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arXiv:cond-mat/0403430 · Physical Review Letters

Variational Description of Mott Insulators

Manuela Capello, Federico Becca, Michele Fabrizio, Sandro Sorella, Erio Tosatti

Published Jan 20, 2005• 196 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The Gutzwiller wave function for a strongly correlated model can, if supplemented with a long-range Jastrow factor, provide a proper variational description of Mott insulators, so far unavailable. We demonstrate this concept in the prototypical one-dimensional t-t(') Hubbard model, where at half-filling we reproduce all known phases, namely, the ordinary Mott undimerized insulator with power-law spin correlations at small t(')/t, the spin-gapped metal above a critical t(')/t and small U, and the dimerized Mott insulator at large repulsion.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.94.026406

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One-dimensionalt-Jmodel from a variational viewpoint

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arXiv:cond-mat/9506142•Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Mar 1, 1996•14 citations
The Gutzwiller wave function for a strongly correlated model can, if supplemented with a long-range Jastrow factor, provide a proper variational description of Mott insulators, so far unavailable. We demonstrate this concept in the prototypical one-dimensional t-t(') Hubbard model, where at half-filling we reproduce all known phases, namely, the ordinary Mott undimerized insulator with power-law spin correlations at small t(')/t, the spin-gapped metal above a critical t(')/t and small U, and the dimerized Mott insulator at large repulsion.
We show that a particular class of variational wave functions reproduces the low-energy properties of the Hubbard model in one dimension. Our approach generalizes to finite on-site Coulomb repulsion the fully projected wave function proposed by Hellberg and Mele [Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 2080 (1991)] for describing the Luttinger-liquid behavior of the doped $t\ensuremath{-}J$ model. Within our approach, the long-range Jastrow factor emerges from a careful minimization of the energy, without assuming any parametric form for the long-distance tail. Specifically, in the conducting phase of the Hubbard model at finite hole doping, we obtain the correct power-law behavior of the correlations, with the exponents predicted by the Tomonaga-Luttinger theory. By decreasing the doping, the insulating phase is reached with a continuous change of the small-qqq part of the Jastrow factor.
New variational wave functions are introduced to describe the Hubbard model in strong correlation. Intersite correlation (or Jastrow) factors are taken into account beyond the Gutzwiller wave function (GF). A study is made on the one-dimensional lattice and the two-dimensional square lattice at half-filling as well as less-than-half-filling. Much improvement can be achieved thereby in the description of physical quantities such as the momentum distribution and spin and charge density correlation functions. In addition, the ground state energy is lowered appreciably compared with the GF. In this connection, the Mott-Hubbard-type metal-insulator transition is also re-examined.
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 introduce an extension of the Gutzwiller variational wave function able to deal with insulators that escape any mean-field-like description, as, for instance, nonmagnetic insulators. As an application, we study the Mott transition from a paramagnetic metal into a nonmagnetic Peierls, or valence-bond, Mott insulator. We analyze this model by means of our Gutzwiller wave function analytically in the limit of large coordination lattices, where we find that (1) the Mott transition is of first order; (2) the Peierls gap is large in the Mott insulator, although it is mainly contributed by the electron repulsion; and (3) singlet superconductivity arises around the transition.
An approximate solution scheme, similar to the Gutzwiller approximation, is presented for the Baeriswyl and the Baeriswyl-Gutzwiller variational wave functions. The phase diagram of the one-dimensional Hubbard model as a function of interaction strength and particle density is determined. For the Baeriswyl wave function a metal-insulator transition is found at half filling, where the metallic phase (U<Uc)(U<{U}_{c})(U<Uc​) corresponds to the Hartree-Fock solution, the insulating phase is one with finite double occupations arising from bound excitons. This transition can be viewed as the ``inverse'' of the Brinkman-Rice transition. Close to but away from half filling, the U>UcU>{U}_{c}U>Uc​ phase displays a finite Fermi step, as well as double occupations originating from bound excitons. As the filling is changed away from half-filling bound excitons are suppressed. For the Baeriswyl-Gutzwiller wave function at half filling a metal-insulator transition between the correlated metallic and excitonic insulating state is found. Away from half-filling bound excitons are suppressed quicker than for the Baeriswyl wave function.
The one-dimensional (1D) t-J model is investigated by using a Gutzwiller-Jastrow-type variation method and the exact diagonalization of small systems. Variational expectation values are estimated by the variational Monte Carlo method with sufficient accuracy. First, we give detailed descriptions of the preceding paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 3610 (1991)], where we discussed the properties of the Fermi-liquid-type Jastrow wave function as well as the Gutzwiller wave function. Secondly, these wave functions are compared with the Tomonaga-Luttinger-liquid-type wave function proposed by Hellberg and Mele. It is found that the correlation factors in short distances control bulk quantities like energy and the magnitude of the correlation functions, while the long-range part of the correlation factors determines the critical behavior of correlation functions. Finally, using these functions, charge, spin susceptibilities, and magnetization curve are estimated, which agree with the exact results. It is shown that the Mott transition in the 1D t-J model is quite different from the Brinkman-Rice transition. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.