In this thesis, we tackle various problems in strongly correlated electron systems, which can be addressed properly via the non-perturbative dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) approach using the continuous time quantum Monte Carlo method as an impurity solver. First, we revisit the old Nagaoka ferromagnetism problem in the U=oo Hubbard model and study the stability of the ferromagnetic state as a function of the temperature, the doping level, and the next-nearest-neighbor hopping t'. We then address the nature of the Mott transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model at half-filling using cluster DMFT. Cluster DMFT can incorporate the short-range correlations beyond DMFT by extending the spatial range in which correlations are treated exactly to a finite cluster size. The non-local correlations reduce substantially the critical interaction U and modify the shape of the transition lines in the phase diagram. We then concentrate on the calculation of two-particle response functions from the ab initio perspective by means of computing the one-particle excitation spectrum using the combination of the density functional theory (DFT) and DMFT and extracting the two-particle irreducible vertex function from a local two-particle Green's function computed within DMFT. In particular, we derive the equations for calculating the magnetic/charge susceptibility and the pairing susceptibility in superconductivity. This approach is applied to the Hubbard model and the periodic Anderson model and we determine the phase diagram of magnetism and superconductivity in these models. We show that the superconducting phase is indeed stable near the magnetic phase where the pairing interaction mediated by spin fluctuations is dominantly enhanced. The non-local correlation effect to superconductivity is also discussed using the dual fermion approach and the dynamical vertex approximation. We finally apply the vertex function approach within DFT+DMFT to a Fe-based superconductor, BaFe2As2, and compute the dynamical magnetic susceptibility in this material. Our calculation results show a good agreement with the magnetic excitation spectra observed in a neutron scattering experiment. The response function calculation method derived in this thesis can capture both a localized and an itinerant nature of collective excitations in strongly correlated electron systems.
In this thesis, we tackle various problems in strongly correlated electron systems, which can be addressed properly via the non-perturbative dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) approach using the continuous time quantum Monte Carlo method as an impurity solver. First, we revisit the old Nagaoka ferromagnetism problem in the U=oo Hubbard model and study the stability of the ferromagnetic state as a function of the temperature, the doping level, and the next-nearest-neighbor hopping t'. We then address the nature of the Mott transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model at half-filling using cluster DMFT. Cluster DMFT can incorporate the short-range correlations beyond DMFT by extending the spatial range in which correlations are treated exactly to a finite cluster size. The non-local correlations reduce substantially the critical interaction U and modify the shape of the transition lines in the phase diagram. We then concentrate on the calculation of two-particle response functions from the ab initio perspective by means of computing the one-particle excitation spectrum using the combination of the density functional theory (DFT) and DMFT and extracting the two-particle irreducible vertex function from a local two-particle Green's function computed within DMFT. In particular, we derive the equations for calculating the magnetic/charge susceptibility and the pairing susceptibility in superconductivity. This approach is applied to the Hubbard model and the periodic Anderson model and we determine the phase diagram of magnetism and superconductivity in these models. We show that the superconducting phase is indeed stable near the magnetic phase where the pairing interaction mediated by spin fluctuations is dominantly enhanced. The non-local correlation effect to superconductivity is also discussed using the dual fermion approach and the dynamical vertex approximation. We finally apply the vertex function approach within DFT+DMFT to a Fe-based superconductor, BaFe2As2, and compute the dynamical magnetic susceptibility in this material. Our calculation results show a good agreement with the magnetic excitation spectra observed in a neutron scattering experiment. The response function calculation method derived in this thesis can capture both a localized and an itinerant nature of collective excitations in strongly correlated electron systems.
