"We have studied the extended Hubbard and the Peierls-extended Hubbard models in one dimension using primarily computational methods. We discuss the derivation of the models and the computational methods used to study them, focusing primarily on our extensions over existing numerical methods. In particular, we present the construction of ""operator-loop"" updates for spin-1/2 fermions and the inclusion of electron-phonon interactions in the Stochastic Series Expansion Quantum Monte Carlo method and the use of Quantum Parallel Tempering to improve the quality of the numerical data. For the extended Hubbard model at half-filling, we have confirmed the existence of a recently reported bond-order wave phase for the ground state in a small region of parameter space between the well-known charge- and spin-density wave phases. We have studied in detail the nature of the associated quantum phase transitions between all the phases. Upon doping away from half-filling, the doubly-degenerate, spin and charge gapped long-range-ordered ground states of the model are shown to evolve to a Luther-Emery liquid with no charge gap but a finite spin gap. For the Peierls-extended Hubbard model, which includes both electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions, we have studied the dimerization transition of the half-filled system in the presence of fully quantum mechanical phonons. We show that the transition to a dimerized state occurs only when the electron-phonon coupling exceeds a finite critical value that depends on the bare phonon frequency. This is in contrast to previous studies in similar models with adiabatic phonons that had predicted a dimerized state for arbitrarily small values of the electron-phonon coupling."
"We have studied the extended Hubbard and the Peierls-extended Hubbard models in one dimension using primarily computational methods. We discuss the derivation of the models and the computational methods used to study them, focusing primarily on our extensions over existing numerical methods. In particular, we present the construction of ""operator-loop"" updates for spin-1/2 fermions and the inclusion of electron-phonon interactions in the Stochastic Series Expansion Quantum Monte Carlo method and the use of Quantum Parallel Tempering to improve the quality of the numerical data. For the extended Hubbard model at half-filling, we have confirmed the existence of a recently reported bond-order wave phase for the ground state in a small region of parameter space between the well-known charge- and spin-density wave phases. We have studied in detail the nature of the associated quantum phase transitions between all the phases. Upon doping away from half-filling, the doubly-degenerate, spin and charge gapped long-range-ordered ground states of the model are shown to evolve to a Luther-Emery liquid with no charge gap but a finite spin gap. For the Peierls-extended Hubbard model, which includes both electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions, we have studied the dimerization transition of the half-filled system in the presence of fully quantum mechanical phonons. We show that the transition to a dimerized state occurs only when the electron-phonon coupling exceeds a finite critical value that depends on the bare phonon frequency. This is in contrast to previous studies in similar models with adiabatic phonons that had predicted a dimerized state for arbitrarily small values of the electron-phonon coupling."
The renormalization group technique is applied to one-dimensional electron-phonon Hubbard models at half filling and zero temperature. For the Holstein-Hubbard model, the results of one-loop calculations are congruent with the phase diagram obtained by quantum Monte Carlo simulations in the (U,gph) plane for the phonon-mediated interaction gph and the Coulomb interaction U. The incursion of an intermediate phase between a fully gapped charge-density-wave state and a Mott antiferromagnet is supported along with the growth of its size with the molecular phonon frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$. We find additional phases enfolding the base boundary of the intermediate phase. A Luttinger liquid line is found below some critical ${U}^{*}\ensuremath{\approx}{g}_{\mathrm{ph}}^{*}$, followed at larger $U\ensuremath{\sim}{g}_{\mathrm{ph}}$ by a narrow region of bond-order-wave ordering which is either charge or spin gapped depending on U. For the Peierls-Hubbard model, the region of the (U,gph) plane with a fully gapped Peierls-bond-order-wave state shows a growing domination over the Mott gapped antiferromagnet as the Debye frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{D}$ decreases. A power-law dependence ${g}_{\mathrm{ph}}\ensuremath{\sim}{U}^{2\ensuremath{\eta}}$ is found to map out the boundary between the two phases, whose exponent is in good agreement with the existing quantum Monte Carlo simulations performed when a finite nearest-neighbor repulsion term V is added to the Hubbard interaction.
We study the nature of the ground state of a one-dimensional electron-phonon model for molecular crystals: The phonons are assumed dispersionless and couple to the local electronic density. We consider the half-filled-band sector and discuss the stability of the Peierls-dimerized ground state as a function of the phonon frequency ($\ensuremath{\omega}$), electron-phonon coupling constant ($\ensuremath{\lambda}$), and number of components of the electron spin (n). First, we discuss the properties of the model in the limiting cases of zero frequency and infinite frequency. We then perform a strong coupling expansion which maps the system onto a spinless fermion model with nearest-neighbor repulsion for both spinless and spin-\textonehalf{} electrons, but with different parameters in both cases. Finally, we perform a numerical study of the system using a Monte Carlo technique. We study the behavior of the order parameter and of correlation functions for various points in parameter space. We also perform a finite-size---scaling analysis of the numerical data. The conclusions of our study are the following: For the case of spinless electrons, there exists always a disordered phase for small coupling constant, and the system undergoes an infinite-order transition to a Peierls-dimerized state as the coupling constant increases beyond a critical value. The phase diagram is divided between a disordered and an ordered region by a line that connects the points ($\ensuremath{\omega}=0$, $\ensuremath{\lambda}=0$) and ($\ensuremath{\omega}=\ensuremath{\infty}$, $\ensuremath{\lambda}=\ensuremath{\infty}$). For the case of spin-\textonehalf{} electrons, the system is dimerized for arbitrary $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ and $\ensuremath{\omega}$ except in the limit $\ensuremath{\omega}=\ensuremath{\infty}$.
