Correlations and confinement of excitations in an asymmetric Hubbard ladder

Correlation functions and low-energy excitations are investigated in the asymmetric two-leg ladder consisting of a Hubbard chain and a noninteracting tight-binding (Fermi) chain using the density matrix renormalization group method. The behavior of charge, spin and pairing correlations is discussed for the four phases found at half filling, namely, Luttinger liquid, Kondo-Mott insulator, spin-gapped Mott insulator and correlated band insulator. Quasi-long-range antiferromagnetic spin correlations are found in the Hubbard leg in the Luttinger liquid phase only. Pair-density-wave correlations are studied to understand the structure of bound pairs found in the Fermi leg of the spin-gapped Mott phase at half filling and at light doping but we find no enhanced pairing correlations. Low-energy excitations cause variations of spin and charge densities on the two legs that demonstrate the confinement of the lowest charge excitations on the Fermi leg while the lowest spin excitations are localized on the Hubbard leg in the three insulating phases. The velocities of charge, spin, and single-particle excitations are investigated to clarify the confinement of elementary excitations in the Luttinger liquid phase. The observed spatial separation of elementary spin and charge excitations could facilitate the coexistence of different (quasi-)long-range orders in higher-dimensional extensions of the asymmetric Hubbard ladder.     

BCS-BEC crossover on the two-dimensional honeycomb lattice

The attractive Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice exhibits, at half filling, a quantum critical point between a semimetal with massless Dirac fermions and an s-wave superconductor (SC). We study the BCS-BEC crossover in this model away from half filling at zero temperature and show that the appropriately defined crossover line (in the interaction-density plane) passes through the quantum critical point at half filling. For a range of densities around half filling, the "underlying Fermi surface" of the SC, defined as the momentum space locus of minimum energy quasiparticle excitations, encloses an area which changes nonmonotonically with interaction. We also study fluctuations in the SC and the semimetal, and show the emergence of an undamped Leggett mode deep in the SC. Finally, we consider possible implications for ultracold atoms in optical lattices and the high temperature SCs.     

Narrow-gap Luttinger liquid in carbon nanotubes

Electron interactions reinforce minigaps induced in metallic nanotubes by an external field and turn the gap field dependence into a universal power law. An exactly solvable Gross-Neveau model with an SU(4) symmetry is derived for neutral excitations near half filling. Charge excitations, described by a sine-Gordon perturbation of Luttinger liquid theory, are composite solitons formed by the charged and neutral fields with two separate length scales. Charge compressibility at finite density, evaluated in terms of intersoliton interaction, exhibits a crossover from overlapping to nonoverlapping soliton state. Implications for the Coulomb blockade measurements are discussed.     

Spin fluctuations and ferromagnetic order in two-dimensional itinerant systems with Van Hove singularities

The quasistatic approach is used to analyze the criterion of ferromagnetism for two-dimensional (2D) systems with the Fermi level near Van Hove (VH) singularities of the electron spectrum. It is shown that the spectrum of spin excitations (paramagnons) is positively defined when the interaction between electrons and paramagnons, determined by the Hubbard on-site repulsion U, is sufficiently large. Due to incommensurate spin fluctuations near the ferromagnetic quantum phase transition, the critical interaction U_c remains finite at VH filling and exceeds considerably its value obtained from the Stoner criterion. A comparison with the functional renormalization group results and mean-field approximation which yields a phase separation is also performed.     

Dynamical nature of chaos in electron systems of high-T c superconductors

A model of the fermion-condensation phase transition forming a plateau in the spectrum of single-particle excitations near the Fermi surface at T=0 is used to analyze those features of the spectral functions of normal states of high-T _c superconductors which are inherent in a marginal Fermi liquid contaminated by impurities. With this model, such a behavior is shown to be due to the fermion condensate, which acts as an impurity subsystem because its energy spectrum at T=0 is dispersionless. The influence of the anisotropy of condensate distribution in the Brillouin zone on the spectral functions is discussed.     

A model of Wigner liquid

A two-dimensional low-density system of charge carriers with strong Coulomb interaction, which can lead to the appearance of a short-wavelength soft mode (precursor of crystallization) is examined. This system provides elementary excitations of two types: Fermi excitations and Bose excitations with a gap in the spectrum. The latter excitations are similar to rotons in superfluid helium. A model involving the Fermi liquid and the soft mode is proposed, and interaction of different excitations with each other is described phenomenologically as in the Landau theory of Fermi liquid. By solving the derived equations, it was found that, as the temperature increases, the effective mass of Fermi excitations decreases and the gap in the Bose excitation spectrum increases.     

Momentum dependence of charge excitations in the electron-doped superconductor Nd1.85 Ce0.15 CuO4: a resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study

We report a resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) study of charge excitations in the electron-doped high-T(c) superconductor Nd1.85 Ce0.15 CuO4. The intraband and interband excitations across the Fermi energy are separated for the first time by tuning the experimental conditions properly to measure charge excitations at low energy. A dispersion relation with q-dependent width emerges clearly in the intraband excitation, while the intensity of the interband excitation is concentrated around 2 eV near the zone center. The experimental results are consistent with theoretical calculation of the RIXS spectra based on the Hubbard model.     

Evidence for pairing above the transition temperature of cuprate superconductors from the electronic dispersion in the pseudogap phase

In the underdoped high temperature superconductors, instead of a complete Fermi surface above Tc, only disconnected Fermi arcs appear, separated by regions that still exhibit an energy gap. We show that in this pseudogap phase, the energy-momentum relation of electronic excitations near EF behaves like the dispersion of a normal metal on the Fermi arcs, but like that of a superconductor in the gapped regions. We argue that this dichotomy in the dispersion is difficult to reconcile with a competing order parameter, but is consistent with pairing without condensation.     

Equations of two-fluid hydrodynamics in the Hubbard model

A set of equations is obtained using stationary and nonstationary superconductivity theories in terms of the Hubbard model. The equations near T _c and for a weak magnetic field have the general form of superconductivity equations with a strongly anisotropic Fermi surface. Calculations are performed using a kinetic equation for quasiparticles. The low-temperature collective excitations in a superconductor are studied. An explicit relationship for the temperature dependence of second sound is obtained.     

Variation of Excitation Spectra in Mixed-Stack Charge-Transfer Complexes

Local excitation spectra in different spin and charge channels are calculated in the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model with alternating energy levels at half filling for mixed-stack charge-transfer complexes. Near the boundary between the neutral and ionic phases, the electronic system is easily distorted by an additional term that reduces the symmetry and opens a gap. Alternating transfer integrals produce a nonmagnetic spin-Peierls phase; while staggered magnetic fields produce an antiferromagnetic phase. Both of them enhance the ionicity when they are introduced into the neutral phase near the boundary. Accordingly, these additional terms enhance low-energy spin excitations, although these excitations are suppressed when compared with those in the regular ionic phase. The regular ionic phase has a larger spectral weight in the local current channel than the neutral phase. This would imply that, in one dimension and if the lattice effect is negligible, the ionic phase has smaller activation energy in the electric conductivity near the boundary than the neutral phase.     

Ultracold fermions and the SU(N) Hubbard model

We investigate the fermionic SU(N) Hubbard model on the two-dimensional square lattice for weak to moderate interactions using renormalization group and mean-field methods. For the repulsive case U>0 at half filling and small N the dominant tendency is towards breaking of the SU(N) symmetry. For N>6 staggered flux order takes over as the dominant instability, in agreement with the large-N limit. Away from half filling for N=3 two flavors remain half filled by cannibalizing the third flavor. For U<0 and odd N a full Fermi surface coexists with a superconductor. These results may be relevant to future experiments with cold fermionic atoms in optical lattices.     

Transition in a Luttinger liquid with two-level impurities to the fermi-liquid state

The mechanisms leading to instability of the non-Fermi-liquid state of a Luttinger liquid with two-level impurities are proposed. Since exchange scattering in 1D systems is two-channel scattering in a certain range of parameters, several types of non-Fermi-liquid excitations with different quantum numbers exist in the vicinity of the Fermi level. These excitations include, first, charge density fluctuations in the Luttinger liquid and, second, many-particle excitations due to two-channel exchange interaction, which are associated with band-type as well as impurity fermion states. It is shown that mutual scattering of many-particle excitations of various types leads to the emergence of an additional Fermi-liquid singularity in the vicinity of the Fermi level. The conditions under which the Fermi-liquid state with a new energy scale (which is much smaller than the Kondo temperature) is the ground state of the system are formulated.     

Quantum oscillation measurements in high magnetic field and ultra-low temperature

The physical properties of a solid are determined by the electrons near the Fermi energy and their low-lying excitations. Thus, it is crucially important to obtain the band structure near the Fermi energy of a material to understand many novel phenomena that occur, such as high-T_c superconductivity, density waves, and Dirac-type excitations. One important way to determine the Fermi surface topology of a material is from its quantum oscillations in an external magnetic field. In this article, we provide a brief introduction to the substation at the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility(SECUF),with a focus on quantum oscillation measurements, including our motivation, the structure of and the challenges in building the substation, and perspectives.     

Real space imaging of one-dimensional standing waves: direct evidence for a Luttinger liquid

Electronic standing waves with two different wavelengths were directly mapped near one end of a single-wall carbon nanotube as a function of the tip position and the sample bias voltage with high-resolution position-resolved scanning tunneling spectroscopy. The observed two standing waves caused by separate spin and charge bosonic excitations are found to constitute direct evidence for a Luttinger liquid. The increased group velocity of the charge excitation, the power-law decay of their amplitudes away from the scattering boundary, and the suppression of the density of states near the Fermi level were also directly observed or calculated from the two different standing waves.