Mott transition

About: Mott transition is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2444 publications have been published within this topic receiving 78401 citations.

A Mott insulator induced near iron pnictide superconductors

Abstract: Iron-based superconductivity develops out of a bad-metal state, which is believed to originate from a proximity to a Mott transition. Whether an actual Mott insulator can be realized in the phase diagram of the iron pnictides remains an open question. In this work, we use transport, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and neutron scattering experiments to demonstrate that Cu-doped NaFe$_{1-x}$Cu$_x$As pnictides near $x\approx 0.5$ exhibit real space Fe and Cu ordering, and are antiferromagnetic (AF) insulators. In NaFe$_{1-x}$Cu$_x$As with $x\approx 0.5$, the insulating behavior persists at temperatures above the N\'eel ordering temperature, thus indicating the presence of a Mott insulator phase. Based on studies of a multi-orbital Hubbard model within a slave-spin approach, we interpret this effect as arising from an effectively enhanced correlation strength associated with a Cu-site blockage of the kinetic motion of the Fe $3d$ electrons. Our discovery that a Mott insulating state can be induced near the iron pnictide superconductors highlights the important role of electron correlations in high-transition temperature (high-$T_c$) superconductivity.

Effective action for phase fluctuations in d-wave superconductors near a Mott transition

Abstract: Phase fluctuations of a d-wave superconducting order parameter are theoretically studied in the context of high-Tc cuprates. We consider an extended t-J model describing electrons in a layer which also contains long-range Coulomb interactions. The constraint of having at most singly occupied sites is enforced by an additional Hubbard term. The Heisenberg interaction is decoupled by a d-wave order parameter in the particle-particle channel. Assuming first that the equilibrium state has long-range phase order, the effective action $\mathcal{S}_\textit{eff}$ is derived perturbatively for small fluctuations within a path integral formalism, in the presence of the Coulomb and Hubbard interaction terms. In a second step, a more general derivation of $\mathcal{S}_\textit{eff}$ is performed in terms of a gradient expansion which only assumes that the gradients of the order parameter are small whereas the value of the phase may be large. We show that in the phase-only approximation the resulting $\mathcal{S}_\textit{eff}$ reduces in leading order in the field gradients to the perturbative one which thus allows to treat also the case without long-range phase order or vortices. Our result generalizes previous expressions for $\mathcal{S}_\textit{eff}$ to the case of interacting electrons, is explicitly gauge invariant, and avoids problematic singular gauge transformations.

Coherent potential approximation study of the Mott transition in optical lattice system with site-dependent interactions

Abstract: We study the Mott transition in the half-filled Hubbard model with spatially alternating interactions by means of the coherent potential approximation. The phase boundary between metallic and insulating phases at zero temperature is derived and the nature of the Mott states is also considered. Our results are in good agreement with the ones recently obtained by the two-site dynamical mean-field theory.

Magnetic phase diagram of the anisotropic multi-band Hubbard model

Abstract: Using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations we determine the magnetic phase diagram of the anisotropic two-band Hubbard model within the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) in the important intermediate-coupling regime. We compare the QMC predictions with exact results from second-order weak-and strong-coupling perturbation theory. We find that the orbital-selective Mott transition (OSMT), which occurs in the fully frustrated case, is completely hidden in the antiferromagnetic (AF) ground state of the model. On the basis of our results, we discuss possible mechanisms of frustration. We also demonstrate the close relationship of the physics of the two-band Hubbard model in the orbital-selective Mott (OSM) phase to the Falicov-Kimball model.

Low-energy dynamical response of an Anderson insulator with local attraction

Abstract: The low-frequency dynamical response of an Anderson insulator is dominated by so-called Mott resonances: hybridization of pairs of states close in energy, but separated spatially. We study the effect of interaction on Mott resonances in the model of spinful fermions (electrons) with local attraction. This model is known to exhibit a so-called pseudogap: a suppression of the low-energy single-particle excitations. Correspondingly, the low-energy dynamical response is also reduced. However this reduction has mostly quantitative character. In particular, the Mott formula for frequency-dependent conductivity preserves its functional asymptotic behavior at low frequencies, but with a small numerical prefactor. This result can be explained in terms of Mott resonances for electron pairs instead of single electrons.