The polaron band theory of Lee, Low and Pines is extended beyond the effective mass approximation to a general form of the electron–phonon interaction within two different self-consistent schemes. In the first one a variational Bloch state depending on the polaron crystalline momentum is used to study polaron features taking into account umklapp processes. In particular, the self-energy and the effective mass at the Γ point of the Brillouin zone are calculated as functions of the electron–phonon coupling constant α. It is found that a sudden transition of these quantities from a large band to a narrow band polaron behaviour occurs at a critical value αc. Such value increases indefinitely with the bare electron band width; moreover the transition becomes sharper. The theory recovers, as particular cases, a) the Lee-Low-Pines regime valid for small α and large electron band width Δ˜(Δ˜ ≫ ħω and b) the Holstein limit for large α and small band width (Δ˜ ≫ ħω). This occurs as result of the competing role of α and Δ˜. In the second scheme, the electron–phonon interaction is considered only in a single elementary cell and the self-trapped polaron state is calculated self-consistently. It is shown that, if only one electronic band is taken into account, such state becomes a Δ function with infinitely negative energy when α is larger than a critical value depending on the electron band width. To avoid this fact, electronic band states of higher energy must be considered. Finally, through the tight-binding method, the polaron band is set up. It is shown that at the Γ point of the Brillouin zone, the contribution of the higher electronic bands prevents the self-energy and the polaron mass to have a sharp increase from the large to the narrow band regime.
The polaron band theory of Lee, Low and Pines is extended beyond the effective mass approximation to a general form of the electron–phonon interaction within two different self-consistent schemes. In the first one a variational Bloch state depending on the polaron crystalline momentum is used to study polaron features taking into account umklapp processes. In particular, the self-energy and the effective mass at the Γ point of the Brillouin zone are calculated as functions of the electron–phonon coupling constant α. It is found that a sudden transition of these quantities from a large band to a narrow band polaron behaviour occurs at a critical value αc. Such value increases indefinitely with the bare electron band width; moreover the transition becomes sharper. The theory recovers, as particular cases, a) the Lee-Low-Pines regime valid for small α and large electron band width Δ˜(Δ˜ ≫ ħω and b) the Holstein limit for large α and small band width (Δ˜ ≫ ħω). This occurs as result of the competing role of α and Δ˜. In the second scheme, the electron–phonon interaction is considered only in a single elementary cell and the self-trapped polaron state is calculated self-consistently. It is shown that, if only one electronic band is taken into account, such state becomes a Δ function with infinitely negative energy when α is larger than a critical value depending on the electron band width. To avoid this fact, electronic band states of higher energy must be considered. Finally, through the tight-binding method, the polaron band is set up. It is shown that at the Γ point of the Brillouin zone, the contribution of the higher electronic bands prevents the self-energy and the polaron mass to have a sharp increase from the large to the narrow band regime.
As ones know,the polaron is a quasiparticle formed by an electron and phonons.Due to Coulomb interaction,the electron will make the lattice deformation take place,meanwhile,the deformation potential(induced) by the lattice deformation will exert on the electron,the electron-phonon interaction influence doubtless on the state of motion of an electron,for example,the energy band and effective mass of an electron could change by the interaction,the electron can also be trapped by the deformable lattice,therefore,the research on the(polaron) is very important in understanding optical and transport properties of a solid. Studying electron-phonon interaction has been a main subject in condensed matter physics;in experiments,the influences of the temperature on the forbidden-band width of semiconductors have been observed very early,with the increase of the temperature,the forbidden-band width of most semiconductors will narrow,but a few will widen,these situations are closely relevant to the electron-phonon interaction.In particular,(recently),a large amount of experimental results,ranging from infrared spectroscopy to transport properties(involving) the colossal magnetoresistance and high-T_c superconductivity,has pointed out the importance of the electron-phonon interaction,which has renewed the interest in studying the models of the electron-phonon(coupled) system,especially,the Holstein polaron,for its relative simplicity,is the most considered model for the interaction of a single tight-binding electron coupled to phonons. In the past several decades,the Holstein poloron has been studied in detail in one-dimensional lattices,various theoretical methods,such as variational approaches,the Global-Local variational method,the(coherent)-state expansion method,have been developed to study features of the Holstein polaron including ground-state energy,polaron energy band,effective mass and so on.However,so far,the work considering the influences of the temperature on features of the Holstein polaron is little still. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the influences of the temperature on the energy-band width and the effective mass of the Holstein polaron by using the canonical transformation method.It is shown that,at certain coupling strength,the energy-band width of the Holstein polaron will narrow and the effective mass will augment with the increase of the temperature,in particular,when electron-phonon coupling strength is big enough,the energy-band width will become zero rapidly in small region of temperature,in fact,the situation is rapid transition of the polaron from the energy-band state to the self-trapping local state,this is an(interesting) result obtained in the paper.It is obvious that these features of the Holstein polaron are very useful in explaining optical and transport properties of a solid.
