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A. H. Castro Neto

Publications and source records attributed to A. H. Castro Neto.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources
arXiv2006

Electronic properties of graphene multilayers

We study the effects of disorder in the electronic properties of graphene multilayers, with special focus on the bilayer and the infinite stack. At low energies and long wavelengths, the electronic self-energies and density of states exhibit behavior with divergences near half-filling. As a consequence, the spectral functions and conductivities do not follow Landau's Fermi liquid theory. In particular, we show that the quasiparticle decay rate has a minimum as a function of energy, there is a universal minimum value for the in-plane conductivity of order e^2/h per plane and, unexpectedly, the c-axis conductivity is enhanced by disorder at low doping, leading to an enormous conductivity anisotropy at low temperatures.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2006

Dirac Fermion Confinement in Graphene

We study the problem of Dirac fermion confinement in graphene in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field B. We show, analytically and numerically, that confinement leads to anomalies in the electronic spectrum and to a magnetic field dependent crossover from \sqrt{B}, characteristic of Dirac-Landau level behavior, to linear in B behavior, characteristic of confinement. This crossover occurs when the radius of the Landau level becomes of the order of the width of the system. As a result, we show that the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations also change as a function of field, and lead to a singular Landau plot. We show that our theory is in excellent agreement with the experimental data.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2006

Phase Diagram of the Holstein-Hubbard Two-Leg Ladder

Using a functional renormalization group method, we obtain the phase diagram of the two-leg ladder system within the Holstein-Hubbard model, which includes both electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions. Our renormalization group technique allows us to analyze the problem for both weak and strong electron-phonon coupling. We show that, in contrast results from conventional weak coupling studies, electron-phonon interactions can dominate electron-electron interactions because of retardation effects.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2006

Disorder Induced Localized States in Graphene

We consider the electronic structure near vacancies in the half-filled honeycomb lattice. It is shown that vacancies induce the formation of localized states. When particle-hole symmetry is broken, localized states become resonances close to the Fermi level. We also study the problem of a finite density of vacancies, obtaining the electronic density of states, and discussing the issue of electronic localization in these systems. Our results also have relevance for the problem of disorder in d-wave superconductors.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2006

Coulomb Interactions and Ferromagnetism in Pure and Doped Graphene

We study the presence of ferromagnetism in the phase diagram of the two-dimensional honeycomb lattice close to half-filling (graphene) as a function of the strength of the Coulomb interaction and doping. We show that exchange interactions between Dirac fermions can stabilize a ferromagnetic phase at low doping when the coupling is sufficiently large. In clean systems, the zero temperature phase diagram shows both first order and second order transition lines and two distinct ferromagnetic phases: one phase with only one type of carriers (either electrons or holes) and another with two types of carriers (electrons and holes). Using the coherent phase approximation (CPA) we argue that disorder further stabilizes the ferromagnetic phase.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2006

Competing Orders in two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures

Using a functional renormalization group approach we study the zero temperature phase diagram of two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures of ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices, in the limit when the velocity of bosonic condensate fluctuations are much larger than the Fermi velocity. For spin-1/2 fermions we obtain a phase diagram, which shows a competition of pairing phases of various orbital symmetry ($s$, $p$, and $d$) and antiferromagnetic order. We determine the value of the gaps of various phases close to half-filling, and identify subdominant orders as well as short-range fluctuations from the RG flow. For spinless fermions we find that p-wave pairing dominates the phase diagram.

cond-mat.other↗
arXiv2005

Electronic Properties of Disordered Two-Dimensional Carbon

Two-dimensional carbon, or graphene, is a semi-metal that presents unusual low-energy electronic excitations described in terms of Dirac fermions. We analyze in a self-consistent way the effects of localized (impurities or vacancies) and extended (edges or grain boundaries) defects on the electronic and transport properties of graphene. On the one hand, point defects induce a finite elastic lifetime at low energies with the enhancement of the electronic density of states close to the Fermi level. Localized disorder leads to a universal, disorder independent, electrical conductivity at low temperatures, of the order of the quantum of conductance. The static conductivity increases with temperature and shows oscillations in the presence of a magnetic field. The graphene magnetic susceptibility is temperature dependent (unlike an ordinary metal) and also increases with the amount of defects. Optical transport properties are also calculated in detail. On the other hand, extended defects induce localized states near the Fermi level. In the absence of electron-hole symmetry, these states lead to a transfer of charge between the defects and the bulk, the phenomenon we call self-doping. The role of electron-electron interactions in controlling self-doping is also analyzed. We also discuss the integer and fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene, the role played by the edge states induced by a magnetic field, and their relation to the almost field independent surface states induced at boundaries. The possibility of magnetism in graphene, in the presence of short-range electron-electron interactions and disorder is also analyzed.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2005

Ice: a strongly correlated proton system

We discuss the problem of proton motion in Hydrogen bond materials with special focus on ice. We show that phenomenological models proposed in the past for the study of ice can be recast in terms of microscopic models in close relationship to the ones used to study the physics of Mott-Hubbard insulators. We discuss the physics of the paramagnetic phase of ice at 1/4 filling (neutral ice) and its mapping to a transverse field Ising model and also to a gauge theory in two and three dimensions. We show that H3O+ and HO- ions can be either in a confined or deconfined phase. We obtain the phase diagram of the problem as a function of temperature T and proton hopping energy t and find that there are two phases: an ordered insulating phase which results from an order-by-disorder mechanism induced by quantum fluctuations, and a disordered incoherent metallic phase (or plasma). We also discuss the problem of decoherence in the proton motion introduced by the lattice vibrations (phonons) and its effect on the phase diagram. Finally, we suggest that the transition from ice-Ih to ice-XI observed experimentally in doped ice is the confining-deconfining transition of our phase diagram.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2005

