Quantum critical point at finite doping in the 2D Hubbard model: a dynamical cluster quantum Monte Carlo study

Nematicity-enhanced superconductivity in systems with a non-Fermi liquid behavior

We explore the interplay between nematicity (spontaneous breaking of the sixfold rotational symmetry), superconductivity, and non-Fermi liquid behavior in partially flat-band (PFB) models on the triangular lattice. A key result is that the nematicity (Pomeranchuk instability), which is driven by many-body effect and stronger in flat-band systems, enhances superconducting transition temperature in a systematic manner on theT_cdome. There, a plausiblesx2+y2-dx2-y2-dxy-wave symmetry, in place of the conventionaldx2-y2-wave, governs the nematicity-enhanced pairing with a sharp rise in theT_cdome on the filling axis. When the sixfold symmetry is spontaneously broken, the pairing interaction is shown to become stronger with more compact pairs in real space than when the symmetry is enforced. These are accompanied by a non-Fermi character of electrons in the PFBs with many-body interactions.

Application of the variational autoencoder to detect the critical points of the anisotropic Ising model

We generalize the previous study on the application of variational autoencoders to the two-dimensional Ising model to a system with anisotropy. Due to the self-duality property of the system, the critical points can be located exactly for the entire range of anisotropic coupling. This presents an excellent test bed for the validity of using a variational autoencoder to characterize an anisotropic classical model. We reproduce the phase diagram for a wide range of anisotropic couplings and temperatures via a variational autoencoder without the explicit construction of an order parameter. Considering that the partition function of (d+1)-dimensional anisotropic models can be mapped to that of the d-dimensional quantum spin models, the present study provides numerical evidence that a variational autoencoder can be applied to analyze quantum systems via the quantum Monte Carlo method.

Non-Fermi liquid phase and linear-in-temperature scattering rate in overdoped two-dimensional Hubbard model

SignificanceMost metals display an electron-scattering rate [Formula: see text] that follows [Formula: see text] at low temperatures, as prescribed by Fermi liquid theory. But there are important exceptions. One of the most prominent examples is the "strange" metal regime in overdoped cuprate supercondcutors, which exhibits a linear T dependence of the scattering rate [Formula: see text] that reaches a putative Planckian limit. Here, using cutting-edge computational approaches, we show that T-linear scattering rate can emerge from the overdoped Hubbard model at low temperatures. Our results agree with cuprate experiments in various aspects but challenge the Planckian limit. Finally, by identifying antiferromagnetic fluctuations as the physical origin of the T-linear scattering rate, we discover the microscopic mechanism of strange metallicity in cuprates.

Deep learning on the 2-dimensional Ising model to extract the crossover region with a variational autoencoder

The 2-dimensional Ising model on a square lattice is investigated with a variational autoencoder in the non-vanishing field case for the purpose of extracting the crossover region between the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases. The encoded latent variable space is found to provide suitable metrics for tracking the order and disorder in the Ising configurations that extends to the extraction of a crossover region in a way that is consistent with expectations. The extracted results achieve an exceptional prediction for the critical point as well as agreement with previously published results on the configurational magnetizations of the model. The performance of this method provides encouragement for the use of machine learning to extract meaningful structural information from complex physical systems where little a priori data is available.

Theory of angle-dependent marginal Fermi liquid self-energy and its existence at all dopings in cuprates

Various angle-dependent measurements in hole-doped cuprates suggested that non-Fermi liquid (NFL) and Fermi-liquid (FL) self-energies coexist in the Brillouin zone. Moreover, it is also found that NFL self-energies survive up to the overdoped region where the resistivity features a global FL-behavior. To address this problem, we compute the momentum dependent self-energy from a single band Hubbard model. The self-energy is calculated self-consistently by using a momentum-dependent density-fluctuation (MRDF) method. One of our main results is that the computed self-energy exhibits a marginal-FL (MFL)-like frequency dependence only in the antinodal region, and FL-like behavior elsewhere at all dopings. The MFL self-energy stems from the fluctuations between the itinerant and localized densities-a result that appears when self-energy is calculated self-consistently and features an intermediate coupling behavior of cuprates. We also calculate the DC conductivity by including the full momentum dependent self-energy. We find that the resistivity-temperature exponent n becomes 1 near the optimal doping, while the MFL self-energy occupies largest momentum-space volume. Surprisingly, even in the NFL state near the optimal doping, the nodal region contains FL-like self-energies; while in the under- and over-dopings ([Formula: see text]), the antinodal region remains NFL-like. These results highlight the non-local correlation physics in cuprates and in other similar intermediately correlated materials, where a direct link between the microscopic single-particle spectral properties and the macroscopic transport behavior can not be well established.

