We investigate electronic properties of the doped two-leg Hubbard ladder with both the onsite and the nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsions, by using the the weak-coupling renormalization-group method. It is shown that, for strong nearest-neighbor repulsions, the charge-density-wave state coexisting with the p-density-wave state becomes dominant fluctuation where spins form intrachain singlets. By increasing doping rate, we have also shown that the effects of the nearest-neighbor repulsions are reduced and the system exhibits a quantum phase transition into the d-wave-like (or rung-singlet) superconducting state. We derive the effective fermion theory which describes the critical properties of the transition point with the gapless excitation of magnon. The phase diagram of the two-leg ladder compound, Sr_{14-x}Ca_xCu_{24}O_{41}, is discussed.
We have investigated quantum critical behavior in the doped two-leg extended Hubbard ladder, by using a weak-coupling bosonization method. In the ground state, the dominant fluctuation changes from the conventional
d-wave-like superconducting
(SCd) state into density-wave states, with increasing nearest-neighbor repulsions and/or decreasing doping rate. The competition between the
SCd state and the charge-density-wave state coexisting with the
p-density-wave state becomes noticeable on the critical point, at which the gap for magnetic excitations vanishes. Based on the Majorana-fermion description of the effective theory, we calculate the temperature dependence of the magnetic response such as the spin susceptibility and the NMR relaxation rate, which exhibit unusual properties due to two kinds of spin excitation modes. On the quantum critical point, the spin susceptibility shows paramagnetic behavior with logarithmic corrections and the NMR relaxation rate also exhibits anomalous power-law behavior. We discuss the commensurability effect due to the umklapp scattering and relevance to the two-leg ladder compounds ${\mathrm{Sr}}_{14\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Ca}}_{x}{\mathrm{Cu}}_{24}{\mathrm{O}}_{41}$.
We investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the quarter-filled Hubbard ladder with nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsion
V using the density matrix renormalization-group technique. The ground state is homogeneous at small
V, a ``checkerboard'' charge-ordered insulator at large
V and not too small on site Coulomb repulsion U, and is phase separated for moderate or large
V and small U. The zero-temperature transition between the homogeneous and the charge-ordered phase is found to be second order. In both the homogeneous and the charge-ordered phases the existence of a spin gap mainly depends on the ratio of interchain to intrachain hopping. In the second part of the paper we construct an effective Hamiltonian for the spin degrees of freedom in the strong-coupling, charge-ordered regime that maps the system onto a frustrated spin chain. The opening of a spin gap is thus connected with spontaneous dimerization.
The ground-state phase diagram of the half-filled two-leg Hubbard ladder with intersite Coulomb repulsions and exchange coupling is studied by using the strong-coupling perturbation theory and the weak-coupling bosonization method. Considered here as possible ground states of the ladder model are four types of density-wave states with different angular momentum
(s-density-wave state, p-density-wave state, d-density-wave state, and f-density-wave state) and four types of quantum disordered states, i.e., Mott insulating states
(S-Mott, D-Mott, ${S}^{\ensuremath{'}}$-Mott, and ${D}^{\ensuremath{'}}$-Mott states, where S and D stand for s- and d-wave symmetry). The s-density-wave state, the d-density-wave state, and the D-Mott state are also known as the charge-density-wave state, the staggered-flux state, and the rung-singlet state, respectively. Strong-coupling approach naturally leads to the Ising model in a transverse field as an effective theory for the quantum phase transitions between the staggered-flux state and the D-Mott state and between the charge-density-wave state and the S-Mott state, where the Ising ordered states correspond to doubly degenerate ground states in the staggered-flux or the charge-density-wave state. From the weak-coupling bosonization approach it is shown that there are three cases in the quantum phase transitions between a density-wave state and a Mott state: the Ising
(Z2) criticality, the
SU(2)2 criticality, and a first-order transition. The quantum phase transitions between Mott states and between density-wave states are found to be the U(1) Gaussian criticality. The ground-state phase diagram is determined by integrating perturbative renormalization-group equations. It is shown that the S-Mott state and the staggered-flux state exist in the region sandwiched by the charge-density-wave phase and the D-Mott phase. The p-density-wave state, the ${S}^{\ensuremath{'}}$-Mott state, and the ${D}^{\ensuremath{'}}$-Mott state also appear in the phase diagram when the next-nearest-neighbor repulsion is included. The correspondence between Mott states in extended Hubbard ladders and spin-liquid states in spin ladders is also discussed.
We investigate the charge-order transition at zero temperature in a two-leg Hubbard ladder with additional nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsion
V using the density matrix renormalization group technique. We consider electron densities between quarter and half filling. For quarter filling and
U=8t, we find evidence for a continuous phase transition between a homogeneous state at small
V and a broken-symmetry state with ``checkerboard'' [wave vector $\mathbf{Q}=(\ensuremath{\pi},\ensuremath{\pi})$] charge order at large
V. This transition to a checkerboard charge-ordered state remains present at all larger fillings, but becomes discontinuous at sufficiently large filling. We discuss the influence of
U/t on the transition and estimate the position of the tricritical points.
Inspired by the observation of a robust
d-wave superconducting phase driven by tuning the next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) electron hopping in recent density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies of six- and eight-leg $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ model, we systematically study the phase diagram of the two-leg $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ ladder with the NNN couplings (including NNN hopping and spin interaction) in a large region of doping level, by means of the DMRG calculations. Upon doping from half filling, we identify the Luther-Emery liquid (LEL) phase, which can be distinguished as the pairing-dominant and charge density-dominant regime by comparing the Luttinger parameter ${K}_{\ensuremath{\rho}}$. With the growing NNN couplings, pairing correlations are enhanced and correspondingly ${K}_{\ensuremath{\rho}}$ increases, driving the system from the density-dominant to the pairing-dominant regime. In the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) phase in the larger doping region, we identify two TLL regimes with different features of charge density correlation. At the quarter filling (
1/2 doping level), we find that the strong dimer orders of bond energy in the open system actually decay algebraically and thus do not indicate a spontaneous translational symmetry breaking. Our results show that in the LEL phase of the two-leg ladder, the NNN couplings seem to play the similar role as that on the wider $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ cylinder, and studies on this more accessible system can be helpful toward understanding the emergence of the remarkable
d-wave superconducting phase on the wider system.
We study the magnetic and charge dynamical response of a Hubbard model in a two-leg ladder geometry using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method and the random phase approximation within the fluctuation-exchange approximation (FLEX). Our calculations reveal that FLEX can capture the main features of the magnetic response from weak up to intermediate Hubbard repulsion for doped ladders, when compared with the numerically exact DMRG results. However, while at weak Hubbard repulsion both the spin and charge spectra can be understood in terms of weakly interacting electron-hole excitations across the Fermi surface, at intermediate coupling DMRG shows gapped spin excitations at large momentum transfer that remain gapless within the FLEX approximation. For the charge response, FLEX can only reproduce the main features of the DMRG spectra at weak coupling and high doping levels, while it shows an incoherent character away from this limit. Overall, our analysis shows that FLEX works surprisingly well for spin excitations at weak and intermediate Hubbard
U values even in the difficult low-dimensional geometry such as a two-leg ladder. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for neutron scattering and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering experiments on two-leg ladder cuprate compounds.