The effect of a weak random potential on two-leg Hubbard ladders is investigated. The random potential is shown to induce Anderson localization except for attractive enough interactions, supressing completely d-wave superconductivity. These localization effects remain very strong even for many ladders coupled by Josephson coupling. Both dc and ac conductivities and localization lengths are obtained. Consequences for the superconducting ladder compound SrxCa14−xCu24O41+δ are discussed. The two-chain Hubbard ladder is a toy model of a metal with a spin-gap, reminiscent of the metallic phase of underdoped cuprates. Recent experiments[1] on the superconducting transition in Sr14−xCaxCu24O41 have been interpreted in the framework of this model. However, impurities are only considered as a source of holes and not a source of random potential although it is known that an infinitesimal disorder localizes all electronic states in one dimension. It is therefore important to investigate the disordered Hubbard ladder. The disordered Hubbard ladder is defined by the Hamiltonian: H = −t ‖ (c † i+1,p,σci,p,σ + c † i,p,σci+1,p,σ) − t⊥ i,p,σ i,σ
The effect of a weak random potential on two-leg Hubbard ladders is investigated. The random potential is shown to induce Anderson localization except for attractive enough interactions, supressing completely d-wave superconductivity. These localization effects remain very strong even for many ladders coupled by Josephson coupling. Both dc and ac conductivities and localization lengths are obtained. Consequences for the superconducting ladder compound SrxCa14−xCu24O41+δ are discussed. The two-chain Hubbard ladder is a toy model of a metal with a spin-gap, reminiscent of the metallic phase of underdoped cuprates. Recent experiments[1] on the superconducting transition in Sr14−xCaxCu24O41 have been interpreted in the framework of this model. However, impurities are only considered as a source of holes and not a source of random potential although it is known that an infinitesimal disorder localizes all electronic states in one dimension. It is therefore important to investigate the disordered Hubbard ladder. The disordered Hubbard ladder is defined by the Hamiltonian: H = −t ‖ (c † i+1,p,σci,p,σ + c † i,p,σci+1,p,σ) − t⊥ i,p,σ i,σ
We consider the effect of weak nonmagnetic disorder on two chains of interacting fermions (with and without spins) coupled by interchain hopping. For the spinless case, interchain hopping increases localization for repulsive interactions but stabilizes the s-wave superconducting phase for attractive interactions. For the case with spin, the d-wave phase arising from purely repulsive interactions in the clean system is destroyed by an infinitesimal disorder, while for attractive interactions, the s-wave superconductivity is more resistant to disorder than in the one-chain case. In each case we compute the localization length and the conductivity.
We study the interplay of disorder localization and strong local interactions within the Anderson-Hubbard model. Taking into account local Mott-Hubbard physics and static screening of the disorder potential, the system is mapped onto an effective single-particle Anderson model, which is studied within the self-consistent theory of electron localization. For fermions, we find rich nonmonotonic behavior of the localization length ξ, particularly in two-dimensional systems, including an interaction-induced exponential enhancement of ξ for small and intermediate disorders and a strong reduction of ξ due to hopping suppression by strong interactions. In three dimensions, we identify for half filling a Mott-Hubbard-assisted Anderson localized phase existing between the metallic and the Mott-Hubbardgapped phases. For small U there is re-entrant behavior from the Anderson localized phase to the metallic phase. For bosons, the unrestricted particle occupation number per lattice site yields a monotonic enhancement of ξ as a function of decreasing interaction, which we assume to persist until the superfluid Bose- Einstein condensate phase is entered. Besides, we study cold atomic gases expanding, by a diffusion process, in a weak random potential. We show that the density-density correlation function of the expanding gas is strongly affected by disorder and we estimate the typical size of a speckle spot, i.e., a region of enhanced or depleted density. Both a Fermi gas and a Bose-Einstein condensate (in a mean-field approach) are considered.
