The cluster slave-spin method is introduced to systematically investigate the solutions of the Hubbard model including the symmetry-broken phases. In this method, the electron operator is factorized into a fermionic spinon describing the physical spin and a slave-spin describing the charge fluctuations. Following the
U(1) formalism derived by Yu and Si [Phys. Rev. B 86, 085104 (2012)], it is shown that the self-consistent equations to explore various symmetry-broken density wave states can be constructed in general with a cluster of multiple slave-spin sites. We employ this method to study the antiferromagnetic (AFM) state in the single band Hubbard model with the two- and four-site clusters of slave spins. While the Hubbard gap, the charge gap due to the doubly occupied states, scales with the Hubbard interaction
U as expected, the AFM gap $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$, the gap in the spinon dispersion in the AFM state, exhibits a crossover from the weak- to strong-coupling behaviors as
U increases. Our cluster slave-spin method reproduces not only the traditional mean-field behavior of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\sim}U$ in the weak-coupling limit, but also the behavior of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\sim}{t}^{2}/U$ predicted by the superexchange mechanism in the strong-coupling limit. In addition, the holon-doublon correlator as functions of
U and doping
x is also computed, which exhibits a strong tendency toward the holon-doublon binding in the strong coupling regime. We further show that the quasiparticle weight obtained by the cluster slave-spin method is in a good agreement with the generalized Gutzwiller approximation in both AFM and paramagnetic states, and the results can be improved beyond the generalized Gutzwiller approximation as the cluster is enlarged from a single site to four sites. Our results demonstrate that the cluster slave-spin method can be a powerful tool to systematically investigate the strongly correlated system.
The cluster slave-spin method is employed to investigate systematically the ground state properties of the Hubbard model on a square lattice with doping $\ensuremath{\delta}$ and coupling strength
U being its parameters. At half-filling, a relation between the staggered magnetization
M and the antiferromagnetic (AFM) gap ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\text{AFM}}$ is established in the small
U limit to compare with that from the Hartree-Fock theory, and a first-order metal-insulator Mott transition in the paramagnetic state is substantiated, which is characterized by discontinuities and hystereses at
UMott=10t. The interaction
Uc for the crossover in the AFM state, separating the weak- and strong-coupling regimes, is found to remain almost unchanged with large dopings, and smaller than
UMott at half-filling because of long range AFM correlations. Finally, an overall phase diagram in the $U\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\delta}$ plane is presented, which is composed of four regimes: the AFM insulator at half-filling, the AFM metal with the compressibility $\ensuremath{\kappa}>0$ or $\ensuremath{\kappa}<0$, and the paramagnetic metal, as well as three phase transitions: (i) From the AFM metal to the paramagnetic metal, (ii) between the AFM metal phases with positive and negative $\ensuremath{\kappa}$, and (iii) separating the AFM insulating phase at $\ensuremath{\delta}=0$ from the AFM metal phase for $\ensuremath{\delta}>0$.
In this paper, we develop a new type of slave particle method which is similar to the slave rotor model except that the quantum rotor is substituted by a spin one slave particle. The spin-one slave particle itself can be represented in terms of Schwinger bosons/fermions. This approach is more conveniently applicable to the strongly correlated Hamiltonians with on-site Hubbard interaction and resolves the limitations of using the slave rotor model as well as the Anderson-Zou slave particle technique. For instance, the mean-field parameters of the slave spin method do not vanish above the Mott transition and this approach is smoothly connected to the non-interacting limit. As an example, we study the phase diagram of the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model using our current approach. In the absence of the spin-orbit interaction, the Mott transition occurs at
Uc 3t1. Several aspects of the slave spin method, its gauge theory and various possible mean-field states associated with this approach have been discussed.