Soft Hubbard gaps in disordered itinerant models with short-range interaction

We study the Anderson-Hubbard model in the Hartree-Fock approximation and the exact diagonalization under the coexistence of short-range interaction and diagonal disorder. We show that there exist unconventional soft gaps, where the single-particle (SP) density of states (DOS) $A$ follows a scaling in energy $E$ as $A(E)\propto \exp[-(-\gamma\log |E-E_F|)^d]$ irrespective of electron filling and long-range order. Here, $d$ is the spatial dimension, $E_F$ the Fermi energy and $\gamma$ a non-universal constant. We propose a multi-valley energy landscape as their origin. Possible experiments to verify the present theory are proposed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Numerical Study for the Ground State of Multi-Orbital Hubbard Models

Ground state properties of multi-orbital Hubbard models are investigated by the auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo method. A Monte Carlo technique generalized to the multi-orbital systems is introduced and examined in detail. The algorithm contains non-trivial cases where the negative sign problem does not exist. We investigate one-dimensional systems with doubly degenerate orbitals by this new technique. Properties of the Mott insulating state are quantitatively clarified as the strongly correlated insulator, where the charge gap amplitude is much larger than the spin gap. The insulator-metal transitions driven by the chemical potential shows a universality class with the correlation length exponent $\nu=1/2$, which is consistent with the scaling arguments. Increasing level split between two orbitals drives crossover from the Mott insulator with high spin state to the band insulator with low spin state, where the spin gap amplitude increases and becomes closer to the charge gap. Experimental relevance of our results especially to Haldane materials is discussed.Comment: 36 pages LaTeX including 17 PS figures, to be published in J.Phys.Soc.Jpn. 67 (1998) vol.

Thermodynamics and Optical Conductivity of a Dissipative Carrier in a Tight Binding Model

Thermodynamics and transport properties of a dissipative particle in a tight-binding model are studied through specific heat and optical conductivity. A weak coupling theory is constituted to study the crossover behavior between the low-temperature region and the high-temperature region analytically. We found that coherent part around zero frequency in the optical conductivity disappears for 0<s<2, where s is an exponent of a spectral function of the environment. Detailed calculation is performed for ohmic damping (s=1). In this case, the specific heat shows an unusual $T$-linear behavior at low temperatures, which indicates that the environment strongly influences the particle motion, and changes the low-energy states of the dissipative particle. The optical conductivity \sigma(\omega) takes a non-Drude form even at zero temperature, and the high-frequency side behaves as \omega^(2K-2), where K is a dimensionless damping strength. The high frequency side of the optical conductivity is independent of temperatures, while the low frequency side depends on the temperature, and behaves as T^(2K-2) at high temperatures. We also comment on the application of this model to the description of incoherent motion in correlated electron systems.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figs, to be published on J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., improved version by adding one new figure and removing some mistake

Theory of Electron Transport near Anderson-Mott Transitions

We present a theory of the DC electron transport in insulators near Anderson-Mott transitions under the influence of coexisting electron correlation and randomness. At sufficiently low temperatures, the DC electron transport in Anderson-Mott insulators is determined by the single-particle density of states (DOS) near the Fermi energy. Anderson insulators, caused by randomness, are characterized by a nonzero DOS at the Fermi energy. However, recently, the authors proposed that coexisting randomness and short-ranged interaction in insulators open a soft Hubbard gap in the DOS, and the DOS vanishes only at the Fermi energy. Based on the picture of the soft Hubbard gap, we derive a formula for the critical behavior for the temperature dependence of the DC resistivity. Comparisons of the present theory with experimental results of electrostatic carrier doping into an organic conductor kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2Cu[N(CN)_2]Br demonstrate the evidence for the present soft-Hubbard scaling.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Origin of high-Tc superconductivity in doped Hubbard models and their extensions: Roles of uniform charge fluctuations

Doped Hubbard model is a simple model for the high-Tc cuprate superconductors, while its ground state remains a challenge. Here, by performing state-of-the-art variational Monte Carlo calculations for the strong-coupling Hubbard model, we find evidences that the d-wave superconducting phase emerges always near the phase separation region and the superconducting order has one-to-one correspondence with the enhancement of charge compressibility. The order as well as the phase separation are vulnerable to realistic intersite Coulomb interaction while the superexchange interaction enhances both. An appropriate combination of these two widens the stable superconducting phase.Comment: 17 pages, 20 figure

Superconductivity Emerging from Excitonic Mott insulator - Theory of Alkaline Doped Fullerene