Bad metallic transport in a cold atom Fermi-Hubbard system

Strong interactions in many-body quantum systems complicate the interpretation of charge transport in such materials. To shed light on this problem, we study transport in a clean quantum system: ultracold lithium-6 in a two-dimensional optical lattice, a testing ground for strong interaction physics in the Fermi-Hubbard model. We determine the diffusion constant by measuring the relaxation of an imposed density modulation and modeling its decay hydrodynamically. The diffusion constant is converted to a resistivity by using the Nernst-Einstein relation. That resistivity exhibits a linear temperature dependence and shows no evidence of saturation, two characteristic signatures of a bad metal. The techniques we developed in this study may be applied to measurements of other transport quantities, including the optical conductivity and thermopower.

Simulation of the NMR response in the pseudogap regime of the cuprates

The pseudogap in the cuprate high-temperature superconductors was discovered as a suppression of the Knight shift and spin relaxation time measured in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments. However, theoretical understanding of this suppression in terms of the magnetic susceptiblility of correlated itinerant fermion systems was so far lacking. Here we study the temperature and doping evolution of these quantities on the two-dimensional Hubbard model using cluster dynamical mean field theory. We recover the suppression of the Knight shift and the linear-in-T spin echo decay that increases with doping. The relaxation rate shows a marked increase as T is lowered but no indication of a pseudogap on the Cu site, and a clear downturn on the O site, consistent with experimental results on single layer materials but different from double layer materials. The consistency of these results with experiment suggests that the pseudogap is well described by strong short-range correlation effects.

Hidden Fermionic Excitation Boosting High-Temperature Superconductivity in Cuprates

The dynamics of a microscopic cuprate model, namely, the two-dimensional Hubbard model, is studied with a cluster extension of the dynamical mean-field theory. We find a nontrivial structure of the frequency-dependent self-energies, which describes an unprecedented interplay between the pseudogap and superconductivity. We show that these properties are well described by quasiparticles hybridizing with (hidden) fermionic excitations, emergent from the strong electronic correlations. The hidden fermion enhances superconductivity via a mechanism distinct from a conventional boson-mediated pairing, and originates the normal-state pseudogap. Though the hidden fermion is elusive in experiments, it can solve many experimental puzzles.

Spectral Properties of Dirac Billiards at the van Hove Singularities

We study distributions of the ratios of level spacings of rectangular and Africa-shaped superconducting microwave resonators containing circular scatterers on a triangular grid, so-called Dirac billiards (DBs). The high-precision measurements allowed the determination of, respectively, all 1651 and 1823 eigenfrequencies in the first two bands. The resonance densities are similar to that of graphene. They exhibit two sharp peaks at the van Hove singularities which separate the band structure into regions with a linear and a quadratic dispersion relation, respectively. In the vicinity of the van Hove singularities we observe rapid changes in, e.g., the wave function structure. Accordingly, we question whether the spectral properties are there still determined by the shapes of the DBs. The commonly used statistical measures are no longer applicable; however, we demonstrate in this Letter that the ratio distributions provide suitable measures.

Compressibility of a fermionic mott insulator of ultracold atoms

We characterize the Mott insulating regime of a repulsively interacting Fermi gas of ultracold atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice. We use in situ imaging to extract the central density of the gas and to determine its local compressibility. For intermediate to strong interactions, we observe the emergence of a plateau in the density as a function of atom number, and a reduction of the compressibility at a density of one atom per site, indicating the formation of a Mott insulator. Comparisons to state-of-the-art numerical simulations of the Hubbard model over a wide range of interactions reveal that the temperature of the gas is of the order of, or below, the tunneling energy scale. Our results hold great promise for the exploration of many-body phenomena with ultracold atoms, where the local compressibility can be a useful tool to detect signatures of different phases or phase boundaries at specific values of the filling.

