The simplest way to add interactions to a single-band model of spinful electrons hopping on a crystal lattice is the Hubbard model, and the next simplest model is the extended Hubbard model (EHM). The EHM is useful for modeling superconductive electron pairing and emergent insulating phases including a dimerized phase called the "Bond Order Wave". In this thesis, I present two projects. In the first, I applied the numerical method of Density Matrix Renormalization Group to study the entanglement entropy at critical points of the clean EHM in one dimension near the BOW phase. In the second project, I applied analytical renormalization group approaches to study the phase diagram of the one dimensional model with weak disorder at weak coupling.
The simplest way to add interactions to a single-band model of spinful electrons hopping on a crystal lattice is the Hubbard model, and the next simplest model is the extended Hubbard model (EHM). The EHM is useful for modeling superconductive electron pairing and emergent insulating phases including a dimerized phase called the "Bond Order Wave". In this thesis, I present two projects. In the first, I applied the numerical method of Density Matrix Renormalization Group to study the entanglement entropy at critical points of the clean EHM in one dimension near the BOW phase. In the second project, I applied analytical renormalization group approaches to study the phase diagram of the one dimensional model with weak disorder at weak coupling.
By using the density matrix renormalization group technique, the phase diagram of the half-filling extended Hubbard model is investigated. The conventional order parameter, the two-site entanglement entropy, and the block-block entanglement entropy are analyzed in detail. According to the numerical results, in the weak coupling region, an intermediate bond-order-wave (BOW) phase is shown to exist indeed between the charge-density-wave (CDW) and the spin-density-wave (SDW) phases. The critical phase transition points are determined by the singularity of the first order derivative of two-site entanglement entropy. In strong coupling region, a direct phase transition occurs from SDW phase to CDW phase, and shows discontinuous (first order) character accompanied with energy level crossing. The numerical results support the phase diagram proposed previously by some authors Sengupta et al., (2002); Sandvik et al., (2004); Zhang, (2004). Therefore, the quantum entanglement is a sensitive tool to describe quantum phase transitions in strongly correlated electron systems.
We consider a modified extended Hubbard model (EHM) which, in addition to the on-site repulsion U and nearest-neighbor repulsion V, includes polarization effects in second-order perturbation theory. The model is equivalent to an EHM with renormalized U plus a next-nearest-neighbor repulsion term. Using a method based on topological quantum numbers (charge and spin Berry phases), we generalize to finite hopping t the quantum phase diagram in one dimension constructed by van den Brink et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4658 (1995)]. At hopping t=0 there are two charge density-wave phases, one spin density-wave phase, and one intermediate phase with charge and spin ordering, depending on the parameter values. At $t\ensuremath{\ne}0$ the nature of each phase is confirmed by studying correlation functions. However, in addition to the strong-coupling phases, a small region with bond ordering appears. The region occupied by the intermediate phase first increases and then decreases with increasing t, until it finally disappears for t of the order but larger than U. For small t, the topological transitions agree with the results of second-order perturbation theory.
Using functional renormalization group method, we studied the phase diagram of the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model at different dopings. At half filling, variety of states strongly compete with each other. These states include spin-density wave, charge-density wave, s-wave and p -wave superconductivity, phase separation, and an exotic bond-order wave. By doping, system favours superconductivity more than density waves. At 1/8 doping, a new area of extended s-wave superconductivity emerges between charge density wave and bond-order wave regions. If the system is doped to 1/4-doping, a new area of p -wave superconductivity emerges between charge-density wave and spin-density wave regions.
We investigate three different types of quantum phase transition occurring in quasi one-dimensional systems theoretically and numerically. First, we study the band-insulator to Mott-insulator transition occurring in charge-transfer complexes, for which the half-filled one-dimensional ionic Hubbard model is considered to be the prototype model. The study is carried out by first deriving an effective spin-one model, and then studying the model numerically using the density matrix renormalization group. We perform a careful finite-size scaling analysis of the mass gaps, order-parameters, and relative susceptibility. We confirm the existence of two quantum critical points. Analysis of the critical exponents confirms that the band-insulator-to-spontaneously-dimerized phase transition belong to the 2D Ising class. The spontaneously dimerized phase undergoes a phase transition to the Mott-insulator which is an infinite-order. Second, we investigate the Mott metal-insulator transition for the half-filled Hubbard model with both nearest-neighbor t and next-nearest-neighbor t′ hopping terms. We study the model using the bosonization approach and density matrix renormalization group simulations. An effective low-energy Hamiltonian that describes the insulator-metal transition is derived. We present results of density matrix renormalization group calculations of spin and charge distribution in various sectors of the phase diagram. The numerical results support the picture derived from the effective theory and give evidence for the complete separation of the transitions involving the spin and the charge degrees of freedom. Finally, we investigate quantum phase transitions phases in low-dimensional fermionic and spin models that go from uniform to spatially inhomogeneous, i.e., dimerized, trimerized, or incommensurate, phases. We propose a new approach based on studying the length dependence of the von Neumann entropy and its corresponding Fourier spectrum for finite segments in the ground state of finite chains. Peaks at a nonzero wave vector are indicators of oscillatory behavior in decaying correlation functions and also provide significant information about certain relevant features of the excitation spectrum; in particular, they can identify the wave vector of soft modes in critical models.
We examine the phase diagram of the half-filled one-dimensional extended Hubbard model using quantum information entropies within the density-matrix renormalization group. It is well known that there is a charge-density-wave phase at large nearest-neighbor and a small on-site Coulomb repulsion and a spin-density wave at small nearest-neighbor and large on-site Coulomb repulsion. At intermediate Coulomb interaction strength, we find an additional narrow region of a bond-order phase between these two phases. The phase transition line for the transition out of the charge-density-wave phase changes from first order at strong coupling to second order in a parameter regime where all three phases are present. We present evidence that the additional phase-transition line between the spin-density-wave and bond-order phases is infinite order. While these results are in agreement with recent numerical work, our study provides an independent unbiased means of determining the phase boundaries by using quantum information analysis, yields values for the location of some of the phase boundaries that differ from those previously found, and provides insight into the limitations of numerical methods in determining phase boundaries, especially those of infinite-order transitions.
In superconducting phases, repulsive interactions between the electrons usually lead to higher-angular momentum Cooper pairing. Here, the authors employ the weak-coupling renormalization group approach to study unconventional superconducting phases emerging in the extended, repulsive Hubbard model on paradigmatic two-dimensional lattices. Among their findings are extended regions of chiral topological superconductivity on the square, triangular, and honeycomb lattices. They provide detailed superconducting phase diagrams as well as the coupling strengths that quantify the corresponding critical temperatures depending on the band-structure parameters, band filling, and interaction parameters. The importance of the resolution and accuracy of the numerical integration for the method is discussed and a way to higher numerical efficiency provided.