d-wave superconductivity and Pomeranchuk instability in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

We present a systematic stability analysis for the two-dimensional Hubbard model, which is based on a new renormalization group method for interacting Fermi systems. The flow of effective interactions and susceptibilities confirms the expected existence of a d-wave pairing instability driven by antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations. More unexpectedly, we find that strong forward scattering interactions develop which may lead to a Pomeranchuk instability breaking the tetragonal symmetry of the Fermi surface.Comment: 4 pages (RevTeX), 4 eps figure

Fermion loops, loop cancellation and density correlations in two dimensional Fermi systems

We derive explicit results for fermion loops with an arbitrary number of density vertices in two dimensions at zero temperature. The 3-loop is an elementary function of the three external momenta and frequencies, and the N-loop can be expressed as a linear combination of 3-loops with coefficients that are rational functions of momenta and frequencies. We show that the divergencies of single loops for low energy and small momenta cancel each other when loops with permuted external variables are summed. The symmetrized N-loop, i.e. the connected N-point density correlation function of the Fermi gas, does not diverge for low energies and small momenta. In the dynamical limit, where momenta scale to zero at fixed finite energy variables, the symmetrized N-loop vanishes as the (2N-2)-th power of the scale parameter.Comment: 24 pages (including 3 EPS figures), LaTeX2e; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Crossover from Luttinger- to Fermi-liquid behavior in strongly anisotropic systems in large dimensions

We consider the low-energy region of an array of Luttinger liquids coupled by a weak interchain hopping. The leading logarithmic divergences can be re-summed to all orders within a self-consistent perturbative expansion in the hopping, in the large-dimension limit. The anomalous exponent scales to zero below the one-particle crossover temperature. As a consequence, coherent quasiparticles with finite weight appear along the whole Fermi surface. Extending the expansion self-consistently to all orders turns out to be crucial in order to restore the correct Fermi-liquid behavior.Comment: Shortened version to appear in Physical Review Letter

Many-body position operator in lattice fermionic systems with periodic boundary conditions

A total position operator $X$ in the position representation is derived for lattice fermionic systems with periodic boundary conditions. The operator is shown to be Hermitian, the generator of translations in momentum space, and its time derivative is shown to correspond to the total current operator in a periodic system. The operator is such that its moments can be calculated up to any order. To demonstrate its utility finite size scaling is applied to the Brinkman-Rice transition as well as metallic and insulating Gutzwiller wavefunctions.Comment: to appear in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General (reference will be added later

Soft Fermi Surfaces and Breakdown of Fermi Liquid Behavior

Electron-electron interactions can induce Fermi surface deformations which break the point-group symmetry of the lattice structure of the system. In the vicinity of such a "Pomeranchuk instability" the Fermi surface is easily deformed by anisotropic perturbations, and exhibits enhanced collective fluctuations. We show that critical Fermi surface fluctuations near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions lead to large anisotropic decay rates for single-particle excitations, which destroy Fermi liquid behavior over the whole surface except at the Brillouin zone diagonal.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, revised version as publishe

Hole dynamics in generalized spin backgrounds in infinite dimensions

We calculate the dynamical behaviour of a hole in various spin backgrounds in infinite dimensions, where it can be determined exactly. We consider hypercubic lattices with two different types of spin backgrounds. On one hand we study an ensemble of spin configurations with an arbitrary spin probability on each sublattice. This model corresponds to a thermal average over all spin configurations in the presence of staggered or uniform magnetic fields. On the other hand we consider a definite spin state characterized by the angle between the spins on different sublattices, i.e a classical spin system in an external magnetic field. When spin fluctuations are considered, this model describes the physics of unpaired particles in strong coupling superconductors.Comment: Accepted in Phys. Rev. B. 18 pages of text (1 fig. included) in Latex + 2 figures in uuencoded form containing the 2 postscripts (mailed separately

Local spectral properties of Luttinger liquids: scaling versus nonuniversal energy scales

