Based on the perturbative renormalization group (PRG) approach, we have studied dimensional crossovers in Hubbard ladders coupled via weak interladder one-particle hopping,
t⊥. We found that the one-particle crossover is strongly suppressed through growth of the intraladder scattering processes which lead the isolated Hubbard ladder system toward the spin gap metal (SGM) phase. Consequently when
t⊥ sets in, there exists, for any finite intraladder Hubbard repulsion,
U>0, the region where the two-particle crossover dominates the one-particle crossover and consequently the d-wave superconducting transition, which is regarded as a bipolaron condensation, occurs. By solving the scaling equations for the interladder one-particle and two-particle hopping amplitudes, we give phase diagrams of the system with respect to
U,
t⊥0 (initial value of
t⊥) and the temperature,
T. We compared the above dimensional crossovers with those in a weakly coupled chain system, clarifying the difference between them.
We study the dimensional crossover from one to two dimensions in half-filled and lightly doped, weakly interacting N-leg Hubbard ladders. In this case, the Hubbard ladders are equivalent to an N-band model. Using renormalization-group techniques, we find that the half-filled ladders exhibit (in the spin sector) an odd-even effect only below a crossover energy ${E}_{c}\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{exp}[\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\alpha}\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{\gamma}N)]$ $(\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\ll}1$ and $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\sim}1$ depend on the interaction strength and on the hopping matrix elements): Below
Ec, the dominant interactions take place within band pairs $(j,N+1\ensuremath{-}j)$ [and within the band
(N+1)/2 for N odd], such that even-leg ladders are an insulating spin liquid, while odd-leg ladders have one gapless spinon mode. In contrast, above the energy scale
Ec, all bands are interacting with each other and the system is a two-dimensional- (2D)-like (insulating) antiferromagnet; we obtain an analytical expression for the Hamiltonian which is similar to the 2D Heisenberg antiferromagnet. Bosonization techniques show that in the charge sector the Mott insulator is as well below and above
Ec of the same type as in
N/2 half-filled two-leg ladders. Doping away from half-filling, we find that the effect of an increasing doping $\ensuremath{\delta}$ is very similar to decreasing the number of legs N: In both cases interactions between unpaired bands are suppressed and thereby the antiferromagnetic correlations reduced. The resulting band pairs form then insulating spin liquids and when doped, there is a spin gap, but phase coherence exists only within the band pairs. At higher doping levels ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}={\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}(N),$ phase coherence between all band pairs sets in and the system becomes a 2D-like d-wave superconductor $[{\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}(N)\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ for $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{N}\ensuremath{\infty}].$
The two-dimensional Hubbard model is studied for small values of the interaction strength (
U of the order of the hopping amplitude
t), using a variational ansatz well suited for this regime. The wave function, a refined Gutzwiller ansatz, has a BCS mean-field state with
d-wave symmetry as its reference state. Superconducting order is found for densities
n<1 (but not for
n=1). This resolves a discrepancy between results obtained with the functional renormalization group, which do predict superconducting order for small values of
U, and numerical simulations, which did not find superconductivity for $U\ensuremath{\lesssim}4t$. Both the gap parameter and the order parameter have a domelike shape as a function of
n with a maximum for $n\ensuremath{\approx}0.8$. Expectation values for the energy, the particle number, and the superconducting order parameter are calculated using a linked-cluster expansion up to second order in
U. In this way large systems (millions of sites) can be readily treated and well converged results are obtained. A big size is indeed required to see that the gap becomes very small at half filling and probably tends to zero in the thermodynamic limit, whereas away from half filling a finite asymptotic limit is reached. For a lattice of a given size the order parameter becomes finite only above a minimal coupling strength
Uc. This threshold value decreases steadily with increasing system size, which indicates that superconductivity exists for arbitrarily small
U for an infinite system. For moderately large systems the size dependence is quite irregular, due to variations in level spacings at the Fermi energy. The fluctuations die out if the gap parameter spans several level spacings.
The spin gap of a one-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model is numerically calculated with the density-matrix renormalization group, with a special emphasis on the effect of a next-nearest-neighbor hopping ${(t}^{\ensuremath{'}})$ and the nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic exchange
(J) interaction. At half filling, a significant spin gap opens if $|{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}|\ensuremath{\simeq}|t|$ and
J=0, in agreement with the weak-coupling theory, while the gap is strongly suppressed by the introduction of
J. On the other hand, the quarter-filled system has very small spin gaps regardless of the values of ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ and
J. Implications for the
CuO2 chain in
Sr14Cu24O41 and related materials are discussed.