We study the effects of anharmonicity on the physics of the Holstein model, which describes the coupling of itinerant fermions and localized quantum phonons, by introducing a quartic term in the phonon potential energy. We find that the presence of this anharmonic term reduces the extent of the charge density wave (CDW) phase at half-filling as well as the transition temperature to this phase. Doping away from half-filling, we observe a first-order phase transition between the CDW and a homogeneous phase which is also present in the harmonic model. In addition, we study the evolution of the superconducting susceptibility in the doped region and show that anharmonicity can enhance the superconducting response.
Monte Carlo simulations are performed to examine superconductivity and charge-density-wave fluctuations in the infinite-dimensional electron-phonon Holstein model. The electron-phonon system interpolates between an attractive, static, Falicov-Kimball model that always exhibits charge-density-wave order and an attractive, instantaneous, Hubbard model that always superconducts as a function of phonon frequency. The maximum charge-density-wave transition temperature at half-filling is an order of magnitude smaller than the effective electronic bandwidth and is virtually independent of the phonon frequency. The maximum superconducting transition temperature depends strongly on phonon frequency and is bounded from above by the maximum charge-density-wave transition temperature. The exact solution is compared to both weak-coupling expansions and strong-coupling expansions. The effective phonon potential becomes anharmonic and develops a double-well structure that deepens as the electron-phonon interaction increases.
We investigate the effect of anharmonicity on the one-dimensional half-filled Holstein model by using the determinant quantum Monte Carlo method. By calculating the order parameters we find that with and without anharmonicity there is always an transition from a disorder phase to a dimerized phase. Moreover, in the dimerized phase a lattice dimerization and a charge density wave coexist. The anharmonicity represented by the quartic term suppresses the dimerization as well as the charge density wave, while a double-well potential favors the dimerization. In addition, by calculating the correlation exponents we show that the disorder phase is metallic with gapless charge excitations and gapful spin excitations while in the dimerized phase both excitations are gapful.
We present quantum Monte Carlo results for a two-dimensional electron-phonon model. At half filling, a Peierls--charge-density-wave (CDW) instability dominates the behavior of the system and suppresses superconductivity. The CDW structure factor scales with system size and is consistent with a finite-size Ising-like scaling analysis which we use to estimate
Tc for the Peierls-CDW transition. Away from half filling, the Monte Carlo calculations show superconducting pairing in an s-wave channel, with a peak in the pair field susceptibility near a region in which there are strong Peierls-CDW correlations.
By using variational wave functions and quantum Monte Carlo techniques, we investigate the interplay between electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in the two-dimensional Hubbard-Holstein model. Here, the ground-state phase diagram is triggered by several energy scales, i.e., the electron hopping
t, the on-site electron-electron interaction
U, the phonon energy ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$, and the electron-phonon coupling
g. At half filling, the ground state is an antiferromagnetic insulator for $U\ensuremath{\gtrsim}2{g}^{2}/{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$, while it is a charge-density-wave (or bipolaronic) insulator for $U\ensuremath{\lesssim}2{g}^{2}/{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$. In addition to these phases, we find a superconducting phase that intrudes between them. For ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}/t=1$, superconductivity emerges when both
U/t and $2{g}^{2}/t{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$ are small; then, by increasing the value of the phonon energy ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$, it extends along the transition line between antiferromagnetic and charge-density-wave insulators. Away from half filling, phase separation occurs when doping the charge-density-wave insulator, while a uniform (superconducting) ground state is found when doping the superconducting phase. In the analysis of finite-size effects, it is extremely important to average over twisted boundary conditions, especially in the weak-coupling limit and in the doped case.
On the basis of quantum Monte Carlo simulations we study the influence of "breathing" lattice distortions on the two-dimensional Hubbard model. In the half-filled band case the system remains stable against the formation of a charge-density wave already for intermediate values (
U=4t) of the electronic interaction. However, the addition of holes allows for a charge-density-wave state. Thus, the structural instability is not driven by nesting of the Fermi surface, but by the combined effect of doping and Coulomb correlation. The influence of the distortion on the various pairing correlation functions is calculated.