In this thesis, we use the dynamical cluster approximation to study strongly correlated electron systems, especially from the angle of two-particle quantities, such as dynamical susceptibilities and vertex functions. The thesis starts with an introduction to the strongly correlated systems, including their definitions, prominent features, applications, difficulties in explaining them theoretically and some numerical approaches developed. The following section is an introduction to one family of strongly correlated systems we focus on in this thesis, the high temperature cuprates. The salient features in their general phase diagrams are described and discussed. Then an overview of the model we used to study high Tc cuprates is provided, with its limitations and extensions. To solve this model, the numerical method we employ for our study is the dynamical mean-field theory, the dynamical cluster approximation and the continuous time auxiliary field impurity solver. the last part of Chap.1 contains brief derivations for these algorithms. In Chap. 2, we apply dynamical cluster approximation to solve the one-band 2D Hub- bard model. The physical quantities of interest are two-particle quantitites, such as the dynamical susceptibility, irreducible vertex functions and full vertex functions. In this chapter, we describe how to obtain these susceptibilities via linear response theory and write down a detailed example for superconducting susceptibility. Finally we show how to calculate two particle quantities within DCA and obtain phase boundary with them. Chap. 3 is based on one of our publications. In this work, we specifically address the problem of optimizing the superconducting transition temperature in the 2D Hubbard model by analyzing wide regions of parameter space in density, interaction, and second- nearest-neighbor hopping strength.We mainly focus on d-wave superconductivity but show results of other symmetries in the last section. Chap. 4 follows another publication of ours. We study the temperature and doping evolution of NMR response in the normal state of the 2D Hubbard model using cluster dynamical mean-field theory. We simulate the Knight shift, the spin-echo decay rate and the spin-lattice relaxation time, and compare them to the cuprates experimental results. The last chapter extends the calculation of the NMR response to the superconducting state with the Nambu formalism. We show the detailed formulas and diagrams to calculate two-particle quantities, including the Dyson-Schwinger equation of motion.
This thesis is dedicated to a theoretical study of the 1-band Hubbard model in the strong coupling limit. The investigation is based on the Dynamical Cluster Approximation (DCA) which systematically restores non-local corrections to the Dynamical Mean Field approximation (DMFA). The DCA is formulated in momentum space and is characterised by a patching of the Brillouin zone where momentum conservation is only recovered between two patches. The approximation works well if k-space correlation functions show a weak momentum dependence. In order to study the temperature and doping dependence of the spin- and charge excitation spectra, we explicitly extend the Dynamical Cluster Approximation to two-particle response functions. The full irreducible two-particle vertex with three momenta and frequencies is approximated by an effective vertex dependent on the momentum and frequency of the spin and/or charge excitations. The effective vertex is calculated by using the Quantum Monte Carlo method on the finite cluster whereas the analytical continuation of dynamical quantities is performed by a stochastic version of the maximum entropy method. A comparison with high temperature auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo data serves as a benchmark for our approach to two-particle correlation functions. Our method can reproduce basic characteristics of the spin- and charge excitation spectrum. Near and beyond optimal doping, our results provide a consistent overall picture of the interplay between charge, spin and single-particle excitations: a collective spin mode emerges at optimal doping and sufficiently low temperatures in the spin response spectrum and exhibits the energy scale of the magnetic exchange interaction J. Simultaneously, the low energy single-particle excitations are characterised by a coherent quasiparticle with bandwidth J. The origin of the quasiparticle can be quite well understood in a picture of a more or less antiferromagnetic ordered background in which holes are dressed by spin-excitations to allow for a coherent motion. By increasing doping, all features which are linked to the spin-polaron vanish in the single-particle as well as two-particle spin response spectrum. In the second part of the thesis an analysis of superconductivity in the Hubbard model is presented. The superconducting instability is implemented within the Dynamical Cluster Approximation by essentially allowing U(1) symmetry breaking baths in the QMC calculations for the cluster. The superconducting transition temperature T_c is derived from the d-wave order parameter which is directly estimated on the Monte Carlo cluster. The critical temperature T_c is in astonishing agreement with the temperature scale estimated by the divergence of the pair-field susceptibility in the paramagnetic phase. A detailed study of the pseudo and superconducting gap is continued by the investigation of the local and angle-resolved spectral function.
