The thermodynamic behaviour of the enhanced hole-hopping model of high temperature superconductivity is investigated using the numerical Density Renormalization Group (DMRG) technique. The enhanced hole-hopping or Δt model is a Hubbard-like lattice model that has been proposed to account for superconductivity in the high temperature superconducting materials. Extensive results for this model have been obtained by others within the BCS approximation. This thesis does not attempt to motivate the use of the Δt model but rather it is the goal of this work to characterize the accuracy of two techniques used to study this model. In particular, the ground state energy and binding energy for a pair of particles as calculated within the DMRG are compared to similar results obtained from BCS and Exact Diagonalization studies. The DMRG is a relatively new numerical technique and consequently a detailed discussion of its implementation is given. Application of the DMRG necessarily confines investigation to one dimension. Analysis of finite size effects is also presented where warranted.
The thermodynamic behaviour of the enhanced hole-hopping model of high temperature superconductivity is investigated using the numerical Density Renormalization Group (DMRG) technique. The enhanced hole-hopping or Δt model is a Hubbard-like lattice model that has been proposed to account for superconductivity in the high temperature superconducting materials. Extensive results for this model have been obtained by others within the BCS approximation. This thesis does not attempt to motivate the use of the Δt model but rather it is the goal of this work to characterize the accuracy of two techniques used to study this model. In particular, the ground state energy and binding energy for a pair of particles as calculated within the DMRG are compared to similar results obtained from BCS and Exact Diagonalization studies. The DMRG is a relatively new numerical technique and consequently a detailed discussion of its implementation is given. Application of the DMRG necessarily confines investigation to one dimension. Analysis of finite size effects is also presented where warranted.
The present work applies a numerical method, namely the transfer-matrix density-matrix renormalization group (TMRG), to two seemingly different types of models. In a first part the TMRG is used to investigate the thermodynamics of one-dimensional fermionic models. A second part deals with a novel TMRG method for one-dimensional stochastic models, whose development is an integral part of the thesis. First, the traditional TMRG algorithm for quantum systems is outlined in its historical context. Two different variants are presented, following works of Xiang et al. and Sirker and Klümper, respectively. The basic idea of the method is to map the thermodynamics of a one-dimensional quantum model by Trotter-Suzuki decomposition onto a two-dimensional statistical one. The latter is then solved by a transfer-matrix approach combined with the iterative numerical procedure of White's density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) algorithm. Thereby precise computations of various thermodynamic properties, such as thermodynamic potentials, susceptibilities, thermal expectation values and correlation functions are possible. As the first part of the thesis deals with fermionic models, we next review some basics about the theory of strongly correlated fermions in one dimension. Thereupon we elucidate the so-called Hirsch model, which recently gained a lot of theoretic interest in respect to high-temperature superconductivity. It extends the well-studied Hubbard model by an off-diagonal bond-charge interaction term. The current state of research is briefly summarized and mainly refers to ground state properties. Showing numerical TMRG results we then investigate and discuss the almost unknown thermodynamics of the Hirsch model. Various phases are identified and characterized in terms of Tomonaga-Luttinger and Luther-Emery liquid properties, in accordance with previous studies of the ground state. As an important result, superconducting singlet-pair correlation lenths are observed to dominate the physics at finite temperatures in a certain spin-gaped phase. Subsequent to our thermodynamic studies, we turn to the second part of the thesis and outline some theoretic basics of stochastic models. Most notably is the important formal analogy of the master equation, that describes the dynamics of the model, to a Schrödinger equation in imaginary time. This analogy is used to construct a stochastic TMRG algorithm almost similar to the quantum case, that facilitates the computation of dynamic properties, e.g. the local density of particles. We intensively focus on interesting mathematical properties of the stochastic transfer-matrix. As an astonishing result it is found, that the temporal evolution of the non-equilibrium process is reflected by a certain causal structure of the stochastic TMRG. But even if this new approach seems to be promising at first glance, severe numerical problems limit significantly its practical use. In order to solve these instabilities we propose a completely new variant of the algorithm, which we call stochastic light-cone corner-transfermatrix DMRG (LCTMRG). As suggested by its name, the LCTMRG makes use of the causal structure mentioned above and combines it with the stochastic TMRG algorithm. Applications of the LCTMRG onto various reaction-diffusion models verify highly precise numerical data and a great improve compared to the old algorithm by several orders of magnitude. Additionally it is stressed, that the newly proposed analysis tool provides some considerable advantages to common simulation techniques.
