Sound velocity anomaly at the mott transition: application to organic conductors and V2O3

Close to the Mott transition, lattice degrees of freedom react to the softening of electron degrees of freedom. This results in a change of lattice spacing, a diverging compressibility, and a critical anomaly of the sound velocity. These effects are investigated within a simple model, in the framework of dynamical mean-field theory. The results compare favorably to recent experiments on the layered organic-conductor kappa-(BEDT-TTF)(2)Cu[N(CN)(2)]Cl. We predict that effects of a similar magnitude are expected for V(2)O(3), despite the much larger value of the elastic modulus of this material.     

Mott transition,compressibility divergence,and the P-T phase diagram of layered organic superconductors: an ultrasonic investigation

The phase diagram of the organic superconductor kappa-(BEDT-TTF)(2)Cu[N(CN)(2)]Cl has been investigated by ultrasonic velocity measurements under helium gas pressure. Different phase transitions were identified through several elastic anomalies characterized from isobaric and isothermal sweeps. Our data reveal two crossover lines that end on the critical point terminating the first-order Mott transition line. When the critical point is approached along these lines, we observe a dramatic anomaly of the sound velocity which is consistent with a diverging compressibility of the electronic degrees of freedom.     

Imaging nanoscale electronic inhomogeneity in the lightly doped Mott insulator Ca(2-x)NaxCuO2Cl2

The spatial variation of electronic states was imaged in the lightly doped Mott insulator Ca(2-x)NaxCuO2Cl2 using scanning tunneling microscopy or spectroscopy. We observed nanoscale domains with a high local density of states within an insulating background. The observed domains have a characteristic length scale of 2 nm (approximately 4-5a, a: lattice constant) with preferred orientations along the tetragonal [100] direction. We argue that such spatially inhomogeneous electronic states are inherent to slightly doped Mott insulators and play an important role for the insulator to metal transition.     

Imaging phase separation near the Mott boundary of the correlated organic superconductors kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2X

Electronic phase separation consisting of the metallic and insulating domains with 50-100 microm in diameter is found in the organic Mott system kappa-[(h8-BEDT-TTF)(1-x)(d8-BEDT-TTF)x]2Cu[N(CN)2]Br by means of scanning microregion infrared spectroscopy using the synchrotron radiation. The phase separation appears below the critical end temperature 35-40 K of the first-order Mott transition. The observation of the macroscopic size of the domains indicates a different class of the intrinsic electronic inhomogeneity from the nanoscale one reported in the inorganic Mott systems such as high-Tc copper and manganese oxides.     

Magnetic-field-induced Mott transition in a quasi-two-dimensional organic conductor

We investigated the effect of magnetic field on the highly correlated metal near the Mott transition in the quasi-two-dimensional layered organic conductor, kappa-(BEDT-TTF)(2)Cu[N(CN)(2)]Cl, by the resistance measurements under control of temperature, pressure, and magnetic field. It was demonstrated that the marginal metallic phase near the Mott transition is susceptible to the field-induced localization transition of the first order, as was predicted theoretically. The thermodynamic consideration of the present results gives a conceptual pressure-field phase diagram of the Mott transition at low temperatures.     

Proximity of pseudogapped superconductor and commensurate antiferromagnet in a quasi-two-dimensional organic system

We performed the single-crystal 13C NMR studies on a quasi-two-dimensional system, deuterated kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)(2)]Br, which is just on the border of the Mott transition. The NMR spectra are separated into two parts coming from the metallic (superconducting) and insulating phases due to the phase separation at low temperature. The examination of the separated spectra revealed that the Mott transition in this system is characterized by the first-order transition between the pseudogapped superconductor and the simplest commensurate antiferromagnet with a moment of 0.26 mu(B)/dimer.     

Kondo breakdown as a selective Mott transition in the Anderson lattice

We show within the slave-boson technique that the Anderson lattice model exhibits a Kondo breakdown quantum critical point where the hybridization goes to zero at zero temperature. At this fixed point, the f electrons experience as well a selective Mott transition separating a local-moment phase from a Kondo-screened phase. The presence of a multiscale quantum critical point in the Anderson lattice in the absence of magnetism is discussed in the context of heavy fermion compounds. This study is the first evidence for a selective Mott transition in the Anderson lattice.     

