We study the optical properties of an electron–hole two-band Hubbard model with interactions of electron–electron (hole–hole) repulsion U and electron–hole attraction U '. In the case of two types of correlated insulators at half filling, viz. , the Mott–Hubbard type and the biexciton type, interband linear absorption/gain spectra including excitonic effects are calculated analytically using two-site dynamical mean-field theory and ladder approximation. We show that an exciton-like peak structure emerges because of an “exciton” in the sea of correlated fermions when U ' is larger than a certain critical value. The binding energy of the photoinduced excitonic bound state and the spectral intensity are evaluated as a function of U '. The emergence and absence of the exciton-like peak suggests that there are two different insulating mechanisms in the Mott–Hubbard insulating state of the electron–hole system: one is attributable to only U and the other is attributable to both U and U '; the latter is called the excitonic Mott–Hubbard insulating state. The intrinsic difference of the mechanisms cannot be captured from only single-particle properties such as the density of states, but it appears clearly in optical properties reflecting two-particle correlations.
We study the optical properties of an electron–hole two-band Hubbard model with interactions of electron–electron (hole–hole) repulsion U and electron–hole attraction U '. In the case of two types of correlated insulators at half filling, viz. , the Mott–Hubbard type and the biexciton type, interband linear absorption/gain spectra including excitonic effects are calculated analytically using two-site dynamical mean-field theory and ladder approximation. We show that an exciton-like peak structure emerges because of an “exciton” in the sea of correlated fermions when U ' is larger than a certain critical value. The binding energy of the photoinduced excitonic bound state and the spectral intensity are evaluated as a function of U '. The emergence and absence of the exciton-like peak suggests that there are two different insulating mechanisms in the Mott–Hubbard insulating state of the electron–hole system: one is attributable to only U and the other is attributable to both U and U '; the latter is called the excitonic Mott–Hubbard insulating state. The intrinsic difference of the mechanisms cannot be captured from only single-particle properties such as the density of states, but it appears clearly in optical properties reflecting two-particle correlations.
I present results that indicate the existence of strongly bound particle-hole excitations below the edge of the upper Hubbard band in a single-band, large-U Hubbard model in two dimensions, at half-filling. The appearance of these exciton states is due to correlation effects between a vacancy and a doubly occupied site induced by the antiferromagnetic background, in contrast to the conventional mechanism of exciton formation via long-range Coulomb attraction. I argue that in the insulating parent compounds of the high-temperature superconducting cuprates these correlation effects are of the same order of magnitude as particle-hole attraction due to longer-range Coulomb interactions.
Optical responses in an excitonic insulating (EI) system with strong electron correlation are studied. We adopt the two-orbital Hubbard model with a finite energy difference between the two orbitals where the spin state degree of freedom exists. This model is analyzed by the variational cluster approach. In order to include the local electron correlation effect, the vertex correction is taken into account in the formulation of the optical conductivity spectra. We calculate a finite-temperature phase diagram in which an EI phase appears between a low-spin band insulating state and a high-spin Mott insulating state. Characteristic components of the optical conductivity spectra consisting of a sharp peak and continuum appear in the EI phase. Integrated intensity almost follows the order parameter of the EI state, suggesting that this component is available to identify the EI phases and transitions.
We theoretically study photoemission spectra for photodoped one-dimensional Mott insulators that can host excitons, and show that their spectral characteristics differ qualitatively from those of photodoped semiconductors. In conventional semiconductors, photoemission spectra are well understood; free charge carriers generate spectral weight near the bottom of the conduction band, while the formation of excitons leads to replica features of the valence band appearing inside the band gap. In one-dimensional Mott insulators, on the other hand, strong correlations give rise to fractionalized elementary excitations-spinons, holons, and doublons-which fundamentally modify the photoemission response. We find that when photodoped carriers, i.e., doublons and holons, remain unbound, the photoemission spectrum directly reflects the dispersion of spinons, i.e., magnetic elementary excitations. In contrast, when a doublon and a holon form an excitonic bound state, replica structures of the lower Hubbard band emerge inside the Mott gap, carrying contributions from both spinon and holon excitations. Importantly, the distribution of the in-gap signal depends sensitively on the degree of doublon-holon binding. The origin of these spectral features is clarified through a combination of exact diagonalization and the slave-particle approach. These results indicate that photoemission from photoinduced carriers and excitons in strongly correlated electron systems can provide information on magnetic properties and carrier-binding properties.
We investigate the strong correlation effect in the spinless electron-hole two-band Hubbard model using the dynamical mean-field theory. At half filling, both the renormalization factor Z and the number of conduction electrons (valence holes) nc decrease with increasing the interband Coulomb interaction U down to Z∼0.15 and nc∼0.1 for $U_c \sim \mbox{bandwidth}$ at which the first-order Lifshitz transition occurs from a correlated semimetal with a large effective mass m∗/m=Z−1 to a band insulator with a finite gap due to the Hartree shift. A slight hole doping x in the band insulator with a large U>Uc yields a remarkable correlated semimetal with Z∼0.1 at x∼0.01, where in-gap states emerge above the valence band top and those weights increase with increasing x together with the increase in Z similar to the in-gap states observed in doped Mott insulators.
The spectral weight functions and the optical conductivity of a highly correlated electronic system described by a simple Hubbard model are studied. The calculations are carried out for a small system, a cubic cluster of eight sites, by means of exact diagonalization using symmetrized basis functions. The spectral weight functions of a single hole (or electron) placed in an otherwise half-filled band are obtained. The density of states at different interaction strengths, ranging from weak to strong couplings, is studied. We observe the spreading of the spectral weight associated with some single-particle eigenstates over a large range of energies, and the appearance of satellite structure at higher excitation energies. The nature of band narrowing is also discussed. The frequency dependent (optical) conductivity is studied for the cases of a half-filled band, and for one hole and two hole dopings away from half filling. The interaction strength is varied between the weak- and strong-coupling limits. The formation of a Hubbard gap is observed. Results are related to aspects of the metal-insulator transition in bulk systems.
We employ dynamical density-matrix renormalization-group (DDMRG) and field-theory methods to determine the frequency-dependent optical conductivity in one-dimensional extended, half-filled Hubbard models. The field-theory approach is applicable to the regime of ``small'' Mott gaps which is the most difficult to access by DDMRG. For very large Mott gaps the DDMRG recovers analytical results obtained previously by means of strong-coupling techniques. We focus on exciton formation at energies below the onset of the absorption continuum. As a consequence of spin-charge separation, these Mott-Hubbard excitons are bound states of spinless, charged excitations (``holon-antiholon'' pairs). We also determine exciton binding energies and sizes. In contrast to simple band insulators, we observe that excitons exist in the Mott-insulating phase only for a sufficiently strong intersite Coulomb repulsion. Furthermore, our results show that the exciton binding energy and size are not related in a simple way to the strength of the Coulomb interaction.