The density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a numerical method for studying low dimensional strongly correlated models. The study of these models is one of the most active areas of condensed matter physics today and has been spurred not only by the discovery of high temperature superconductivity but also by experiments on new compounds. In this thesis we study fundamentals of the density matrix renormalization group method as well as applications of the method to Heisenberg spin chains. The introductory text is meant as a brief overview of the DMRG as well as Heisenberg spin systems and provides an introduction to the papers. In papers I and II we investigate the density matrix renormalization group with the aim to better understand the underlying structure of the method. We find that if the renormalization converges to a fixed point in the thermodynamic limit, the resulting basis states can be written as a matrix product form. We also show an explicit relation of the DMRG to variational calculations using the fact that the matrix product states can be rederived through a variational ansatz without any reference to the DMRG calculation. It is then shown how the matrix product states can be used to define a set of Bloch waves for describing elementary excitations of the Heisenberg spin-1 chain. The low lying energy spectrum is calculated. In papers III and IV we investigate the thermodynamics of impurities in a spin-1/2 chain. For this purpose we have shown that a recently developed transfer matrix DMRG method can be used to calculate impurity properties. Both impurity corrections to thermodynamic properties and local properties at finite temperature can be obtained. The method gives quicker and more accurate results than quantum Monte Carlo. The numerical results show good agreement with field theory calculations for a number of impurity configurations and the cross-over function for the magnetic susceptibility from high- to low-temperature behavior shows the expected data collapse. Our results also give quantitative predictions for experiments on doped spin-1/2 chains.
We investigate the application of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) to the Hubbard model in momentum space. We treat the one-dimensional models with dispersion relations corresponding to nearest-neighbor hopping and 1/r hopping and the two-dimensional model with isotropic nearest-neighbor hopping. By comparing with the exact solutions for both one-dimensional models and with exact diagonalization in two dimensions, we first investigate the convergence of the ground-state energy. We find variational convergence of the energy with the number of states kept for all models and parameter sets. In contrast to the real-space algorithm, the accuracy becomes rapidly worse with increasing interaction and is not significantly better at half filling. We compare the results for different dispersion relations at fixed interaction strength over bandwidth and find that extending the range of the hopping in one dimension has little effect, but that changing the dimensionality from one to two leads to lower accuracy at weak-to-moderate interaction strength. In the one-dimensional models at half filling, we also investigate the behavior of the single-particle gap, the dispersion of spinon excitations, and the momentum distribution function. For the single-particle gap, we find that proper extrapolation in the number of states kept is important. For the spinon dispersion, we find that good agreement with the exact forms can be achieved at weak coupling if the large momentum-dependent finite-size effects are taken into account for nearest-neighbor hopping. For the momentum distribution, we compare with various weak-coupling and strong-coupling approximations and discuss the importance of finite-size effects as well as the accuracy of the DMRG.