An upper bound to the ground-state energy of a tight-binding polaron (a polaron in a narrow band material) in a polar crystal is obtained, in the nonadiabatic limit, from a Hamiltonian that includes two contributions to the electron–phonon coupling: a short-range deformation potential interaction and a long-range dipolar interaction. A Debye cutoff on the phonon wave vectors is also assumed. A variational ground-state energy is deduced, using a modification of a tight-binding type Ansatz used in small-polaron theory, in the nonadiabatic limit. In the weak-coupling limit the ground state corresponds to that of a large polaron, while the strong-coupling limit gives a small-polaron state. The bandwidth greatly influences the state of the system and phase diagrams are presented that show the regions where the small and the large polarons are energetically favored. We find, in this variational context, that for a narrow band, the transition between the self-trapped state and the band state is continuous and that an intermediate-polaron state is involved. For a larger but moderate bandwidth, the system is found to switch abruptly from one state to the other, with a coexistence of both states around the transition region. Each of the two types of coupling is found to have an equivalent role in increasing the trapping energy of the electron and in reducing the bandwidth exponentially. Furthermore, their effect is cumulative.
A dynamical mean-field theory of the small polaron problem is presented, which becomes exact in the limit of infinite dimensions. The ground-state properties and the one-electron spectral function are obtained for a single electron interacting with Einstein phonons by a mapping of the lattice problem onto a polaronic impurity model. The one-electron propagator of the impurity model is calculated through a continued fraction expansion, at both zero and finite temperature, for any electron-phonon coupling and phonon energy. In contrast to the ground-state properties, such as the effective polaron mass, which show a continuous behavior as the coupling is increased, spectral properties exhibit a sharp qualitative change at low enough phonon frequency: beyond a critical coupling, one energy gap and then more open in the density of states at low energy, while the high-energy part of the spectrum is broad and can be qualitatively explained by a strong coupling adiabatic approximation. As a consequence, narrow and coherent low-energy subbands coexist with an incoherent featureless structure at high energy. The subbands denote the formation of quasiparticle polaron states. Also, divergencies of the self-energy may occur in the gaps. At finite temperature such an effect triggers an important damping and broadening of the polaron subbands. On the other hand, in the large phonon frequency regime such a separation of energy scales does not exist and the spectrum always has a multipeaked structure.
This chapter introduces the Hubbard model and the Holstein-Hubbard model and discusses the charge-density wave-spin density wave transition. The most suitable model to study the interplay between the electron-phonon interaction and the Coulomb repulsion in narrow-band systems is the Holstein-Hubbard model. Krishna, Mukhopadhyay, and Chatterjee have considered an extended Holstein-Hubbard model in one dimension so that the exact Bethe ansatz solution can be taken advantage of for the effective electronic problem and employed a better phonon variational state. The chapter also discusses the nature of the self-trapping (ST) transition, particularly whether the transition is continuous or discontinuous. In view of the potential role of small polarons in high Tc superconductors and colossal magneto-resistance materials, it is certainly more important to understand the nature of the ST transition in small polaron models. Das and Sil have studied the ST transition for a many-polaron system in the two-dimensional HH model.
The energies of bipolaron states in three- and two-dimensional systems are calculated variationally, treating the electron-phonon interaction in the Fr\"ohlich approximation, and separating the relative motion from the center-of-mass motion. The bipolaron is bound if the electron-phonon coupling constant \ensuremath{\alpha} is larger than 6 in three dimensions and 2 in two dimensions, provided the ratio \ensuremath{\eta}=${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\infty}}}$/${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}}_{0}$ is smaller than a critical value which depends on \ensuremath{\alpha}. The theory yields the free-polaron energies as given in the Lee, Low, and Pines approximation for arbitrary values of the electron-phonon coupling constant \ensuremath{\alpha}. For \ensuremath{\alpha} larger than \ensuremath{\sim}10 and \ensuremath{\sim}4 in the three- and two-dimensional cases, respectively, the lowest free-polaron self-energies are obtained in the strong-coupling approach; it is shown that a trial harmonic envelope wave function, localized both in the center-of-mass and relative coordinates, with a coherent phonon state gives a bound localized bipolaron state of lower energy. It is interesting for application to high-Tc superconductivity that the bipolaron bounds more easily in two dimensions than in three, and that the mean value of the pair radius is a few angstroms. Furthermore, bipolaron states obtained when the linear total momentum is conserved have intrinsically high mobility, which is also an important condition to make the bipolaron mechanism consistent with high-temperature superconductivity.
It is well known that two qualitatively different pictures arise in the description of the motion of an electron in an ionic crystal. In the first case, when the electron interacts weakly with the ionic lattice of the crystal, its motion is the same as the motion of a free band electron whose energy is shifted downward with respect to the bottom of the conduction band, and the effective mass is replaced by the renormalized mass (weak-coupling polaron). In the other limiting case, when the electron interacts strongly with the ionic crystal, an entire series of different self-consistent states of the electron and lattice, each of which has its own effective mass and radius (strong-coupling polaron), arises. Although the motion of an electron in an ionic crystal is described in both limiting cases with the help of the Pekar-Frohlich Hamiltonian, each case requires its own special methods of analysis. Thus, for example, in the strong-coupling theory a special form of adiabatic perturbation theory has been developed in which the trans-lational degeneracy is removed before the perturbation expansion is made. It has been possible to relate both descriptions within the framework of Feynman's varia-tional approach, in which a smooth upper bound was obtained for the energy of the ground state of the polaron for all values of the electron-phonon coupling constant a (see Fig. 1). We call attention in this connection to Ref. 6, where the thermodynamic properties are calculated with the help of a special method for performing the calculations and for finding averages of T-products. The approach developed there is more convenient for performing specific calculations than is the use of path integrals. It seems to us that it has definite advantages in the construction of general proofs concerning the choice of the approximating Hamiltonians (this is illustrated in Ref. 6 for the example of the linear Bogolyubov model), in the investigation of the characteristics of the behavior of a polaron in external fields, etc.