Two-dimensional disordered Mott metal-insulator transition

Mottness is at the heart of the essential physics in a strongly correlated system as many novel quantum phenomena occur in the metallic phase near the Mott metal–insulator transition. We investigate the Mott transition in a Hubbard model by using the dynamical mean-field theory and introduce the local quantum state fidelity to depict the Mott metal–insulator transition. The local quantum state fidelity provides a convenient approach to determining the critical point of the Mott transition. Additionally, it presents a consistent description of the two distinct forms of the Mott transition points.

We consider the thermodynamic consistency of the charge response function in the (extended) Hubbard model. In dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), thermodynamic consistency is preserved. We prove that the static, homogeneous DMFT susceptibility is consistent as long as vertex corrections obtained from the two-particle impurity correlation function are included. In the presence of a nonlocal interaction, the problem may be treated within extended DMFT (EDMFT), or its diagrammatic extension, the dual boson approach. We show that here maintaining thermodynamic consistency requires knowledge of three- and four-particle impurity correlation functions, which are typically neglected. Nevertheless, the dual boson approximation to the response is remarkably close to consistency. This holds even when two-particle vertex corrections are neglected. EDMFT is consistent only in the strongly correlated regime and near half-filling, where the physics is predominantly local.

Oxygen vacancies are a common source of excess electrons in complex oxides. In Mott insulators these additional electrons can induce a metal-insulator transition (MIT), fundamentally altering the electronic properties of the system. Here we study the effect of oxygen vacancies in LaTiO3, a prototypical Mott insulator close to the MIT. We show that the introduction of oxygen vacancies creates a vacancy-related band immediately below the partially filled Ti-t2g bands. We study the effect of this additional band on the Mott MIT using a combination of density functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory (DFT+DMFT), employing a minimal correlated subspace consisting of effective Ti-t2g orbitals plus an additional Wannier function centered on the vacancy site. We find that the Mott insulating state in LaTiO3 is robust to the presence of the vacancy band, which remains fully occupied even in the presence of a local Coulomb repulsion.

Lanczos-based Low-Rank Correction Method for Solving the Dyson Equation in Inhomogenous Dynamical Mean-Field Theory

A metal can be driven to an insulating phase through distinct mechanisms. A possible way is via the Coulomb interaction, which then defines the Mott metal-insulator transition (MIT). Another possibility is the MIT driven by disorder, the so-called Anderson MIT. Here we analyze interacting particles in disordered Hubbard chains $-$ thus comprising the Mott-Anderson physics $-$ by investigating the ground-state entanglement with density functional theory. The localization signature on entanglement is found to be a local minimum at a certain critical density. Individually, the Mott (Anderson) MIT has a single critical density whose minimum entanglement decreases as the interaction (disorder) enhances. While in the Mott MIT entanglement saturates at finite values, characterizing partial localization, in the Anderson MIT the system reaches full localization, with zero entanglement, for sufficiently strong disorder. In the combined Mott-Anderson MIT, we find three critical densities referring to local minima on entanglement. One of them is the same as for the Anderson MIT, but now the presence of interaction requires a stronger disorder potential to induce localization. A second critical density is related to the Mott MIT, but due to disorder it is displaced by a factor proportional to the concentration of impurities. The third local minimum on entanglement is unique to the concomitant presence of disorder and interaction, found to be related to an effective density phenomenon, thus referred to as a Mott-like MIT. Since entanglement has been intrinsically connected to the magnetic susceptibility $-$ a quantity promptly available in cold atoms experiments $-$ our detailed numerical description might be useful for the experimental investigation of Mott-Anderson MIT.

Dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) is one of the most widely-used methods to treat accurately electron correlation effects in ab-initio real material calculations. Many modern large-scale implementations of DMFT in electronic structure codes involve solving a quantum impurity model with a Continuous-Time Quantum Monte Carlo (CT-QMC) solver. The main advantage of CT-QMC is that, unlike standard quantum Monte Carlo approaches, it is able to generate the local Green's functions of the correlated system on an arbitrarily fine imaginary time grid, and is free of any systematic errors. In this work, we extend a hybrid QMC solver proposed by Khatami et al. and Rost et al. to a multi-orbital context. This has the advantage of enabling impurity solver QMC calculations to scale linearly with inverse temperature and permit its application to d and f band materials. In addition, we present a novel Green's function processing scheme which generates accurate quasi-continuous imaginary time solutions of the impurity problem which overcome errors inherent to standard QMC approaches. This solver and processing scheme are incorporated into a full DFT+DMFT calculation using the CASTEP DFT code. Benchmark calculations for strontium vanadate properties are presented.

