Coexistence of Nematic Order and Superconductivity in the Hubbard Model

We study the interplay of nematic and superconducting order in the two-dimensional Hubbard model and show that they can coexist, especially when superconductivity is not the energetically dominant phase. Due to a breaking of the $C_4$ symmetry, the coexisting phase inherently contains admixture of the $s$-wave pairing components. As a result, the superconducting gap exhibits very non-standard features including changed nodal directions. Our results also show that in the optimally doped regime the superconducting phase is typically unstable towards developing nematicity (breaking of the $C_4$ symmetry). This has implications for the cuprate high-$T_c$ superconductors, for which in this regime the so-called intertwined orders have recently been observed. Namely, the coexisting phase may be viewed as a precursor to such more involved patterns of symmetry breaking.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Even-parity spin-triplet pairing for orbitally degenerate correlated electrons by purely repulsive interactions

We demonstrate the stability of a spin-triplet paired s-wave (with an admixture of extended s-wave) state for the case of purely repulsive interactions in a degenerate two-band Hubbard model. We further show that near half-filling the considered kind of superconductivity can coexist with antiferromagnetism. The calculations have been carried out with the use of the so-called statistically consistent Gutzwiller approximation for the case of a square lattice. The absence of a stable paired state when analyzed in the Hartree-Fock-BCS approximation allows us to claim that the electron correlations in conjunction with the Hund's rule exchange play the crucial role in stabilizing the spin-triplet superconducting state. A sizable hybridization of the bands suppresses the paired state

Approximation schemes for the study of multi-band Gutzwiller wave functions

The minimum of the Gutzwiller energy functional depends on the number of parameters considered in the variational state. For a three-orbital Hubbard model we find that the frequently used diagonal Ansatz is very accurate in high-symmetry situations. For lower symmetry, induced by a crystal-field splitting or the spin-orbit coupling, the discrepancies in energy between the most general and a diagonal Gutzwiller Ansatz can be quite significant. We discuss approximate schemes that may be employed in multi-band cases where a minimization of the general Gutzwiller energy functional is too demanding numerically.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Gutzwiller theory of band magnetism in LaOFeAs

We use the Gutzwiller variational theory to calculate the ground-state phase diagram and quasi-particle bands of LaOFeAs. The Fe3d--As4p Wannier-orbital basis obtained from density-functional theory defines the band part of our eight-band Hubbard model. The full atomic interaction between the electrons in the iron orbitals is parameterized by the Hubbard interaction U and an average Hund's-rule interaction J. We reproduce the experimentally observed small ordered magnetic moment over a large region of (U,J) parameter space. The magnetically ordered phase is a stripe spin-density wave of quasi-particles.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Exchange couplings for Mn ions in CdTe: validity of spin models for dilute magnetic II-VI semiconductors

We employ density-functional theory (DFT) in the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and its extensions GGA+$U$ and GGA+Gutzwiller to calculate the magnetic exchange couplings between pairs of Mn ions substituting Cd in a CdTe crystal at very small doping. DFT(GGA) overestimates the exchange couplings by a factor of three because it underestimates the charge-transfer gap in Mn-doped II-VI semiconductors. Fixing the nearest-neighbor coupling $J_1$ to its experimental value in GGA+$U$, in GGA+Gutzwiller, or by a simple scaling of the DFT(GGA) results provides acceptable values for the exchange couplings at 2nd, 3rd, and 4th neighbor distances in Cd(Mn)Te, Zn(Mn)Te, Zn(Mn)Se, and Zn(Mn)S. In particular, we recover the experimentally observed relation $J_4>J_2,J_3$. The filling of the Mn 3$d$-shell is not integer which puts the underlying Heisenberg description into question. However, using a few-ion toy model the picture of a slightly extended local moment emerges so that an integer $3d$-shell filling is not a prerequisite for equidistant magnetization plateaus, as seen in experiment.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Variational study of Fermi-surface deformations in Hubbard models

We study the correlation-induced deformation of Fermi surfaces by means of a new diagrammatic method which allows for the analytical evaluation of Gutzwiller wave functions in finite dimensions. In agreement with renormalization-group results we find Pomeranchuk instabilities in two-dimensional Hubbard models for sufficiently large Coulomb interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure