We investigate, by numerically calculating the charge stiffness, the effects of random diagonal disorder and electron-electron interaction on the nature of the ground state in the 2D Hubbard model through the finite-size exact diagonalization technique. By comparing with the corresponding 1D Hubbard model results and by using heuristic arguments we conclude that it is unlikely that there is a 2D metal-insulator quantum phase transition, although the effect of interaction in some range of parameters is to substantially enhance the noninteracting charge stiffness.
We investigate, by numerically calculating the charge stiffness, the effects of random diagonal disorder and electron-electron interaction on the nature of the ground state in the 2D Hubbard model through the finite-size exact diagonalization technique. By comparing with the corresponding 1D Hubbard model results and by using heuristic arguments we conclude that it is unlikely that there is a 2D metal-insulator quantum phase transition, although the effect of interaction in some range of parameters is to substantially enhance the noninteracting charge stiffness.
Abstract We review our recent results on Anderson localization in systems of two interacting particles coupled by contact interactions. Based on an exact mapping to an effective single-particle problem, we numerically investigate the occurrence of metal-insulator phase transitions for the pair in two-(2D) and three-dimensional (3D) disordered lattices. In two dimensions, we find that interactions cause an exponential enhancement of the pair localization length with respect to its single-particle counterpart, but do not induce a delocalization transition. In particular we show that previous claims of 2D interaction-induced Anderson transitions are the results of strong finite-size effects. In three dimensions we find that the pair undergoes a metal-insulator transition belonging to the same (orthogonal) universality class of the noninteracting model. We then explore the phase diagram in the space of energy E, disorder W and interaction strength U, which reveals a rich and counterintuitive structure, endowed with multiple metallic and insulating phases. We point out that this phenomenon originates from the molecular and scattering-like nature of the pair states available at given energy and disorder strength.
Interplay of electron correlation and randomness is studied by using the Anderson-Hubbard model within the Hartree-Fock approximation. Under the coexistence of short-range interaction and diagonal disorder, we obtain the ground-state phase diagram in three dimensions, which includes an antiferromagnetic insulator, an antiferromagnetic metal, a paramagnetic insulator (Anderson-localized insulator) and a paramagnetic metal. Although only the short-range interaction is present in this model, we find unconventional soft gaps in the insulating phases irrespective of electron filling, spatial dimensions and long-range order, where the single-particle density of states (DOS) vanishes with a power-law scaling in one dimension (1D) or even faster in two dimensions (2D) and three dimensions (3D) toward the Fermi energy. We call it soft Hubbard gap. Moreover, exact-diagonalization results in 1D support the formation of the soft Hubbard gap beyond the mean-field level. The formation of the soft Hubbard gap cannot be attributed to a conventional theory by Efros and Shklovskii (ES) owing the emergence of soft gaps to the long-range Coulomb interaction. Indeed, based on a picture of multivalley energy landscape, we propose a phenomenological scaling theory, which predicts a scaling of the DOS in perfect agreement with the numerical results. We further discuss a correction of the scaling of the DOS by the long-range part of the Coulomb interaction, which modifies the scaling of Efros and Shklovskii. Furthermore, explicit formulae for the temperature dependence of the DC resistivity via variable-range hopping under the influence of the soft gaps are derived. Finally, we compare the present theory with experimental results of SrRu_{1-x}Ti_xO_3.
We study Mott transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model on an anisotropic triangular lattice. We use the Lanczos exact diagonalization of finite-size clusters up to eighteen sites, and calculate Drude weight, charge gap, double occupancy and spin structure factor. We average these physical quantities over twisted boundary conditions in order to reduce finite-size effects. We find a signature of the Mott transition in the dependence of the Drude weight and/or charge gap on the system size. We also examine the possibility of antiferromagnetic order from the spin structure factor. Combining these information, we propose a ground-state phase diagram which has a nonmagnetic insulating phase between a metallic phase and an insulating phase with antiferromagnetic order. Finally, we compare our results with those reported in the previous theoretical studies, and discuss the possibility of an unconventional insulating state.