The metal-insulator transition (MIT) remains among the most thoroughly studied phenomena in solid state physics, but the complexity of the phenomena, which usually involves cooperation of many degrees of freedom including orbitals, fluctuating local moments, magnetism, and the crystal structure, have resisted predictive ab-initio treatment. Here we develop ab-initio theoretical method for correlated electron materials, based on Dynamical Mean Field Theory, which can predict the change of the crystal structure across the MIT at finite temperature. This allows us to study the coupling between electronic, magnetic and orbital degrees of freedom with the crystal structure across the MIT in rare-earth nickelates. We predict the electronic free energy profile of the competing states, and the theoretical magnetic ground state configuration, which is in agreement with neutron scattering data, but is different from the magnetic models proposed before. The resonant elastic X-ray response at the K-edge, which was argued to be a probe of the charge order, is theoretically modelled within the Dynamical Mean Field Theory, including the core-hole interaction. We show that the line-shape of the measured resonant elastic X-ray response can be explained with the “site-selective” Mott scenario without real charge order on Ni sites.

Phase competition underlies many remarkable and technologically important phenomena in transition metal oxides. Vanadium dioxide (VO2) exhibits a first-order metal-insulator transition (MIT) near room temperature, where conductivity is suppressed and the lattice changes from tetragonal to monoclinic on cooling. Ongoing attempts to explain this coupled structural and electronic transition begin with two alternative starting points: a Peierls MIT driven by instabilities in electron-lattice dynamics and a Mott MIT where strong electron-electron correlations drive charge localization. A key missing piece of the VO2 puzzle is the role of lattice vibrations. Moreover, a comprehensive thermodynamic treatment must integrate both entropic and energetic aspects of the transition. Here we report that the entropy driving the MIT in VO2 is dominated by strongly anharmonic phonons rather than electronic contributions, and provide a direct determination of phonon dispersions. Our ab initio calculations identify softer bonding in the tetragonal phase, relative to the monoclinic phase, as the origin of the large vibrational entropy stabilizing the metallic rutile phase. They further reveal how a balance between higher entropy in the metal and orbital-driven lower energy in the insulator fully describes the thermodynamic forces controlling the MIT. Our study illustrates the critical role of anharmonic lattice dynamics in metal oxide phase competition, and provides guidance for the predictive design of new materials.

A new coarse-mesh computational method for the numerical solution of heat conduction and fluid flow problems is formally developed and applied to sample problems. The method is based upon formal use of Green's functions, which are defined locally over subdomains of the original system under consideration. The formal development of the local Green's function method for the solution of heat conduction problems is presented and discussed. Numerical solutions of sample problems for one-dimensional heat conduction with constant thermal conductivity, one-dimensional heat conduction with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity, and two-dimensional heat conduction with constant thermal conductivity are given, and these results are compared with results obtained using the finite difference and finite element methods. The formal development of the local Green's function method for the solution of fluid flow problems is then also presented and discussed; the numerical solution of a sample problem for simple one-dimensional incompressible fluid flow with viscous heating is also given.

To analyze the physical properties arising from indirect magnetic exchange between several magnetic adatoms and between complex magnetic nanostructures on metallic surfaces, the real-space extension of dynamical mean-field theory (R-DMFT) appears attractive as it can be applied to systems of almost arbitrary geometry and complexity. While R-DMFT describes the Kondo effect of a single adatom exactly, indirect magnetic (RKKY) exchange is taken into account on an approximate level only. Here, we consider a simplified model system consisting of two magnetic Hubbard sites ("adatoms") hybridizing with a non-interacting tight-binding chain ("substrate surface"). This two-impurity Anderson model incorporates the competition between the Kondo effect and indirect exchange but is amenable to an exact numerical solution via the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG). The particle-hole symmetric model at half-filling and zero temperature is used to benchmark R-DMFT results for the magnetic coupling between the two adatoms and for the magnetic properties induced in the substrate. In particular, the dependence of the local adatom and the nonlocal adatom-adatom static susceptibilities as well as the magnetic response of the substrate on the distance between the adatoms and on the strength of their coupling with the substrate is studied. We find both, excellent agreement with the DMRG data even on subtle details of the competition between RKKY exchange and the Kondo effect but also complete failure of the R-DMFT, depending on the parameter regime considered. R-DMFT calculations are performed using the Lanczos method as impurity solver. With the real-space extension of the two-site DMFT, we also benchmark a simplified R-DMFT variant.