Off-site trimer superfluid on a one-dimensional optical lattice

The Bose-Hubbard model with an effective off-site three-body tunneling,characterized by jumps towards one another,between one atom on a site and a pair atoms on the neighborhood site,is studied systematically on a one-dimensional(1D) lattice,by using the density matrix renormalization group method.The off-site trimer superfluid,condensing at momentum k = 0,emerges in the softcore Bose-Hubbard model but it disappears in the hardcore Bose-Hubbard model.Our results numerically verify that the off-site trimer superfluid phase derived in the momentum space from[Phys.Rev.A81,011601(R)(2010)]is stable in the thermodynamic limit.The off-site trimer superfluid phase,the partially off-site trimer superfluid phase and the Mott insulator phase are found,as well as interesting phase transitions,such as the continuous or first-order phase transition from the trimer superfluid phase to the Mott insulator phase.Our results are helpful in realizing this novel off-site trimer superfluid phase by cold atom experiments.     

Mott-Hubbard transition and antiferromagnetism on the honeycomb lattice

The Hubbard model is investigated for a halffilled honeycomb lattice, using a variational method. Two trial wave functions are introduced, the Gutzwiller wave function, well suited for describing the “metallic” phase at small U and a complementary wave function for the insulating regime at large values of U. The comparison of the two variational ground states at the mean-field level yields a Mott transition at U _c /t ≈ 5:3. In addition, a variational Monte Carlo calculation is performed in order to locate the instability of the “metallic” wave function with respect to antiferromagnetism. The critical value U _m/t ≈ 3:7 obtained in this way is considered to be a lower bound for the true critical point for antiferromagnetism, whereas there are good arguments that the mean-field value U _c/t ≈ 5:3 represents an upper bound for the Mott transition. Therefore the “metal”- insulator transition for the honeycomb lattice may indeed be simultaneously driven by the antiferromagnetic instability and the Mott phenomenon.     

Ground-state phase diagram of a half-filled one-dimensional extended hubbard model

The density-matrix renormalization group is used to study the phase diagram of the one-dimensional half-filled Hubbard model with on-site (U) and nearest-neighbor (V) repulsion and hopping t. A critical line V(c)(U) approximately U/2 separates a Mott insulating phase from a charge-density-wave phase. The formation of bound charge excitations for V>2t changes the phase transition from continuous to first-order at a tricritical point U(t) approximately 3.7t, V(t)=2t. A frustrating effective antiferromagnetic spin coupling induces a bond-order-wave phase on the critical line V(c)(U) for U(t)相似文献   

Phase diagram for a Bose-Einstein condensate moving in an optical lattice

The stability of superfluid currents in a system of ultracold bosons was studied using a moving optical lattice. Superfluid currents in a very weak lattice become unstable when their momentum exceeds 0.5 recoil momentum. Superfluidity vanishes already for zero momentum as the lattice deep reaches the Mott insulator (MI) phase transition. We study the phase diagram for the disappearance of superfluidity as a function of momentum and lattice depth between these two limits. Our phase boundary extrapolates to the critical lattice depth for the superfluid-to-MI transition with 2% precision. When a one-dimensional gas was loaded into a moving optical lattice a sudden broadening of the transition between stable and unstable phases was observed.     

Interference of atomic levels and superfluid-Mott insulator phase transitions in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

The superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition in a Bose-Einstein condensate of neutral atoms with doubly degenerate internal ground states in an optical lattice is theoretically investigated. The optical lattice is created by two counterpropagating linearly polarized laser beams with the angle theta between the polarization vectors (lin-angle-lin configuration). The phase diagram of the system and the critical values of the parameters are worked out. It is shown that the sign of the detuning plays an important role and that there is a strong suppression of the Mott transition in the case of blue detuning. Varying the laser intensity and/or the angle theta one can manipulate the Mott insulator to superfluid quantum phase transition as well as prepare the condensate in physically distinguishable "ferromagnetic" and "antiferromagnetic" superfluid states.     