Supersolid phase accompanied by a quantum critical point in the intermediate coupling regime of the Holstein model

We reveal that electron-phonon systems described by the Holstein model on a bipartite lattice exhibit, away from half filling, a supersolid (SS) phase characterized by coexisting charge order (CO) and superconductivity (SC), and an accompanying quantum critical point (QCP). The SS phase, demonstrated by the dynamical mean-field theory with a quantum Monte Carlo impurity solver, emerges in the intermediate-coupling regime, where the peak of the Tc dome is located and the metal-insulator crossover occurs. On the other hand, in the weak- and strong-coupling regimes the CO-SC boundary is of first order with no intervening SS phases. The QCP is associated with the continuous transition from SS to SC and characterized by a reentrant behavior of the SS around it. We further show that the SS-SC transition is hallmarked by diverging charge fluctuations and a kink (peak) in the superfluid density.

Superconductivity and the pseudogap in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

Recently developed numerical methods have enabled the explicit construction of the superconducting state of the Hubbard model of strongly correlated electrons in parameter regimes where the model also exhibits a pseudogap and a Mott insulating phase. d(x(2)-y(2)) symmetry superconductivity is found to occur in proximity to the Mott insulator, but separated from it by a pseudogapped nonsuperconducting phase. The superconducting transition temperature and order parameter amplitude are found to be maximal at the onset of the normal-state pseudogap. The emergence of superconductivity from the normal state pseudogap leads to a decrease in the excitation gap. All of these features are consistent with the observed behavior of the copper-oxide superconductors.

Strong coupling superconductivity, pseudogap, and Mott transition

An intricate interplay between superconductivity, pseudogap, and Mott transition, either bandwidth driven or doping driven, occurs in materials. Layered organic conductors and cuprates offer two prime examples. We provide a unified perspective of this interplay in the two-dimensional Hubbard model within cellular dynamical mean-field theory on a 2×2 plaquette and using the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method as impurity solver. Both at half filling and at finite doping, the metallic normal state close to the Mott insulator is unstable to d-wave superconductivity. Superconductivity can destroy the first-order transition that separates the pseudogap phase from the overdoped metal, yet that normal state transition leaves its marks on the dynamic properties of the superconducting phase. For example, as a function of doping one finds a rapid change in the particle-hole asymmetry of the superconducting density of states. In the doped Mott insulator, the dynamical mean-field superconducting transition temperature T(c)(d) does not scale with the order parameter when there is a normal-state pseudogap. T(c)(d) corresponds to the local pair formation temperature observed in tunneling experiments and is distinct from the pseudogap temperature.

Temperature and bath size in exact diagonalization dynamical mean field theory

Dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), combined with finite-temperature exact diagonalization, is one of the methods used to describe electronic properties of strongly correlated materials. Because of the rapid growth of the Hilbert space, the size of the finite bath used to represent the infinite lattice is severely limited. In view of the increasing interest in the effect of multi-orbital and multi-site Coulomb correlations in transition metal oxides, high-T(c) cuprates, iron-based pnictides, organic crystals, etc, it is appropriate to explore the range of temperatures and bath sizes in which exact diagonalization provides accurate results for various system properties. On the one hand, the bath must be large enough to achieve a sufficiently dense level spacing, so that useful spectral information can be derived, especially close to the Fermi level. On the other hand, for an adequate projection of the lattice Green's function onto a finite bath, the choice of the temperature is crucial. The role of these two key ingredients in exact diagonalization DMFT is discussed for a wide variety of systems in order to establish the domain of applicability of this approach. Three criteria are used to illustrate the accuracy of the results: (i) the convergence of the self-energy with the bath size, (ii) the quality of the discretization of the bath Green's function, and (iii) comparisons with complementary results obtained via continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo DMFT. The materials comprise a variety of three-orbital and five-orbital systems, as well as single-band Hubbard models for two-dimensional triangular, square and honeycomb lattices, where non-local Coulomb correlations are important. The main conclusion from these examples is that a larger number of correlated orbitals or sites requires a smaller number of bath levels. Down to temperatures of 5-10 meV (for typical bandwidths W ≈ 2 eV) two bath levels per correlated impurity orbital or site are usually adequate.

