We investigate the ground-state property and the excitation gap of a one-dimensional spin-orbital model with isotropic spin and anisotropic orbital exchange interactions, which represents the strong-coupling limit of a two-orbital Hubbard model including the Hund's rule coupling
(J) at quarter filling, by using a density-matrix renormalization group method. At
J=0, spin and orbital correlations coincide with each other with a peak at $q=\ensuremath{\pi}∕2$, corresponding to the SU(4) singlet state. On the other hand, spin and orbital states change in a different way due to the Hund's rule coupling. With increasing
J, the peak position of orbital correlation changes to $q=\ensuremath{\pi}$, while that of spin correlation remains at $q=\ensuremath{\pi}∕2$. In addition, orbital dimer correlation becomes robust in comparison with spin dimer correlation, suggesting that quantum orbital fluctuation is enhanced by the Hund's rule coupling. Accordingly, a relatively large orbital gap opens in comparison with a spin gap, and the system is described by an effective spin system on the background of the orbital dimer state.
The one-dimensional SU(4) Hubbard model perturbed by Hund coupling is studied, away from half-filling, by means of renormalization-group and bosonization methods. A spectral gap is always present in the spin-orbital sector irrespective of the magnitude of the Coulomb repulsion. We further distinguish between two qualitatively different regimes. At small Hund coupling, we find that the symmetry of the system is dynamically enlarged to SU(4) at low energy with the result of coherent spin-orbital excitations. When the charge sector is not gapped, a superconducting instability is shown to exist. At large Hund coupling, the symmetry is no longer enlarged to SU(4) and the excitations in the spin sector become incoherent. Furthermore, the superconductivity can be suppressed in favor of the conventional charge density wave state.