We propose an approach describing correlated electronic systems within the two-particle irreducible functional renormalization-group (2PI-fRG) approach, which uses initial self-energy and the two-particle irreducible vertices, obtained from (extended) dynamical mean-field theory [E(DMFT)]. Using the 2PI-fRG approach allows us to treat both local and nonlocal interactions. In the case of purely local interaction the corresponding equations have similar (although not identical) structure to the earlier developed DMFT+fRG (DMF2RG) approach. In a simplest truncation, neglecting scale dependence of the two-particle irreducible vertices, we reproduce the results for the two-particle vertices/susceptibilities in the ladder approximation of the dual-boson (DB) or the dynamic vertex approximation approach; in more sophisticated truncations the method allows us to consider nonlocal corrections to the self-energy as well as the interplay of charge and spin correlations. The proposed scheme is tested on the two-dimensional standard and extended $U\text{\ensuremath{-}}V$ half-filled Hubbard models. For the standard Hubbard model we obtain nonlocal self-energy, which is in agreement with numerical studies; for the extended Hubbard model we find the boundary of charge instability, which agrees well with the results of the DB approach. We also ascertain that the effect of spin correlations on electron interaction in the charge channel, not considered previously in the DB approach, only slightly reduces critical next-nearest-neighbor interaction of charge instability of the extended Hubbard model at the considered finite low temperature, yielding better agreement with dynamic cluster approximation. The considered method is rather general and can be applied to study various phenomena in strongly correlated electronic systems.
Strong electronic correlations are the root of many fascinating phenomena of condensed matter physics. However, they also make calculations notoriously difficult. This thesis is concerned with the development and improvement of computational methods for strongly correlated electron systems. After a brief recapitulation of the Green’s function formalism,which is the theoretical basis of most such methods, we discuss the analytical continuation from imaginary to real frequencies. Especially the maximum entropy method is explained in detail and an implementation there of is presented.The remainder of this thesis deals with methods to compute Green’s functions on thei maginary frequency axis. First, the Anderson impurity model (AIM) is considered. It can be solved numerically – a task for which several methods exist. We focus on continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo with worm sampling, through which various kinds of correlation functions can be calculated. On this basis we derive and implement symmetric improved estimators that allow for the computation of the self-energy and vertex functions where the level of stochastic noise is largely reduced with respect to conventional estimators.As a next step the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) is introduced as a method to capture local correlations in the Hubbard model (HM) by self-consistently mapping it onto the AIM. We study the convergence behavior of this iterative procedure and the improvement of convergence due to mixing. Then, we compare electron scattering rates from DMFT in the weak-coupling regime of the square-lattice HM to results from Boltzmann scattering theory.While local correlations account for many interesting phenomena, such as the Mott-Hubbard metal-insulator transition, they are not sufficient to correctly describe, e.g., the physics of phase transitions in two- or three-dimensional systems. It is thus the final step in this thesis to also include nonlocal correlations by means of the dynamical vertex approximation (DΓA). For this we develop a new self-consistency scheme, which is then applied to several systems: We study the square-lattice HM, where we compare to benchmark methods in the weak-coupling regime, but also present results for intermediate and strong coupling. Furthermore, a two-band model with doping and a three-band Wannier model for strontium vanadate are studied. As an application of our new self-consistent DΓA, we study the effects of geometrical frustration in the kagome lattice, where we also compare our results to determinant quantum Monte Carlo.