Motivated by recent scanning tunneling and photoemission spectroscopy measurements on self-organized gold chains on a germanium surface we reinvestigate the local single-particle spectral properties of Luttinger liquids. In the first part we use the bosonization approach to exactly compute the local spectral function of a simplified field theoretical low-energy model and take a closer look at scaling properties as a function of the ratio of energy and temperature. Translational invariant Luttinger liquids as well as those with an open boundary (cut chain geometry) are considered. We explicitly show that the scaling functions of both setups have the same analytic form. The scaling behavior suggests a variety of consistency checks which can be performed on measured data to experimentally verify Luttinger liquid behavior. In a second part we approximately compute the local spectral function of a microscopic lattice model---the extended Hubbard model---close to an open boundary using the functional renormalization group. We show that as a function of energy and temperature it follows the field theoretical prediction in the low-energy regime and point out the importance of nonuniversal energy scales inherent to any microscopic model. The spatial dependence of this spectral function is characterized by oscillatory behavior and an envelope function which follows a power law both in accordance with the field theoretical continuum model. Interestingly, for the lattice model we find a phase shift which is proportional to the two-particle interaction and not accounted for in the standard bosonization approach to Luttinger liquids with an open boundary. We briefly comment on the effects of several one-dimensional branches cutting the Fermi energy and Rashba spin-orbit interaction.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, version as accepted for publication in J. Phys.:Condensed Matte

Renormalization group analysis of the 2D Hubbard model

Salmhofer [Commun. Math. Phys. 194, 249 (1998)] has recently developed a new renormalization group method for interacting Fermi systems, where the complete flow from the bare action of a microscopic model to the effective low-energy action, as a function of a continuously decreasing infrared cutoff, is given by a differential flow equation which is local in the flow parameter. We apply this approach to the repulsive two-dimensional Hubbard model with nearest and next-nearest neighbor hopping amplitudes. The flow equation for the effective interaction is evaluated numerically on 1-loop level. The effective interactions diverge at a finite energy scale which is exponentially small for small bare interactions. To analyze the nature of the instabilities signalled by the diverging interactions we extend Salmhofers renormalization group for the calculation of susceptibilities. We compute the singlet superconducting susceptibilities for various pairing symmetries and also charge and spin density susceptibilities. Depending on the choice of the model parameters (hopping amplitudes, interaction strength and band-filling) we find commensurate and incommensurate antiferromagnetic instabilities or d-wave superconductivity as leading instability. We present the resulting phase diagram in the vicinity of half-filling and also results for the density dependence of the critical energy scale.Comment: 16 pages, RevTeX, 16 eps figure

Collective fields in the functional renormalization group for fermions, Ward identities, and the exact solution of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model

We develop a new formulation of the functional renormalization group (RG) for interacting fermions. Our approach unifies the purely fermionic formulation based on the Grassmannian functional integral, which has been used in recent years by many authors, with the traditional Wilsonian RG approach to quantum systems pioneered by Hertz [Phys. Rev. B 14, 1165 (1976)], which attempts to describe the infrared behavior of the system in terms of an effective bosonic theory associated with the soft modes of the underlying fermionic problem. In our approach, we decouple the interaction by means of a suitable Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation (following the Hertz-approach), but do not eliminate the fermions; instead, we derive an exact hierarchy of RG flow equations for the irreducible vertices of the resulting coupled field theory involving both fermionic and bosonic fields. The freedom of choosing a momentum transfer cutoff for the bosonic soft modes in addition to the usual band cutoff for the fermions opens the possibility of new RG schemes. In particular, we show how the exact solution of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model emerges from the functional RG if one works with a momentum transfer cutoff. Then the Ward identities associated with the local particle conservation at each Fermi point are valid at every stage of the RG flow and provide a solution of an infinite hierarchy of flow equations for the irreducible vertices. The RG flow equation for the irreducible single-particle self-energy can then be closed and can be reduced to a linear integro-differential equation, the solution of which yields the result familiar from bosonization. We suggest new truncation schemes of the exact hierarchy of flow equations, which might be useful even outside the weak coupling regime.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures; published version, some typos correcte