Electron–Electron Interaction and Correlations

Nobuo Tsuda, Keiichirō Nasu, Atsushi Fujimori +1 more

Adrián Gómez Pueyo, Alberto Castro

Michael Seidl

Electrons can have a given smooth density distribution $\ensuremath{\rho}(r),$ even if their Coulomb interaction is scaled to infinity. This strong-interaction limit of density-functional theory provides essential information on the correlation energy of real electron systems. The simple concept of strictly correlated electrons (SCE) is analyzed here as a model for that limit. SCE is solved exactly for any one-dimensional (1D) N-electron density and, in particular, for any 3D spherical two-electron system, such as the helium atom. Both the SCE interaction energy and the SCE external potential, which are obtained here as density functionals, obey all the relations known for the corresponding quantities in the unknown true strong-interaction limit. At large but finite interaction, the electrons are still strongly correlated, performing zero-point oscillations about the SCE limit.

Massimo Capone, Claudio Castellani, M. Grilli

The Hubbard-Holstein model is a simple model including both electron-phonon interaction and electron-electron correlations. We review a body of theoretical work investigating, the effects of strong correlations on the electron-phonon interaction. We focus on the regime, relevant to high- T c superconductors, in which the electron correlations are dominant. We find that electron-phonon interaction can still have important signatures, even if many anomalies appear, and the overall effect is far from conventional. In particular in the paramagnetic phase the effects of phonons are much reduced in the low-energy properties, while the high-energy physics can still be affected by phonons. Moreover, the electron-phonon interaction can give rise to important effects, like phase separation and charge-ordering, and it assumes a predominance of forward scattering even if the bare interaction is assumed to be local (momentum independent). Antiferromagnetic correlations reduce the screening effects due to electron-electron interactions and revive the electron-phonon effects.

Werner Kutzelnigg