We present a detailed, quantitative study of the competition between interaction- and disorder-induced effects in electronic systems. For this the Hubbard model with diagonal disorder (Anderson-Hubbard model) is investigated analytically and numerically in the limit of infinite spatial dimensions, i.e., within a dynamical mean-field theory, at half-filling. Numerical results are obtained for three different disorder distributions by employing quantum Monte Carlo techniques, which provide an explicit finite-temperature solution of the model in this limit. The magnetic phase diagram is constructed from the zeros of the inverse averaged staggered susceptibility. We find that at low enough temperatures and sufficiently strong interaction there always exists a phase with antiferromagnetic long-range order. A strong coupling anomaly, i.e., an increase of the N\'eel temperature for increasing disorder, is discovered. An explicit explanation is given, which shows that in the case of diagonal disorder this is a generic effect. The existence of metal-insulator transitions is studied by evaluating the averaged compressibility both in the paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases. A rich transition scenario, involving metal-insulator and magnetic transitions, is found and its dependence on the choice of the disorder distribution is discussed.
In this thesis we consider a variational wave function approach as a possible route to describe the competition between disorder and strong electron-electron interaction in two dimensions. In particular we aim to obtain a transparent and physically intuitive understanding of the competition between these two localizing forces within the simplest model where they both are active, namely the disordered Hubbard model at half filling and in a square lattice. Our approach is based on an approximate form of the ground-state wave function, which we believe contains the physically relevant ingredients for a correct description of both the Mott and the Anderson insulators, where electrons are localized by the Coulomb repulsion and by disorder, respectively. For strongly interacting fermionic systems, a standard variational wave function is constructed by a correlation term acting on a Slater determinant, the latter being an uncorrelated metallic state. Previous variational calculations showed that a long-range density-density correlation factor, so called Jastrow factor, is needed to correctly describe the Mott insulator [9]. This term, which is collective by definition, correlates spatially charge uctuations, thus preventing their free motion that would otherwise imply metallic conductance. For this reason, our variational wave function does include such a term. Anderson localization is instead mostly a matter of single-particle wave functions, hence it pertains to the uncorrelated Slater determinant which the Jastrow factor acts onto. We consider both the case in which we enforce paramagnetism in the wave function and the case in which we allow for magnetic ordering. Summarizing briefly our results, we find that, when the variational wave function is forced to be paramagnetic, the Anderson insulator to Mott insulator transition is continuous. This transition can be captured by studying several quantities. In particular, a novel one that we have identified and that is easily accessible variationally is the disconnected density-density fluctuation at long wavelength, defined by lim where ^nq is the Fourier transform of the charge density at momentum q, (...) denotes quantum average at fixed disorder and the overbar represents the average over disorder configurations. We find that Ndisc q!0 is everywhere finite in the Anderson insulator and vanishes critically at the Mott transition, staying zero in the Mott insulator. When magnetism is allowed and the hopping only connects nearest neighbor sites, upon increasing interaction the paramagnetic Anderson insulator first turns antiferromagnetic and finally the magnetic and compressible Anderson insulator gives way to an incompressible antiferromagnetic Mott insulator. The optimized uncorrelated Slater determinant is always found to be the eigenstate of a disordered non-interacting effective Hamiltonian, which suggests that the model is never metallic. Finally, when magnetism is frustrated by a next to nearest neighbor hopping, the overall sequence of phases does not change. However, the paramagnetic to magnetic transition within the Anderson insulator basin of stability turns first order. Indeed, within the magnetically ordered phase, we find many almost degenerate paramagnetic states with well defined local moments. This is suggestive of an emerging glassy behavior when the competition between disorder and strong correlation is maximum.
We study the Anderson-Hubbard model to examine the interplay between the disordered potential and the Hubbard interactions. We use the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) with an exact diagonalization as an impurity solver to effectively deal with the quantum fluctuations due to the local interactions. In order to characterize the paramagnetic metal-insulator transition in disordered systems, we compute the typical local density of states, as well as the arithmetically-averaged local density of states. Our approach is found to reproduce the characteristic features of the metal-insulator transition in infinite dimensions, such as the existence of the disorder-driven metallic phase for moderate values of disorder strength and interactions, as observed in earlier studies. In two dimensions, the system turns out to exhibit more insulating behavior when we increase the cluster size in the cellular DMFT. The metallic phase, which is induced from weak Mott insulators by the introduction of a disordered potential, is not observed in two dimensions.