Until now, solids with strongly correlated electrons can be treated only by model Hamiltonians. Even then a calculation of spectral densities is not simple, because the strong Coulomb interactions prevent us from treating correlations perturbatively. We show that projection and partitioning techniques are a very valuable tool here. The method is applied to computations of the density of states of transition metals, in particular, Ni. Here, the band narrowing and the sattlite peak at 6 eV due to correlations are reproduced. A second application concerns the spectral density of doped and undoped Cu(SINGLE BOND)O planes which are part of the high-Tc superconducting materials. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Quant Chem 63: 645–653, 1997
The theoretical investigation of spectral functions and pseudogap in systems with strongly correlated electrons is discussed, with the emphasis on the single-band t-J model as relevant for superconducting cuprates. The evidence for the pseudogap features from numerical studies of the model is presented. One of the promising methods to study spectral functions is the method of equations of motion. The latter can deal systematically with the local constraints and projected fermion operators inherent for strongly correlated electrons. In the evaluation of the self energy the decoupling of spin and single-particle fluctuations is performed. In an undoped antiferromagnet the method reproduces the selfconsistent Born approximation (SCBA). For finite doping the approximation evolves into a paramagnon contribution which retains large incoherent contribution in the hole part. On the other hand, the contribution of longer-range spin fluctuations is essential for the emergence of the pseudogap. The latter shows up at low doping in the effective truncation of the large Fermi surface, reduced electron density of states and at the same time reduced quasiparticle density of states at the Fermi level.
Strong electron correlation in materials is explored within a class of model Hamiltonians that treat only pair interactions between electrons. The model is unique among typical spin Hamiltonians in that it does not have an effective mean-field reference wave function. The ground-state wave functions from all Hamiltonians in the model have the same one-electron reduced density matrix (1-RDM); consequently, one-electron theories such as the Hartree–Fock and density functional theories are inapplicable. In contrast, the ground-state two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) has a one-to-one mapping to the ground-state wave function. For a range of lattices including linear, ladder, and square topologies, we variationally compute the 2-RDM subject to constraints, known as N -representability conditions, that are necessary for the 2-RDM to represent an N -electron ensemble density matrix. We find that for all model Hamiltonians the 2-RDM is accurately computed as long as the D, Q, and G N -representability conditions are supplemented with the T 2 condition. Energies, orbital and geminal occupation numbers, and correlation functions are computed. The model has applications to superconductivity as well as more general pairing phenomena in electronic systems. Effective methods are needed to treat strong electron correlation arising in the study of materials including the study of high-temperature superconductivity and phase transitions.
Methods are described which can be used for an analytical description of the strong electron correlations in the planes of the Cu–O based high-Tc superconducting materials. One is a projection technique which is applied in order to calculate the photoelectron and inverse photoelectron spectra for the cases of half filling and hole doping of the Cu–O planes. Good agreement with the results of exact diagonalization of (CuO2)4 clusters is obtained, proving the usefulness of the method. Another one is the concept of string states which can be applied to study the t–J model. Also in this case a number of numerical findings can be reproduced and improved by this analytic method.
A methodology is introduced for the systematic treatment of electron-electron correlations in solids and other interacting quantum
N-particle systems. The method is developed within the framework of electronic structure theory (band theory) but, in contrast to conventional approaches, which are based on the single-particle picture, it is formulated within a many-particle picture in which
n particles in
d-dimensional phase space are treated as a single particle in a phase space of
nd dimensions. In this phase space, interparticle interactions appear as external potentials allowing the treatment of the system of particles through the use of single-particle methods, while at the same time allowing a systematic, direct, and nonperturbative treatment of interparticle interactions. The method makes use of the invariance of the Hamiltonian describing an interacting-particle system under partitioning into subsystems of
n particles. This treatment leads to exact results in the limit $n\ensuremath{\rightarrow}N$. Based on such partitioning, we propose a generalization of density functional theory and an appropriately defined local density approximation to treat the interactions between the
n-particle units in a system of
N> n particles. This approach yields
n-particle correlated densities and
n-particle states which can be used in an analysis of the electronic properties of materials, such as total energy, phase stability, electronic transport, and others. We use the formal construct of multiple-scattering theory to develop the method for the calculation of the two-particle electronic structure of a solid and the corresponding total energy of the ground state. We also illustrate some of the properties of the method in terms of a Hubbard model Hamiltonian on a linear ring. Various features of the method and further possible applications are presented in a discussion section.
In an attempt to obtain a better description than the local-density approximation (LDA) for the electronic structure of realistic narrow-band systems, we have studied a perturbation-theory method for the self-energy and have tested it on the electronic properties of the periodic one-dimensional Anderson model. For a number of models we have calculated a wide range of properties such as quasiparticle energies, spectral densities, reduced hybridizations, and various magnetic correlation functions. For two different models we were able to compare with Monte Carlo results and found good agreement. In general, we have obtained a description of narrow-band systems that is more reasonable than the one given by the LDA.