Recent advances in fluorescence imaging have enabled direct measurements of doublon, singlon, and holon correlation functions in cold-atom experiments. We demonstrate that these correlators provide a powerful probe of the extended crossover from metallic to insulating behavior at intermediate and high temperatures. To this end, we carry out determinantal quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the two-dimensional repulsive Fermi-Hubbard model on a square lattice, varying doping, interaction strength
U, and temperature
T. Our results reveal clear signatures of a crossover from the metallic regime at small
U to the Mott insulating regime at large
U. Specifically, we note the following: (1) At half-filling, we distinguish three regimes (metallic, non-Fermi-liquid, and Mott insulating) by analyzing the temperature dependence of the thermodynamic density of states $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\kappa}}=\frac{\ensuremath{\partial}n}{\ensuremath{\partial}\ensuremath{\mu}}$ in comparison with the low-energy single-particle density of states $N(\ensuremath{\omega})$. (2) At finite doping, although $N(\ensuremath{\omega})$ remains gapless, a sign change in $\frac{\ensuremath{\partial}\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\kappa}}}{\ensuremath{\partial}T}$ marks a transition from insulating to metallic behavior at a critical density
ncr(U,T). (3) These crossovers can also be tracked using experimentally accessible correlators, such as density-density, moment-moment, and doublon-holon correlations, providing valuable diagnostics in settings where direct spectral information is difficult to obtain.
By using numerically exact determinantal Monte Carlo we show that the dilute Fermi gas quantum critical theory quantitatively describes the behavior of the density and compressibility along the Mott/metal crossover in the two-dimensional Hubbard model for temperatures somewhat less than (roughly half) the tunneling but greater than (roughly twice) the superexchange energy. In contrast, we find that other observables such as the kinetic energy, doubly occupied sites, and magnetization in a finite Zeeman field are poorly described by the same dilute Fermi gas universality class. In addition to these findings' fundamental interest, they are relevant to cold atom systems, where the intermediate temperature regime is currently in experimental reach.
We study the asymmetric Hubbard model at half filling as a generic model to describe the physics of two species of repulsively interacting fermionic cold atoms in optical lattices. We use dynamical mean-field theory to obtain the paramagnetic phase diagram of the model as a function of temperature, interaction strength, and hopping asymmetry. A Mott transition with a region of two coexistent solutions is found for all nonzero values of the hopping asymmetry. At low temperatures the metallic phase is a heavy Fermi liquid, qualitatively analogous to the Fermi-liquid state of the symmetric Hubbard model. Above a coherence temperature, an orbital-selective crossover takes place, wherein one fermionic species effectively localizes, and the resulting bad metallic state resembles the non-Fermi-liquid state of the Falicov-Kimball model. We compute observables relevant to cold atom systems such as the double occupation, the specific heat, and entropy, and characterize their behavior in the different phases.