We consider the interaction-driven Mott transition at zero temperature from the viewpoint of microscopic Fermi liquid theory. To this end, we derive an exact expression for the Landau parameters within the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) approximation to the single-band Hubbard model. At the Mott transition the symmetric and the anti-symmetric Landau parameter diverge. The vanishing compressibility at the Mott transition directly implies the divergence of the forward scattering amplitude in the charge sector, which connects the proximity of the Mott phase to a tendency towards phase separation. We verify the expected behavior of the Landau parameters in a DMFT application to the Hubbard model on the triangular lattice at finite temperature. Exact conservation laws and the Ward identity are crucial to capture vertex divergences related to the Mott transition. We furthermore generalize Leggett's formula for the static susceptibility of the Fermi liquid to the static fermion-boson response function. In the charge sector the limits of small transferred momentum and frequency of this response function commute at the Mott transition.

We investigate the metal-insulator transition in the half-filled Hubbard model on the two-dimensional triangular lattice using both the Kotliar-Ruckenstein slave-boson technique and an exact numerical diagonalization of finite clusters. Contrary to the case of a square lattice, where a perfect nesting of the Fermi surface leads to a metal-insulator transition at arbitrarily small values of U, always accompanied by antiferromagnetic ordering, on a triangular lattice, due to the lack of perfect nesting, the transition takes place at a finite value of U, and frustration induces a nontrivial competition among different magnetic phases. Indeed, within the mean-field approximation in the slave-boson approach, as the interaction grows the paramagnetic metal turns into a metallic phase with incommensurate spiral ordering. Increasing the interaction further, a linear spin-density wave is stabilized, and finally for strong coupling the latter phase undergoes a first-order transition toward an antiferromagnetic insulator. No trace of the intermediate phases is seen in the exact diagonalization results, indicating a transition between a paramagnetic metal and an antiferromagnetic insulator.

A Singular value decomposition (SVD)-enhanced Least-square fitting technique is discussed. By automatic identifying, ordering, and selecting dominant SVD modes of the derivative matrix that responds to the variations of the variables, the converging process of the Least Square fitting is significantly enhanced. Thus the fitting speed can be fast enough for a fairly large system. This technique has been successfully applied to precision PEP-II optics measurement in which we determine all quadrupole strengths (both normal and skew components) and sextupole feed-downs as well as all BPM gains and BPM cross-plane couplings through Least-Square fitting of the phase advances and the Local Green's functions as well as the coupling ellipses among BPMs. The local Green's functions are specified by 4 local transfer matrix components R12, R34, R32, R14. These measurable quantities (the Green's functions, the phase advances and the coupling ellipse tilt angles and axis ratios) are obtained by analyzing turn-by-turn Beam Position Monitor (BPM) data with a high-resolution model-independent analysis (MIA). Once all of the quadrupoles and sextupole feed-downs are determined, we obtain a computer virtual accelerator which matches the real accelerator in linear optics. Thus, beta functions, linear coupling parameters, and interaction point (IP) optics characteristics can be measured and displayed.

We demonstrate that the Mott metal-insulator transition (MIT) in single crystalline VO(2) nanowires is strongly mediated by surface stress as a consequence of the high surface area to volume ratio of individual nanowires. Further, we show that the stress-induced antiferromagnetic Mott insulating phase is critical in controlling the spatial extent and distribution of the insulating monoclinic and metallic rutile phases as well as the electrical characteristics of the Mott transition. This affords an understanding of the relationship between the structural phase transition and the Mott MIT.

We have measured the Seebeck coefficient, S, of nominally 1.1% Cr doped V2O3 as a function of both temperature and pressure. Large variations of S are found at the Mott insulator-metal transition. A combination of our data with resistivity data allows us to estimate the power factor. Contrary to thermopower and resistivity, the power factor is not strongly modified upon crossing the first order phase transition. Such a behavior is in sharp contrast with standard semiconductors.