Superconducting phase and pairing fluctuations in the half-filled two-dimensional Hubbard model

The two-dimensional Hubbard model exhibits superconductivity with d-wave symmetry even at half-filling in the presence of a next-nearest neighbor hopping. Using plaquette cluster dynamical mean-field theory with a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo impurity solver, we reveal the non-Fermi liquid character of the metallic phase in proximity to the superconducting state. Specifically, the low-frequency scattering rate for momenta near (π, 0) varies nonmonotonically at low temperatures, and the dc conductivity is T linear at elevated temperatures with an upturn upon cooling. Evidence is provided that pairing fluctuations dominate the normal-conducting state even considerably above the superconducting transition temperature.

Quantum criticality and incipient phase separation in the thermodynamic properties of the Hubbard model

Transport measurements on the cuprates suggest the presence of a quantum critical point (QCP) hiding underneath the superconducting dome near optimal hole doping. We provide numerical evidence in support of this scenario via a dynamical cluster quantum Monte Carlo study of the extended two-dimensional Hubbard model. Single-particle quantities, such as the spectral function, the quasi-particle weight and the entropy, display a crossover between two distinct ground states: a Fermi liquid at low filling and a non-Fermi liquid with a pseudo-gap at high filling. Both states are found to cross over to a marginal Fermi-liquid state at higher temperatures. For finite next-nearest-neighbour hopping t', we find a classical critical point at temperature T(c). This classical critical point is found to be associated with a phase-separation transition between a compressible Mott gas and an incompressible Mott liquid corresponding to the Fermi liquid and the pseudo-gap state, respectively. Since the critical temperature T(c) extrapolates to zero as t' vanishes, we conclude that a QCP connects the Fermi liquid to the pseudo-gap region, and that the marginal Fermi-liquid behaviour in its vicinity is the analogue of the supercritical region in the liquid-gas transition.

Mottness collapse and statistical quantum criticality

We put forward here the case that the anomalous electron states found in cuprate superconductors and related systems are rooted in a deeply non-classical fermion sign structure. The collapse of Mottness, as advocated by Phillips and supported by recent dynamical cluster approximation results on the Hubbard model, sets the necessary microscopic conditions. The crucial insight is due to Weng, who demonstrated that, in the presence of Mottness, the fundamental workings of quantum statistics change, and we will elaborate on the effects of this Weng statistics with an emphasis on characterizing it further using numerical methods. The pseudo-gap physics of the underdoped regime appears as a consequence of the altered statistics and the profound question is how to connect this by a continuous quantum phase transition to the overdoped regime ruled by normal Fermi-Dirac statistics. Proof of principle follows from Ceperley's constrained path integral formalism, in which states can be explicitly constructed showing a merger of Fermi-Dirac sign structure and scale invariance of the quantum dynamics.

Proximity of the superconducting dome and the quantum critical point in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

We use the dynamical cluster approximation to understand the proximity of the superconducting dome to the quantum critical point in the two-dimensional Hubbard model. In a BCS formalism, T(c) may be enhanced through an increase in the d-wave pairing interaction (V(d)) or the bare pairing susceptibility (χ(0d)). At optimal doping, where V(d) is revealed to be featureless, we find a power-law behavior of χ(0d)(ω=0), replacing the BCS log, and strongly enhanced T(c). We suggest experiments to verify our predictions.

Finite doping signatures of the Mott transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

Experiments on layered materials call for a study of the influence of short-range spin correlations on the Mott transition. To this end, we solve the cellular dynamical mean-field equations for the Hubbard model on a plaquette with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo calculations. The normal-state phase diagram as a function of temperature T, interaction strength U, and filling n reveals that upon increasing n towards the insulator, there is a surface of first-order transition between two metals at nonzero doping. For T above the critical end line there is a maximum in scattering rate.