We investigate effects of short-range interactions on the addition spectra of quantum dots using a disordered Hubbard model. A correlation function S(q) is defined on the inverse compressibility versus filling data, and computed numerically for small lattices. Two regimes of interaction strength are identified: the even/odd fluctuations regime typical of Fermi-liquid ground states, and a regime of structureless S(q) at strong interactions. We propose to understand the latter regime in terms of magnetically correlated localized spins. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
We investigate effects of short-range interactions on the addition spectra of quantum dots using a disordered Hubbard model. A correlation function S(q) is defined on the inverse compressibility versus filling data, and computed numerically for small lattices. Two regimes of interaction strength are identified: the even/odd fluctuations regime typical of Fermi-liquid ground states, and a regime of structureless S(q) at strong interactions. We propose to understand the latter regime in terms of magnetically correlated localized spins. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
We investigate the momentum-resolved spin and charge susceptibilities, as well as the chemical potential and double occupancy in the two-dimensional Hubbard model as functions of doping, temperature, and interaction strength. Through these quantities, we identify a weak-coupling regime, a strong-coupling regime with short-range correlations and an intermediate-coupling regime with long magnetic correlation lengths. In the spin channel, we observe an additional crossover from commensurate to incommensurate correlations. In contrast, we find charge correlations to be only short ranged for all studied temperatures, which suggests that the spin and charge responses are decoupled. These findings were obtained by a connected determinant diagrammatic Monte Carlo algorithm for the computation of double expansions, which we introduce in this paper. This permits us to obtain numerically exact results at temperatures as low as T=0.067 and interactions up to U=7, while working on arbitrarily large lattices. Our method also allows us to gain physical insights from investigating the analytic structure of perturbative series. We connect to previous work by studying smaller lattice geometries and report substantial finite-size effects.
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 analyze the ground state of spinless fermions on a lattice in a weakly disordered potential, interacting via a nearest-neighbor interaction, by applying the self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation. We find that charge density modulations emerge progressively when ${r}_{s}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}1$, even away from half-filling, with only short-range density correlations. Classical geometry-dependent magic numbers can show up in the addition spectrum which are remarkably robust against quantum fluctuations and disorder averaging.
Quantum dot structures confine electrons in a small region of space. Some properties of semiconductor quantum dots, such as the discrete energy levels and shell filling effects visible in addition spectra, have analogies to those of atoms and indeed dots are sometimes referred to as 'artificial atoms'. However, atoms and dots show some fundamental differences due to electron correlations. For real atoms, the kinetic energy of electrons dominates over their mutual Coulomb repulsion energy and for this reason the independent electron approximation works well. For quantum dots the confining potential may be shallower than that of real atoms leading to lower electron densities and a dominance of mutual Coulomb repulsion over kinetic energy. In this strongly correlated regime the independent electron picture leads to qualitatively incorrect results. This thesis concentrates on few-electron quantum dots in the strongly correlated regime both for quasi-one-dimensional and two-dimensional dots in a square confining potential. In this so-called 'Wigner' regime the ground-state electronic charge density is localised near positions of classical electrostatic minima and the interacting electronic spectrum consists of well separated spin multiplets. In the strongly correlated regime the structure of low-energy multiplets is explained by mapping onto lattice models with extended-Hubbard and Heisenberg effective Hamiltonians. The parameters for these effective models are calculated within a Hartree approximation and are shown to reproduce well the exact results obtained by numerical diagonalisation of the full interacting Hamiltonian. Comparison is made between square dots and quantum rings with full rotational symmetry. In the very low-density regime, direct diagonalisation becomes impractical due to excessive computer time for convergence. In this regime a numerical renormalisation group method is applied to one-dimensional dots, enabling effective spin-interactions to be pr
The influence of spin and charge fluctuations on spectra of the two-dimensional fermionic Hubbard model is considered using the strong coupling diagram technique. Infinite sequences of diagrams containing ladder inserts, which describe the interaction of electrons with these fluctuations, are summed, and obtained equations are self-consistently solved for the ranges of Hubbard repulsions [Formula: see text], temperatures [Formula: see text] and electron concentrations [Formula: see text] with t the intersite hopping constant. For all considered U the system exhibits a transition to the long-range antiferromagnetic order at [Formula: see text]. At the same time no indication of charge ordering is observed. Obtained solutions agree satisfactorily with results of other approaches and obey moments sum rules. In the considered region of the U-T plane, the curve separating metallic solutions passes from [Formula: see text] at the highest temperatures to U = 2t at [Formula: see text] for half-filling. If only short-range fluctuations are allowed for the remaining part of this region is occupied by insulating solutions. Taking into account long-range fluctuations leads to strengthening of maxima tails, which transform a part of insulating solutions into bad-metal states. For low T, obtained results allow us to trace the gradual transition from the regime of strong correlations with the pronounced four-band structure and well-defined Mott gap for [Formula: see text] to the Slater regime of weak correlations with the spectral intensity having a dip along the boundary of the magnetic Brillouin zone due to an antiferromagnetic ordering for [Formula: see text]. For [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] doping leads to the occurrence of a pseudogap near the Fermi level, which is a consequence of the splitting out of a narrow band from a Hubbard subband. Obtained spectra feature waterfalls and Fermi arcs, which are similar to those observed in hole-doped cuprates.
We study the ground state of the two-dimensional disordered Hubbard model by means of the projector quantum Monte Carlo method. This approach allows us to investigate the ground-state properties of this model for lattice sizes up to 10\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}10, at quarter filling, for a broad range of interaction and disorder strengths. Our results show that the ground state of this system of spin-21 fermions remains localized in the presence of the short-ranged Hubbard interaction.