Correlated electron systems exhibit a variety of intriguing emergent phenomena, including Mott physics, pseudogap behavior, and unconventional superconductivity. One of the most widely used numerical approaches for investigating these systems is dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). This dissertation addresses two related problems: how to develop better quantum impurity solvers for DMFT and how to use DMFT results to gain a better understanding of correlated electron systems. The first part of this dissertation develops numerical methods for solving quantum impurity problems, which constitute the central computational task in DMFT calculations. In Chap. 4, we develop a method that combines a tensor-train numerical integration scheme with the inchworm hybridization expansion for quantum impurity problems. Benchmarks on spinless, single-orbital, and multi-orbital impurity models demonstrate the convergence of the Green’s functions to exact or reference results and identify the regimes in which tensor-train compression of Feynman diagrams and the inchworm expansion itself are effective. In Chap. 5, we introduce the concept of counterterms within the hybridization expansion and apply it to a bare hybridization expansion solver that relies on a sum-of-exponentials integration technique. Tests on spinless, multi-orbital, and realistic embedding impurity problems show that counterterms can significantly reduce the required perturbative order and improve the efficiency of hybridization-expansion calculations. The second part of this dissertation applies the cluster extension of DMFT to the single-band Hubbard model. In Chap. 6, we introduce a fluctuation decomposition for the self-energy that eliminates the Fierz ambiguity encountered in conventional fluctuation diagnostics of the Hubbard model. The resulting analysis shows that spin fluctuations make an important contribution to the pseudogap self-energy, while multi-boson contributions are also necessary for a complete description. In Chap. 7, we analyze the spin-fermion coupling and its role in d-wave pairing. Our calculations show that, for antinodal fermions in the pseudogap regime, their coupling to antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations is strongly enhanced relative to the non-interacting limit. A modified Bethe–Salpeter equation analysis further shows that this enhanced spin–fermion coupling boosts the spin-fluctuation-induced contribution to the d-wave pairing susceptibility.
Disorder is ubiquitous in real materials and influences the physical properties like the conductivity to varying degrees. If electron-electron interactions are strong, theoretical and numerical treatment of these systems becomes challenging. In this thesis a numerical approach is developed to address these systems, treating both interactions and disorder on equal footing. The approach is based on the dual fermion approach for interacting systems developed by Rubtsov et al. Terletska et al. applied the ideas of the dual fermion approach to disordered non-interacting systems. In this approach, the replica trick is used to integrate out the disorder in favor of an effective electron-electron interaction. We extended the approach from Terletska et al. to treat disordered interacting systems. Dual Fermions allow to take into account non-local fluctuations by means of a perturbative expansion around an impurity problem. The impurity reference system is determined self-consistently, analogously to the dynamical mean-field theory. The perturbative expansion is expected to yield good results for small and large values of interaction strength and disorder. A priori, it is not clear what to expect for intermediate values, but experience shows that oftentimes good results are obtained for this region. An advantage of the dual fermion approach is that there is no sign-problem for a single orbital model if quantum Monte Carlo is used to solve the interacting reference system. Additionally, perturbation theory is usually numerically much cheaper than fully solving an interacting lattice or cluster problem. Thus, the dual fermion approach allows to address regions of parameter space that are not accessible to lattice quantum Monte Carlo calculations or cluster extension of dynamical mean-field theory. Cluster extensions of the dynamical mean-field theory are for example the dynamical cluster approximation or the cellular dynamical mean-field theory. The new approach is benchmarked with respect to the Anderson-Falicov-Kimball model. The Anderson-Hubbard model is the main application. For both models, the algorithm is tested in one dimension for the single particle Green function and compared to the dynamical cluster approximation to estimate the quality of the results. The Anderson-Falicov-Kimball model is studied further in two dimensions and the phase diagram on the disorder-interaction plane is calculated from both the single particle Green function and the dc conductivity. For the Anderson-Hubbard model, the antiferromagnetic phase transition, the Mott transition and the Anderson transition are investigated in three dimensions. The dynamical mean-field theory results are qualitatively confirmed for the most part. Quantitative corrections are in agreement with dynamical cluster approximation results, thus confirming the validity of the results. We found a qualitative difference between the dual fermion approach and dynamical mean-field theory for the temperature dependence of the hysteresis of the double occupancy. The dual fermion result shows a decreasing lower critical interaction strength for decreasing temperature, which is in contrast with the dynamical mean-field result that shows an increase of the lower critical interaction strength. This behavior happens for small temperatures that are not accessible using for example the dynamical cluster approximation, thus highlighting the usefulness of the dual fermion approach. We found this behavior for all values of the disorder that we considered.