integral approach, we obtain the Lagrangian density associated with the charge and spin degrees of freedom. The Hamiltonian related to the charge degrees of freedom is exactly diagonalized. In the strong-coupling regime, we derive a perturbative low-energy theory suitable to describe the quantum antiferromagnetic phase (AF) as a function of hole doping. At half-filling, we deal with the underlying spin degrees of freedom of the quantum AF Heisenberg model by employing a second-order spin-wave analysis, in which case we have calculated the ground-state energy and the staggered magnetization; the results are in very good agreement with previous studies. Further, in the continuum, we derive a nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ model with a topological Hopf term that describes the AF-VBS (valence bond solid) competition. Lastly, in the challenging doped regime, our approach allows the derivation of a $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ Hamiltonian, and the analysis of the role played by charge and spin quantum fluctuations on the ground-state energy and, particularly, on the breakdown of the AF order at a critical hole doping; the results are benchmarked against recent Grassmann tensor product state simulations.
Hubbard model are investigated taking the effects of charge and spin quantum fluctuations on equal footing. In the strong-coupling regime, a functional integral representation allows us to derive a low-energy Lagrangian 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 [Formula: see text] 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 resonating-valence-bond 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 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.
Lieb and hole-doped ferrimagnetism, spiral, resonating valence-bond states, and phase separation in large-U AB2 Hubbard chains
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. In the strong-coupling regime, we derive a low-energy Lagrangian 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 Lieb total spin per unit cell 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 resonating-valence-bond states. We also calculate the doping-dependent GS energy and total spin per unit cell, 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 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.
The complex interplay between charge and spin dynamics lies at the heart of strongly correlated quantum materials, and it is a fundamental topic in basic research with far-reaching technological perspectives. We explore in this paper the dynamics of holes in a single-band, extended t - J model where the background spins form a Z 2 quantum spin liquid. Using a field theory approach based on a parton construction, we show that while the electrons for most momenta fractionalize into uncorrelated charge-carrying holons and spin-carrying spinons as generally expected for a quantum spin liquid, the spinon-holon scattering cross section diverges for certain momenta, signaling strong correlations. By deriving an effective low-energy Hamiltonian describing this dynamics, we demonstrate that these divergences are due to the formation of long-lived spinon-holon bound states. Since the wave function of these bound states is localized over a few lattice sites, they correspond to well-defined fermions with the same charge and spin as the underlying electrons. We then show that quantum gas microscopy with atoms in optical lattices provides an excellent platform for verifying and probing the internal spatial structure of these emerging fermions. The fermions will furthermore show up as clear quasiparticle peaks in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with an intensity determined by their internal structure. For a nonzero hole concentration, the fermions form hole pockets with qualitatively the same location, shape, and intensity variation in the Brillouin zone as the so-called Fermi arcs observed in the pseudogap phase. Such agreement is remarkable since the Fermi arcs arise from the delicate interplay between the symmetry of the quantum spin liquid and the internal structure of the emerging fermions in a minimal single-band model with no extra degrees of freedom added. Our results, therefore, provide a microscopic mechanism for the conjectured fractionalized Fermi liquid and open up new pathways for exploring the pseudogap phase and high-temperature superconductivity as arising from a quantum spin liquid.
The problem of doping Mott insulators is of fundamental importance and long-standing interest in the study of strongly correlated electron systems. The advent of semiconductor based moiré materials opens a new ground for simulating the Hubbard model on the triangular lattice and exploring its rich phase diagram as a function of doping and external magnetic field. Based on our recent identification of spin polaron quasiparticle in Mott insulator, in this work we predict the emergence of a pseudogap metal phase at small doping below half filling and an intermediate range of fields, which exhibits a single-particle gap and a doping-dependent magnetization plateau.
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.