Effective inter-band coupling in MgB2 due to anharmonic phonons

M. Acquarone; L. Romano'

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arXiv · cond-mat/0302303

Effective inter-band coupling in MgB2 due to anharmonic phonons

M. Acquarone·L. Romano'

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Abstract

We investigate the origin of the inter-band coupling in MgB2 by focusing on its unusual phononic features, namely, the strong anharmonicity of the phonons and the presence of both linear and quadratic electron-phonon interactions of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) type. The bare electronic Hamiltonian has two bands with intra- and inter-band hopping, which lead to two decoupled hybridized bands. The phonon Hamiltonian including the anharmonic terms is diagonalized approximately by a squeezing transformation, which causes the softening of the phonon frequency. The linear SSH coupling amplitude is reduced, consistently with the estimates from first-principle calculations. Additionally, the quadratic coupling generates an effective phonon-induced interaction between the hybridized bands, which is non-vanishing even in the limit of vanishing inter-bare-band hopping amplitude.

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M. Acquarone, L. Romano'. 2003-02-14. Effective inter-band coupling in MgB2 due to anharmonic phonons. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0302303

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