Using the generalized DMFT+Σ approach, we study the influence of disorder on single-particle properties of the normal phase and the superconducting transition temperature in the attractive Hubbard model. A wide range of attractive potentials U is studied, from the weak coupling region, where both the instability of the normal phase and superconductivity are well described by the BCS model, to the strong-coupling region, where the superconducting transition is due to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of compact Cooper pairs, formed at temperatures much higher than the superconducting transition temperature. We study two typical models of the conduction band with semi-elliptic and flat densities of states, respectively appropriate for three-dimensional and two-dimensional systems. For the semi-elliptic density of states, the disorder influence on all single-particle properties (e.g., density of states) is universal for an arbitrary strength of electronic correlations and disorder and is due to only the general disorder widening of the conduction band. In the case of a flat density of states, universality is absent in the general case, but still the disorder influence is mainly due to band widening, and the universal behavior is restored for large enough disorder. Using the combination of DMFT+Σ and Nozieres-Schmitt-Rink approximations, we study the disorder influence on the superconducting transition temperature T c for a range of characteristic values of U and disorder, including the BCS-BEC crossover region and the limit of strong-coupling. Disorder can either suppress T c (in the weak-coupling region) or significantly increase T c (in the strong-coupling region). However, in all cases, the generalized Anderson theorem is valid and all changes of the superconducting critical temperature are essentially due to only the general disorder widening of the conduction band.
We study the influence of non-magnetic impurities on the phase diagram of doped two-leg Hubbard Cu–O ladders. In the absence of impurities, this system possesses d-wave superconducting states and orbital current states depending on the doping. A single, strong, scatterer modifies its environment locally and this effect is assessed using a renormalization group (RG) analysis. At high doping, disorder causes intraband instabilities and at low doping it promotes interband instabilities. In the former case, we extend the boundary conformal field theory method—developed in the context of single chains—to handle the ladder problem, and we find exact closed-form analytical expressions for the correlation functions. This allows us to compute experimentally measurable local quantities such as the nuclear magnetic resonance line broadenings and scanning tunneling microscope profiles. We also discuss the low-doping regime where the Kondo physics is at play, making qualitative predictions about its nature. Insight into collective effects is also given in the many weak impurities case, based on an RG approach. In this regime, one sees the interplay between interactions and disorder. We emphasize the influence of the O atoms on disorder effects both for the single- and for the many-defect situations.
We study the effects of disorder on a system of two coupled chains of strongly correlated fermions (the ladder system), using a renormalization-group technique. The stability of the phases of the pure system has been investigated as a function of interactions both for fermions with spin and spinless fermions. For spinless fermions the repulsive side is strongly localized whereas the system with attractive interactions is stable with respect to disorder, at variance with the single-chain case. For fermions with spins, the repulsive side is also localized, and in particular the d-wave superconducting phase found for the pure system is totally destroyed by an arbitrarily small amount of disorder. On the other hand, the attractive side is again remarkably stable with respect to localization. We have also computed the charge stiffness, the localization length, and the temperature dependence of the conductivity for the various phases. In the parameter range where d-wave superconductivity would occur for the pure system the conductivity is found to decrease monotonically with temperature, even at high temperature, and we discuss this surprising result. For a model with one-site repulsion and nearest-neighbor attraction, the most stable phase is an orbital antiferromagnet. Although this phase has no divergent superconducting fluctuation it can have a divergent conductivity at low temperature. Finally, to make a comparison of our results with experimental ladder systems, we treated the interladder coupling in a mean-field approximation. We argue based on our results that the superconductivity observed in some of these compounds cannot be a simple stabilization of the d-wave phase found for a pure single ladder. The application of our results to systems such as quantum wires is also discussed. In particular, the corrections to conductance in a two-channel quantum wire have been obtained as a function of system length, temperature, and interactions.
We study the influence of non-magnetic impurities on the phase diagram of doped two-leg Hubbard Cu–O ladders. In the absence of impurities, this system possesses d-wave superconducting states and orbital current states depending on the doping. A single, strong, scatterer modifies its environment locally and this effect is assessed using a renormalization group (RG) analysis. At high doping, disorder causes intraband instabilities and at low doping it promotes interband instabilities. In the former case, we extend the boundary conformal field theory method—developed in the context of single chains—to handle the ladder problem, and we find exact closed-form analytical expressions for the correlation functions. This allows us to compute experimentally measurable local quantities such as the nuclear magnetic resonance line broadenings and scanning tunneling microscope profiles. We also discuss the low-doping regime where the Kondo physics is at play, making qualitative predictions about its nature. Insight into collective effects is also given in the many weak impurities case, based on an RG approach. In this regime, one sees the interplay between interactions and disorder. We emphasize the influence of the O atoms on disorder effects both for the single- and for the many-defect situations.