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arXiv:cond-mat/0007472 · Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Quantum Monte Carlo study of the one-dimensional ionic Hubbard model

Tim Wilkens, Richard M. Martin

Published May 16, 2001• 70 citations
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Abstract

Quantum Monte Carlo methods are used to study a quantum phase transition in a one-dimensional Hubbard model with on-site interaction U and a staggered ionic potential $(\ensuremath{\Delta}).$ Using recently formulated methods, the electronic polarization and localization are determined directly from the correlated ground state wave function and compared to results of previous work using exact diagonalization and Hartree-Fock. We find a transition from a symmetric band insulator to a broken-symmetry bond ordered (BO) phase as the ratio of $U/\ensuremath{\Delta}$ is increased, with a metallic point at the transition. Since it is known that at $\ensuremath{\Delta}=0$ the usual Hubbard model is a Mott insulator (MI) with no long-range order, we have searched for a second transition to this state by (i) increasing U at fixed $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ and (ii) decreasing $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ at fixed U. We find no transition from the BO to MI state, and we propose that the symmetric MI state exists only at $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\equiv}0.$

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.63.235108

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Quantum Monte Carlo methods are used to study a quantum phase transition in a one-dimensional Hubbard model with on-site interaction U and a staggered ionic potential (\ensuremathΔ).(\ensuremath{\Delta}).(\ensuremathΔ). Using recently formulated methods, the electronic polarization and localization are determined directly from the correlated ground state wave function and compared to results of previous work using exact diagonalization and Hartree-Fock. We find a transition from a symmetric band insulator to a broken-symmetry bond ordered (BO) phase as the ratio of U/\ensuremathΔU/\ensuremath{\Delta}U/\ensuremathΔ is increased, with a metallic point at the transition. Since it is known that at \ensuremathΔ=0\ensuremath{\Delta}=0\ensuremathΔ=0 the usual Hubbard model is a Mott insulator (MI) with no long-range order, we have searched for a second transition to this state by (i) increasing U at fixed \ensuremathΔ\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremathΔ and (ii) decreasing \ensuremathΔ\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremathΔ at fixed U. We find no transition from the BO to MI state, and we propose that the symmetric MI state exists only at \ensuremathΔ\ensuremath≡0.\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\equiv}0.\ensuremathΔ\ensuremath≡0.
The Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the ionic Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice at half filling were performed. The method based on the direct-space, proposed by Suzuki and al., Hirsch and al., was used. Cycles of increasing and decreasing values of the Coulomb interaction $ U $ were performed for fixed temperature ($ kT=0.01 $). Results indicate that, at low temperature, the two insulator phases are separated by a metallic phase for weak to intermediate values of the staggered potential $ Δ$. For large Coulomb repulsion the system is in a Mott insulator with an antiferromagnetism order. On increasing and decreasing the Coulomb interaction $ U $ the metal-Mott insulator transition shows an hysteresis phenomenon while the metal-band insulator transition is continue. For large $ Δ$ it seems that the metallic region shrinks to a single metallic point. However, the band insulator to the Mott insulator transition is not direct for the studied model. A phase diagram is drawn for the temperature $ kT=0.01 $. For $ Δ=0.5 $ cycles of increasing and decreasing temperature were programmed for different values of the Coulomb interaction $ U $ . A behaviour change appears for $ U\simeq 1.75 $. This suggests that a crossover line divides the metallic region of the phase diagram.
We study quantum phase transitions of an ionic Hubbard model in two dimensions. The ionic Hubbard model explains the quantum states of strongly correlated electrons under the influence of checkerboard-type alternating chemical potentials. For a given amplitude of the alternating potentials Δ, we obtain quantum ground states as we tune the local repulsive energy U between a spin-up electron and a spin-down electron by using an exact diagonalization method of a modified Lanczos algorithm. The system undergoes a quantum phase transition from a band insulator to a Mott insulator as U increases at half-filling. We find the signature of a quantum phase transition by investigating the behavior of ground-state energies and that of double occupancies for the size of L × L = 4 × 4, which was the largest possible lattice in this work. We compare our results with those of quantum Monte Carlo simulations employing the Hirsch-Fye algorithm.
Strongly correlated electron systems are one of the most fascinating problems in current physics. The strong electron-electron interaction in these materials leads to the emergence of nontrivial elementary excitations (quasiparticles, QPs) above the ground state ranging from fractional spins in quasi-one-dimensional materials to magnetic monopole in the pyrochlore lattice. The condensation of these quasiparticles upon changing some external parameters may stabilize new exotic states of matter. Experimental measurements such as inelastic neutron scattering provide us with valuable information about the excitation spectrum of such systems which require microscopic models to be described. This thesis is devoted to a detailed analysis of the excitation spectrum and of the quantum phase transitions in the one-dimensional (1D) ionic Hubbard model (IHM). The IHM consists of a nearest-neighbor (n.n.) hopping, onsite Hubbard interaction, and an ionic (staggered) potential separating the odd and even sites energetically. The model exhibits two continuous