The interplay between electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions is studied in a one-dimensional lattice model by means of a variational Monte Carlo method based on generalized Jastrow-Slater wave functions. Here, the fermionic part is constructed by a pair-product state, which explicitly depends on the phonon configuration, thus including the electron-phonon coupling in a backflow-inspired way. We report the results for the Hubbard model in the presence of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger coupling to optical phonons, both at half filling and upon hole doping. At half filling, the ground state is either a translationally invariant Mott insulator, with gapless spin excitations, or a Peierls insulator, which breaks translations and has fully gapped excitations. Away from half filling, the charge gap closes in both Mott and Peierls insulators, turning the former into a conventional Luttinger liquid (gapless in all excitation channels). In the latter case, instead, a finite spin gap remains at small doping. Even though consistent with the general theory of interacting electrons in one dimension, the existence of such a phase (with gapless charge but gapped spin excitations) has never been demonstrated in a model with repulsive interaction and with only two Fermi points. Since the spin-gapped metal represents the one-dimensional counterpart of a superconductor, our results furnish evidence that a true off-diagonal long-range order may exist in the two-dimensional case.
This thesis investigates the interplay between electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in low-dimensional lattice models, specifically within the Hubbard model incorporating Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) coupling with phonons. SSH interactions, which modulate the electron hopping amplitude through lattice displacements, have recently attracted renewed interest due to their potential relevance in strongly correlated materials. The main objective of this work is to determine whether the inclusion of SSH couplings in the Hubbard model can stabilize superconducting or spin-gapped metallic states, as well as other exotic phases of matter. While the half-filled SSH-Hubbard model has been extensively studied in one dimension and only partially examined in two dimensions, its phase diagram in the doped regime remains largely unexplored. This thesis aims to fill this gap, focusing on the emergence of correlated phases away from half-filling in both one and two spatial dimensions. We use the variational Monte Carlo method with a trial wave function defined in a hybrid electron-phonon Hilbert space. In addition to Jastrow factors that account for correlation effects, the wave function includes an antisymmetric component that captures backflow-inspired electron-phonon correlations. This approach enables us to accurately model both electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions. Moreover, since the variational method avoids the sign problem, we can simulate the system in the doped regime, an area typically inaccessible to exact quantum Monte Carlo methods (QMC), which are limited to half-filling. In one dimension, we observe the stabilization of a Luther-Emery liquid, a metallic phase with gapless charge excitations and a finite spin gap, upon doping a Peierls insulating phase. This finding resolves a long-standing debate regarding its realization in SSH chains. Benchmarking with density-matrix renormalization group results confirms the reliability of our approach. In two dimensions, we investigate the SSH-Hubbard model on the square lattice, obtaining results that are consistent with previous exact QMC studies at half-filling. Upon doping, we observe that SSH phonons can induce s-wave superconductivity in the weakly correlated regime. However, we suggest that the enhancement of d-wave superconductivity by SSH coupling in the strongly correlated regime may significantly depend on the specific implementation of the SSH interaction. In one particular case, we find that d-wave superconductivity is slightly suppressed by SSH coupling. These results are further confirmed by a Hartree-Fock analysis performed in the anti-adiabatic limit. Overall, this thesis highlights the crucial role of lattice effects in correlated electron systems, shedding light on the distinct contributions of SSH-type couplings in one and two dimensions. Our findings provide new insights into the microscopic mechanisms behind exotic metallic phases and set the stage for further studies of phonon-mediated phenomena in correlated systems.
We present a numerical study of the Hubbard-Holstein model in one dimension at half filling, including finite-frequency quantum phonons. At half filling, the effects of the electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions compete with the Holstein phonon coupling acting as an effective negative Hubbard on-site interaction U that promotes on-site electron pairs and a Peierls charge-density wave state. Most previous work on this model has assumed that only Peierls or Mott phases are possible at half filling. However, there has been speculation that a third metallic phase exists between the Peierls and Mott phases. We confirm the intermediate phase, and show that the Luttinger liquid correlation exponent K(rho) >1 in this region, indicating dominant superconducting pair correlations. We explore the full phase diagram as a function of Hubbard U, phonon coupling constant, and phonon frequency.
The Hubbard-Holstein model describes fermions on a discrete lattice, with on-site repulsion between fermions and a coupling to phonons that are localized on sites. Generally, at half-filling, increasing the coupling g to the phonons drives the system towards a Peierls charge density wave state, whereas increasing the electron-electron interaction U drives the fermions into a Mott antiferromagnet. At low g and U, or when doped, the system is metallic. In one dimension, using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we study the case where fermions have a long-range coupling to phonons, with characteristic range $\ensuremath{\xi}$, interpolating between the Holstein and Fr\"ohlich limits. Without electron-electron interaction, the fermions adopt a Peierls state when the coupling to the phonons is strong enough. This state is destabilized by a small coupling range $\ensuremath{\xi}$ and leads to a collapse of the fermions, and, consequently, phase separation. Increasing interaction U will drive any of these three phases (metallic, Peierls, phase separation) into a Mott insulator phase. The phase separation region is once again present in the $U\ensuremath{\ne}0$ case, even for small values of the coupling range.