Superfluid fermi gas in a 1D optical lattice

We calculate the superfluid transition temperature for a two-component 3D Fermi gas in a 1D tight optical lattice and discuss a dimensional crossover from the 3D to quasi-2D regime. For the geometry of finite size discs in the 1D lattice, we find that even for a large number of atoms per disc the critical effective tunneling rate for a quantum transition to the Mott insulator state can be large compared to the loss rate caused by three-body recombination. This allows the observation of the Mott transition, in contrast to the case of Bose-condensed gases in the same geometry.     

Breakup of the Fermi surface near the mott transition in low-dimensional systems

We investigate the Mott transition in weakly coupled one-dimensional (1D) fermionic chains. Using a generalization of dynamical mean field theory, we show that the Mott gap is suppressed at some critical hopping t{ perpendicular}{c2}. The transition from the 1D insulator to a 2D metal proceeds through an intermediate phase where the Fermi surface is broken into electron and hole pockets. The quasiparticle spectral weight is strongly anisotropic along the Fermi surface, both in the intermediate and metallic phases. We argue that such pockets would look like "arcs" in photoemission experiments.     

Mott transition from a spin liquid to a Fermi liquid in the spin-frustrated organic conductor kappa-(ET)2Cu2(CN)3

The pressure-temperature phase diagram of the organic Mott insulator kappa-(ET)2Cu2(CN)3, a model system of the spin liquid on triangular lattice, has been investigated by 1H NMR and resistivity measurements. The spin-liquid phase is persistent before the Mott transition to the metal or superconducting phase under pressure. At the Mott transition, the spin fluctuations are rapidly suppressed and the Fermi-liquid features are observed in the temperature dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation rate and resistivity. The characteristic curvature of the Mott boundary in the phase diagram highlights a crucial effect of the spin frustration on the Mott transition.     

Half-filled layered organic superconductors and the resonating-valence-bond theory of the hubbard-heisenberg model

We present a resonating-valence-bond theory of superconductivity for the Hubbard-Heisenberg model on an anisotropic triangular lattice. Our calculations are consistent with the observed phase diagram of the half-filled layered organic superconductors, such as the beta, beta', kappa, and lambda phases of (BEDT-TTF)2X [bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene] and (BETS)2X [bis(ethylenedithio)tetraselenafulvalene]. We find a first order transition from a Mott insulator to a dx2-y2 superconductor with a small superfluid stiffness and a pseudogap with dx2-y2 symmetry.     

Spin freezing transition and non-Fermi-liquid self-energy in a three-orbital model

A single-site dynamical mean-field study of a three band model with the rotationally invariant interactions appropriate to the t_(2g) levels of a transition metal oxide reveals a quantum phase transition between a paramagnetic metallic phase and an incoherent metallic phase with frozen moments. The Mott transitions occurring at electron densities n=2, 3 per site take place inside the frozen moment phase. The critical line separating the two phases is characterized by a self-energy with the frequency dependence Sigma(omega) approximately sqrt[omega] and a broad quantum critical regime. The findings are discussed in the context of the power law observed in the optical conductivity of SrRuO3.     

Mott transition of fermionic atoms in a three-dimensional optical trap

We study theoretically the Mott metal-insulator transition for a system of fermionic atoms confined in a three-dimensional optical lattice and a harmonic trap. We describe an inhomogeneous system of several thousand sites using an adaptation of dynamical mean-field theory solved efficiently with the numerical renormalization group method. Above a critical value of the on-site interaction, a Mott-insulating phase appears in the system. We investigate signatures of the Mott phase in the density profile and in time-of-flight experiments.     

One-dimensional phase transitions in a two-dimensional optical lattice

A phase transition for bosonic atoms in a two-dimensional anisotropic optical lattice is considered. If the tunnelling rates in two directions are different, the system can undergo a transition between a two-dimensional superfluid and a one-dimensional Mott insulating array of strongly coupled tubes. The connection to other lattice models is exploited in order to better understand the phase transition. Critical properties are obtained using quantum Monte Carlo calculations. These critical properties are related to correlation properties of the bosons and a criterion for commensurate filling is established.