In this thesis, I analyze properties of mesoscopic systems that exhibit strong quantum correlations. To this purpose, I adapt and use the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG), a numerical method that has been developed specifically for analyzing such systems. The following systems are discussed: - Josephson effect between superconducting nanograins: I investigate the Josephson effect, i.e. the dependence of the energy of two weakly coupled superconductors on the difference between their superconducting phase, in the regime that the level spacing d is comparable to the bulk superconducting gap Delta. Because the BCS solution is inapplicable in this regime, I use the DMRG to calculate the ground state of the two coupled superconductors and extract the Josephson energy E_J. The standard BCS result for E_J is reproduced only in the continuum limit of vanishing d. As d is increased, however, E_J turns out to display a nonmonotonic behaviour. A tight-binding approximation for weak Josephson coupling explains the physical mechanism underlying this reentrance in a transparent way. - Well-defined quasiparticles in small metallic grains: I analyze zero-temperature spectral functions of mesoscopic systems such as quantum dots and metallic grains, in the limit of large conductance, where they can be described by a "universal Hamiltonian" model. I show that within this model, an important class of spectral functions is dominated by one single energy eigenstate only. For an interacting system this is a very peculiar property, which implies an infinite lifetime of the quasiparticles. Moreover, I show that the dominating eigenstate contains only a limited subclass of all excitations, which I characterize as the "No-Gaudino" excitations. Hence, these are sufficient to explain many of the properties of the systems under consideration. Besides its own physical significance, the dominance of the "No-Gaudino" states has also high practical value, because it permits the calculation of zero-temperature spectral functions with high accuracy using the DMRG. I illustrate the use of this method by calculating the tunneling density of states of metallic grains and the magnetic response of mesoscopic rings. - Real-time dynamics in spin-1/2 chains I study the nonequilibrium transport properties in spin-1/2 chains by solving the time evolution of a non-stationary initial state, and investigate the influence of different interaction strength and dimerization on the magnetization transport. To this purpose, I use the "adaptive time-dependent DMRG", a DMRG variant that was recently developed to solve the many-body Schroedinger equation with high accuracy. I find that the magnetization possesses a well-defined long-time limit, whose nature does not depend on the dimerization, but only on the strength J_z of the S^z-S^z-interaction: For |J_z| < 1 I find ballistic magnetization transport, and for J_z >1 almost no transport, with a sharp crossover at |J^z|=1. I explain this crossover as a subtle consequence of a quantum phase transition which occurs at the precise value J_z| = 1. - Many-body scattering states: I present a general method for calculating many-body scattering states that does not rely on the assumptions of perturbation theory or near-equilibrium. Due to the complexity of the problem, I limit the discussion to a description of the algorithm itself and a few proof-of-principle calculations only. The strategy is to calculate the many-body scattering state that results when a scatterer (e.g. a quantum dot) is connected to two leads, to which a voltage bias V is applied. This state is obtained by solving the many-body Lippmann-Schwinger equation using the DMRG.
We study signatures of superconductivity in a two-leg ``checkerboard'' Hubbard ladder model, defined as a one-dimensional (period 2) array of square plaquettes with an intraplaquette hopping t and interplaquette hopping ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, using the density-matrix renormalization-group method. The highest pairing scale (characterized by the spin gap or the pair binding energy, extrapolated to the thermodynamic limit) is found for doping levels close to half-filling, $U\ensuremath{\approx}6t$ and ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}/t\ensuremath{\approx}0.6$. Other forms of modulated hopping parameters, with periods of either one or three lattice constants, are also found to enhance pairing relative to the uniform two-leg ladder, although to a lesser degree. A calculation of the phase stiffness of the ladder reveals that in the regime with the strongest pairing, the energy scale associated with phase ordering is comparable to the pairing scale.
The first part of the thesis deals with so called numerical renormalization group methods, and in particular the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG). This method performs extremely well for large one-dimensional quantum systems like spin-chains and Hubbard models. We discuss general features of the quantum states obtained by using this method for large systems. One finds that the method works better, i.e. faster convergence and higher accuracy, when applied to systems having an energy gap between the ground state and the first excited state. An investigation of the behavior of the DMRG for a simple gapless system is done, mainly focusing on the properties of correlation functions. The second part of the thesis deals with topics related to superconductivity. It starts with a discussion of magnetic Josephson junctions and the physical processes governing the behavior of such a system. We also introduce and discuss models of high-temperature superconductors, in particular the t-J model and its relation to stripes. Starting from the t-J model on a two dimensional square lattice, we discuss an approximation where the spin-configuration is assumed static. We discuss the properties of the fictitious magnetic field experienced by the electrons due to the static spin-configuration. Configurations being close to ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic turn out to have very different properties. Furthermore, we derive an effective model for this system and look for different phases of this model. In particular we investigate whether the system takes advantage of a spin-generated fictitious flux. Uniform phases are discussed in a Hartree-Fock approximation and we also consider stripes between antiferromagnetically ordered regions, these being modeled in a self-consistent Hartree approximation. Finally, and inspired by the fictitious fluxes, there is a chapter discussing the statistics of particles living on a circle. It is shown that there are two free parameters in the quantization of such a system and we also sort out the relation between fermions and hard-core bosons in one dimension.