phase transitions on increasing the Hubbard interaction identified by a low-energy effective field theory and confirmed by a rigorous density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) analysis after several attempts. The first transition occurs from band insulator (BI) phase to the 2-fold degenerate spontaneously dimerized insulator (SDI) phase. The transition is in the Ising universality class as is plausible from symmetry considerations. The SDI phase becomes unstable towards a quasi-long-range order Mott insulator (MI) phase at a second transition point resembling the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) transition in the frustrated Heisenberg chain. We employ continuous unitary transformations (CUT) to systematically map the IHM to effective Hamiltonians (almost) conserving the number of QPs in the system. Using an analysis in the BI regime where electrons and holes define QPs, the low-energy excitation spectrum of the model is quantitatively determined in the BI phase almost up to the first transition point. The transition from the BI to the SDI phase is signaled by the vanishing of an S=0 exciton mode at the total momentum K=\pi. The condensation of these excitons beyond the first transition point is described by a BCS-type-theory showing the stabilization of the SDI phase. The mean-field solution indicates no second phase transition to the quasi-long-range order MI phase. This is interpreted as the effect of strong quantum fluctuations in one dimension. We consider the IHM in the dimer limit where the uniform chain is separated into independent dimers. The different phases of the IHM are studied by increasing the interdimer hopping and reaching the uniform limit. This dimer limit satisfactorily produces the excitation spectrum of the BI phase confirming the vanishing of an S=0 exciton mode at the first transition point. It is found that the SDI-to-MI transition takes place by softening of a magnetic S=1 excitation, i.e., a triplon. We report rigorous results for the gapless triplon dispersion in the MI phase and discuss the binding effects in the 2-triplon sector.
"Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) is one of the most powerful methods for solving many body problems in Physics and Chemistry. MC sampling allows one to measure physical properties systems with very complicated wave functions that incorporate correlation between the electrons. Additionally, QMC has O(N3) scaling verses exponential scaling for methods such as Conguration Interaction and “exact diagonalization"", and it’s perfect parallelism allows one to speed up computation with little effort on large parallel computers. Our work has focused on two systems. The first is a 1D ionic Hubbard model with a complex phase diagram that we find to exhibit a ferroeletric \bond ordered"" phase. A new many-body berry's phase formulation of the electronic polarization and localization is used in conjunction with QMC to analyze whether a bond order phase exists between the customary band and Mott insulating phases. The bond order and bond order correlation functions are measured to illustrate the stability of this intermediate state, and phase swapping between two degenerate states of bond order (§B) is observed. We propose that the Mott state it is unstable to bond ordering for any degree of ionicity. The second system we have studied is a set of idealized (harmonic) and realistic quantum dots. Two idealized dots, spherical and squashed, quasi-2D structures, are analyzed. In the first QMC is contrasted with a large set of commonly used electronic structure methods including MSFT, KLI, LSDA, and CCSD, and in the second we scrutinize whether SDW states truly exist as predicted by LSDA. In conjunction with the Computational Electronics Group at the Beckman Institute, we have performed QMC calculations on realistically modeled quantum dots in the effective mass approximation. The potentials of these dots are determined using the FEM method to solve Poisson's equation and the effective mass is allowed to spatially vary in our QMC simulations. We find that in arrays of QD's, LSDA may be insufficiently accurate to determine the proper spin states of the electrons. Additionally, we illustrate that QMC has a bright future ahead of it in modeling such devices using arbitrary functions represented on grids using splines."
We use a density-matrix renormalization group method to study quantitatively the phase diagram of the half-filled one-dimensional (1D) extended Hubbard model in the presence of a staggered ionic potential Δ. An extensive finite-size scaling analysis is carried out on the relevant structure factors and localization operator to characterize the Mott-insulator (MI)-bond-ordered insulator (BOI)-band-insulator (BI) transitions. The intermediate BOI phase occupies a small region of the phase diagram, and this region is enlarged in the presence of Δ. In addition, the phase diagram of ionic Hubbard (the nearest-neighbor electron-electron interaction V=0) is also given.
The interaction-driven insulator-to-metal transition has been reported in the ionic Hubbard model (IHM) for moderate interaction UUU, while its metallic phase only occupies a narrow region in the phase diagram. To explore the enlargement of the metallic regime, we extend the ionic Hubbard model to two coupled layers and study the interplay of interlayer hybridization VVV and two types of intralayer staggered potentials $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$: one with the same (in-phase) and the other with a $\ensuremath{\pi}$-phase shift (antiphase) potential between layers. Our determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) simulations at lowest accessible temperatures demonstrate that the interaction-driven metallic phase between Mott and band insulators expands in the $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\text{\ensuremath{-}}V$ phase diagram of bilayer IHM only for in-phase ionic potentials; while antiphase potential always induces an insulator with charge density order. This implies possible further extension of the ionic Hubbard model from the bilayer case here to a realistic three-dimensional model.