Renormalization Group Approach to Strong-Coupled Superconductors

We develop an asymptotically exact renormalization group (RG) approach that treats electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions on equal footing. The approach allows an unbiased study of the instabilities of Fermi liquids without the assumption of a broken symmetry. We apply our method to the problem of strongly coupled superconductors and find the temperature T* below which the high-temperature Fermi liquid state becomes unstable towards Cooper pairing. We show that T* is the same as the critical temperature Tc obtained in Eliashberg's strong coupling theory starting from the low-temperature superconducting phase. We also show that Migdal's theorem is implicit in our approach. Finally, our results lead to a novel way to calculate numerically, from microscopic parameters, the transition temperature of superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2005

Heat Bath Approach to Landau Damping and Pomeranchuk Quantum Critical Points

We study the problem of the damping of collective modes close to a Pomeranchuk quantum critical point in a Fermi liquid. In analogy with problems in dissipative open quantum systems, we derive the Landau damping of a Fermi liquid by integrating out a macroscopic number of degrees of freedom from a generating functional. Being a reformulation of the linearized Boltzmann equation this approach reproduces well-known results from the theory of Fermi liquids. We also study the Bethe-Salpeter equations within the Landau theory and discuss the implications of these results on quantum phase transitions of the Pomeranchuk type and its dynamical exponent, z. We apply our results to the electronic nematic instability and find z=3 in the collisionless limit.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2005

Electronic Properties of Two-Dimensional Carbon

We present a theoretical description of the electronic properties of graphene in the presence of disorder, electron-electron interactions, and particle-hole symmetry breaking. We show that while particle-hole asymmetry, long-range Coulomb interactions, and extended defects lead to the phenomenon of self-doping, local defects determine the transport and spectroscopic properties. Our results explain recent experiments in graphitic devices and predict new electronic behavior.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2005

The Double Exchange Model at Low Densities

We obtain the phase diagram of the double-exchange model at low electronic densities in the presence of electron-electron interactions. The single particle problem and its extension to low electronic densities, when a Wigner crystal of magnetic polarons is generated due to unscreened Coulomb interactions, is studied. It is argued that the Wigner crystal is the natural alternative to phase separation when the Coulomb interaction is taken into account. We discuss the thermal and quantum stability of the crystalline phase towards a polaronic Fermi liquid and a homogeneous, metallic, ferromagnetic phase. The relevance and application of our results to EuB_6 is also considered.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2005

Renormalization-group approach to superconductivity: from weak to strong electron-phonon coupling

We present the numerical solution of the renormalization group (RG) equations derived in Ref. [1], for the problem of superconductivity in the presence of both electron-electron and electron-phonon coupling at zero temperature. We study the instability of a Fermi liquid to a superconductor and the RG flow of the couplings in presence of retardation effects and the crossover from weak to strong coupling. We show that our numerical results provide an ansatz for the analytic solution of the problem in the asymptotic limits of weak and strong coupling.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2005

The Magnetism of Li doped La$_{2}$CuO$_4$: the antiferromagnetic spin-shard state

We study the dynamics of a single hole in Li and Sr doped La$_{2}$CuO$_4$ and its extension to a finite hole concentration. We compare the physics of La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ and La$_{2}$Cu$_{1-x}$Li$_x$O$_4$ and explain why these systems are remarkably different. We demonstrate that holes in La$_{2}$Cu$_{1-x}$Li$_x$O$_4$ are always localized and that there is a critical concentration, $x_c\approx 0.03$, above which the holes break the global antiferromagnetic state into an array of weakly coupled antiferromagnetic clusters (antiferromagnetic shards). We show that the spin-shard state provides a description of the magnetic and electric properties of La$_{2}$Cu$_{1-x}$Li$_x$O$_4$. Two experiments that can test our theory are proposed.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2005

Frustration of Decoherence in Open Quantum Systems

We study a model of frustration of decoherence in an open quantum system. Contrary to other dissipative ohmic impurity models, such as the Kondo model or the dissipative two-level system, the impurity model discussed here never presents overdamped dynamics even for strong coupling to the environment. We show that this unusual effect has its origins in the quantum mechanical nature of the coupling between the quantum impurity and the environment. We study the problem using analytic and numerical renormalization group methods and obtain expressions for the frequency and temperature dependence of the impurity susceptibility in different regimes.

cond-mat.other↗
arXiv2005

Fixed Points of the Dissipative Hofstadter Model

The phase diagram of a dissipative particle in a periodic potential and a magnetic field is studied in the weak barrier limit and in the tight-biding regime. For the case of half flux per plaquette, and for a wide range of values of the dissipation, the physics of the model is determined by a non trivial fixed point. A combination of exact and variational results is used to characterize this fixed point. Finally, it is also argued that there is an intermediate energy scale that separates the weak coupling physics from the tight-binding solution.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2005

Edge States in Doped Antiferromagnetic Nano-Structures

We study competition between different phases in a strongly correlated nano-structure with an edge. Making use of the self-consistent Green's function and density matrix renormalization group methods, we study a system described by the t-Jz and t-J models on a strip of a square lattice with a linear hole density n_||. At intermediate interaction strength J/t we find edge stripe-like states, reminiscent of the bulk stripes that occur at smaller J/t. We find that stripes attach to edges more readily than hole pairs, and that the edge stripes can exhibit a peculiar phase separation.

cond-mat.str-el↗