A three-orbital model derived from the two-dimensional projection of the $ab$ $initio$ Hamiltonian for alkaline doped fullerene A$_3$C$_{60}$ with A=Cs,Rb,K is studied by a variational Monte Carlo method. We correctly reproduce the experimental isotropic s-wave superconductivity around the $ab$ $initio$ parameters. With narrowing the bandwidth, the transition to an insulator is also reproduced, where orbital symmetry is found to be spontaneously broken with emergence of an excitonic Mott insulator for two orbitals and an antiferromagnetic insulator nearly degenerate with a spin liquid for the third orbital. The superconductivity is a consequence of exciton melting.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Pseudogap and Kinetic Pairing Under Critical Differentiation of Electrons in Cuprate Superconductors

Superconducting mechanism of cuprates is discussed in the light of the proximity of the Mott insulator. The proximity accompanied by suppression of coherence takes place in an inhomogeneous way in the momentum space in finite-dimensional systems. Studies on instabilities of metals consisted of such differentiated electrons in the momentum space are reviewed from a general point of view. A typical example of the differentiation is found in the flattening of the quasiparticle dispersion discovered around momenta $(\pi,0)$ and $(0,\pi)$ on 2D square lattices. This flattening even controls the criticality of the metal-insulator transition. Such differentiation and suppressed coherence subsequently cause an instability to the superconducting state in the second order of the strong coupling expansion. The d-wave pairing interaction is generated from such local but kinetic processes in the absence of disturbance from the coherent single-particle excitations. The superconducting mechanism emerges from a direct kinetic origin which is conceptually different from the pairing mechanism mediated by bosonic excitations as in magnetic, excitonic, and BCS mechanisms. Pseudogap phenomena widely observed in the underdoped cuprates are then naturally understood from the mode-mode coupling of d-wave superconducting (dSC) fluctuations repulsively coupled with antiferromagnetic (AFM) ones. When we assume the existence of a strong d-wave channel repulsively competing with AFM fluctuations under the formation of flat and damped single-particle dispersion, we reproduce basic properties of the pseudogap seen in the magnetic resonance, neutron scattering, angle resolved photoemission and tunneling measurements in the cuprates.Comment: 12pages including 1 figure, Proceedings of Advanced Research Workshop on Open Problems in Strongly Correlated Electron Systems in Ble

Nonequilibrium Pump-Probe Photoexcitation as a Tool for Analyzing Unoccupied Equilibrium States of Correlated Electrons

Relaxation of electrons in a Hubbard model coupled to a dissipative bosonic bath is studied to simulate the pump-probe photoemission measurement. From this insight, we propose an experimental method of eliciting unoccupied part of the single-particle spectra at the equilibrium of doped-Mott insulators. We reveal first that effective temperatures of distribution functions and electronic spectra are different during the relaxation, which makes the frequently employed thermalization picture inappropriate. Contrary to the conventional analysis, we show that the unoccupied spectra at equilibrium can be detected as the states that relax faster.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Superfluid-Insulator Transition of Interacting Multi-Component Bosons

Various types of superfluid-insulator transitions are investigated for two-component lattice boson systems in two dimensions with on-site hard-core repulsion and the component-dependent intersite interaction. The mean-field phase diagram is obtained by the Gutzwiller-type variational technique in the plane of filling and interaction parameters. Various ground-state properties are also studied by the quantum Monte Carlo method. Our model exhibits two types of diagonal long-range orders; the density order around the density $n=1/2$ and the Ising-type component order near $n=1$. The quantum Monte Carlo results for the transitions from the superfluid state to these two ordered states show marked contrast with the Gutzwiller results. Namely, although they are both accompanied by phase separation into commensurate ($n=1/2$ or $n=1$) and incommensurate density phases, these transitions are both continuous. The continuous growth of the component correlation severely suppresses the superfluidity as well as the inverse of the effective mass in the critical region of the component order transition in contrast to the persistence of the superfluidity in the density-ordered state. We propose a mechanism of the mass enhancement observed even far from the Mott insulating filling $n=1$, when the Ising-type component order persists into $n \neq 1$. Possible relevance of this type of mass enhancement in other systems is also discussed.Comment: 23 pages LaTeX including 7 PS figure

Competition among Superconducting, Antiferromagnetic, and Charge Orders with Intervention by Phase Separation in the 2D Holstein-Hubbard Model

Using a variational Monte Carlo method, we study competitions of strong electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in the ground state of Holstein-Hubbard model on a square lattice. At half filling, an extended intermediate metallic or weakly superconducting (SC) phase emerges, sandwiched by antiferromagnetic and charge order (CO) insulating phases. By the carrier doping into the CO insulator, the SC order dramatically increases for strong electron-phonon couplings, but largely hampered by wide phase separation (PS) regions. Superconductivity is optimized at the border to the PS