Thermalization of a pump-excited Mott insulator

We use nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory in combination with a recently implemented strong-coupling impurity solver to investigate the relaxation of a Mott insulator after a laser excitation with frequency comparable to the Hubbard gap. The time evolution of the double occupancy exhibits a crossover from a strongly damped transient at short times towards an exponential thermalization at long times. In the limit of strong interactions, the thermalization time is consistent with the exponentially small decay rate for artificially created doublons, which was measured in ultracold atomic gases. When the interaction is comparable to the bandwidth, on the other hand, the double occupancy thermalizes within a few times the inverse bandwidth along a rapid thermalization path in which the exponential tail is absent. Similar behavior can be observed in time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Our results show that a simple quasi-equilibrium description of the electronic state breaks down for pump-excited Mott insulators characterized by strong interactions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Photo-induced states in a Mott insulator

We investigate the properties of the metallic state obtained by photo-doping carriers into a Mott insulator. In a strongly interacting system, these carriers have a long life-time, so that they can dissipate their kinetic energy to a phonon bath. In the relaxed state, the scattering rate saturates at a non-zero temperature-independent value, and the momentum-resolved spectral function features broad bands which differ from the well-defined quasi-particle bands of a chemically doped system. Our results indicate that a photo-doped Mott insulator behaves as a bad metal, in which strong scattering between doublons and holes inhibits Fermi-liquid behavior down to low temperature.Comment: 5 page

Decoupling method for dynamical mean field theory calculations

In this paper we explore the use of an equation of motion decoupling method as an impurity solver to be used in conjunction with the dynamical mean field self-consistency condition for the solution of lattice models. We benchmark the impurity solver against exact diagonalization, and apply the method to study the infinite $U$ Hubbard model, the periodic Anderson model and the $pd$ model. This simple and numerically efficient approach yields the spectra expected for strongly correlated materials, with a quasiparticle peak and a Hubbard band. It works in a large range of parameters, and therefore can be used for the exploration of real materials using LDA+DMFT.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figure

Nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field calculations based on the non-crossing approximation and its generalizations

We solve the impurity problem which arises within nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory for the Hubbard model by means of a self-consistent perturbation expansion around the atomic limit. While the lowest order, known as the non-crossing approximation (NCA), is reliable only when the interaction U is much larger than the bandwidth, low-order corrections to the NCA turn out to be sufficient to reproduce numerically exact Monte Carlo results in a wide parameter range that covers the insulating phase and the metal-insulator crossover regime at not too low temperatures. As an application of the perturbative strong-coupling impurity solver we investigate the response of the double occupancy in the Mott insulating phase of the Hubbard model to a dynamical change of the interaction or the hopping, a technique which has been used as a probe of the Mott insulating state in ultracold fermionic gases.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Nonthermal symmetry broken states in the strongly interacting Hubbard model

We study the time evolution of the antiferromagnetic order parameter after interaction quenches in the Hubbard model. Using the nonequilibrium dynamical mean field formalism, we show that the system, after a quench from intermediate to strong interaction, is trapped in a nonthermal state which is reminiscent of a photo-doped state and protected by the slow decay of doublons. If the effective doping of this state is low enough, it exhibits robust antiferromagnetic order, even if the system is highly excited and the thermal state thus expected to be paramagnetic. We comment on the implication of our findings for the stability of nonthermal superconducting states

Transport Properties of the Infinite Dimensional Hubbard Model

Results for the optical conductivity and resistivity of the Hubbard model in infinite spatial dimensions are presented. At half filling we observe a gradual crossover from a normal Fermi-liquid with a Drude peak at $\omega=0$ in the optical conductivity to an insulator as a function of $U$ for temperatures above the antiferromagnetic phase transition. When doped, the ``insulator'' becomes a Fermi-liquid with a corresponding temperature dependence of the optical conductivity and resistivity. We find a $T^2$-coefficient in the low temperature resistivity which suggests that the carriers in the system acquire a considerable mass-enhancement due to the strong local correlations. At high temperatures, a crossover into a semi-metallic regime takes place.Comment: 14 page

pi-Junction behavior and Andreev bound states in Kondo quantum dots with superconducting leads

We investigate the temperature- and coupling-dependent transport through Kondo dot contacts with symmetric superconducting s-wave leads. For finite temperature T we use a superconducting extension of a selfconsistent auxiliary boson scheme, termed SNCA, while at T=0 a perturbative renormalization group treatment is applied. The finite-temperature phase diagram for the 0--pi transition of the Josephson current in the junction is established and related to the phase-dependent position of the subgap Kondo resonance with respect to the Fermi energy. The conductance of the contact is evaluated in the zero-bias limit. It approaches zero in the low-temperature regime, however, at finite T its characteristics are changed through the coupling- and temperature-dependent 0--pi transition.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

Kondo effect in a magnetic field and the magnetoresistivity of Kondo alloys

The effect of a magnetic field on the spectral density of a $\rm{S=1/2}$ Kondo impurity is investigated at zero and finite temperatures by using Wilson's numerical renormalization group method. A splitting of the total spectral density is found for fields larger than a critical value $H_{c}(T=0)\approx 0.5 T_{K}$, where $T_{K}$ is the Kondo scale. The splitting correlates with a peak in the magnetoresistivity of dilute magnetic alloys which we calculate and compare with the experiments on $\rm{Ce_{x}La_{1-x}Al_{2}}, x=0.0063$. The linear magnetoconductance of quantum dots exhibiting the Kondo effect is also calculated.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figure

Self-Consistent Perturbation Theory for Thermodynamics of Magnetic Impurity Systems

Integral equations for thermodynamic quantities are derived in the framework of the non-crossing approximation (NCA). Entropy and specific heat of 4f contribution are calculated without numerical differentiations of thermodynamic potential. The formulation is applied to systems such as PrFe4P12 with singlet-triplet crystalline electric field (CEF) levels.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, proc. ASR-WYP-2005 (JAERI