arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Carsten Honerkamp.
We review magnetic and superconducting instabilities in the t-t' Hubbard model on the two-dimensional square lattice as obtained with functional one-loop renormalization group techniques. Special emphasis is put on ferromagnetic and triplet superconducting tendencies that could be relevant to the triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4.
Motivated by the recent finding of superconductivity in layered CoO_2 compounds, we investigate superconducting and magnetic instabilities of interacting electrons on the two-dimensional triangular lattice. Using a one-loop renormalization group scheme for weak to moderate coupling strengths, we find that for purely local interactions U>0 and small Fermi surfaces the renormalization group flow remains bounded down to very low scales and no superconducting or other instabilities can be detected. Antiferromagnetic exchange interactions J generate a wide density region with a d_{x^2-y^2}+id_{xy}-wave superconducting instability similar to recent proposals for the strongly correlated t-J model. For larger Fermi surface volumes the interactions flow to strong coupling also for purely local interactions U>0. We find a singlet pairing instability in the vicinity of strong magnetic ordering tendencies at three wavevectors for the van Hove filling.
Using the N-patch renormalization group method we investigate the flow of the quasiparticle weight in one-dimensional, weakly two-dimensional and fully two-dimensional Hubbard models. In one dimension we reproduce the Luttinger exponent that describes the disappearance of the quasiparticle peak towards lower scales. Further we analyze effects of the band structure, interchain hopping and the flow of the interactions in quasi-one-dimensional models. For the two-dimensional case we study how the suppression of the quasiparticle weight affects the flow to strong coupling. We find that the flow to strong coupling remains essentially unchanged. This strengthens the evidence for d-wave superconductivity in the weakly repulsive Hubbard model.
We study staggered flux fluctuations around the superconducting state of the SU(2) meanfield theory for the two-dimensional t-J-model and their effect on the electron spectral function. The quasiparticle peaks near the saddlepoints get strongly broadened and partially wiped out by these fluctuations while the quasiparticle peaks near the nodes of the d-wave gap are preserved over a wide parameter range. The strength of these effects is governed by an energy scale that decreases towards zero doping and that is related to the energy splitting between the SU(2)-related superconducting and staggered flux meanfield states.
We use a novel temperature-flow renormalization group technique to analyze magnetic and superconducting instabilities in the two-dimensional t-t' Hubbard model for particle densities close to the van Hove filling as a function of the next-nearest neighbor hopping t'. In the one-loop flow at the van Hove filling, the characteristic temperature for the flow to strong coupling is suppressed drastically around t'_c approx. -0.33t, suggesting a quantum critical point between d-wave pairing at moderate t'>t'_c and ferromagnetism for t'<t'_c. Upon increasing the particle density in the latter regime the leading instability occurs in the triplet pairing channel.
We investigate the quasiparticle spectrum near surfaces in a two-dimensional system with d-density-wave order within a mean-field theory. For Fermi surfaces with perfect nesting for the ordering wave vector of the d-density-wave, a zero energy bound state occurs at [110] surfaces, in close analogy with the known effect in d-wave superconducting states or graphite. When the shape of the Fermi surface is changed by doping, the bound state energy moves away from the Fermi level. Furthermore, away from half-filling we find inhomogeneous phases with domain walls of the d-density-wave order parameter. The domain walls also support low energy bound states. These phenomena might provide an experimental test for hidden d-density-wave order in the high-Tc cuprates.
We derive a differential equation for the one-particle-irreducible vertex functions of interacting fermions as a function of the temperature. Formally, these equations correspond to a Wilsonian renormalization group scheme which uses the temperature as an explicit scale parameter. Our novel method allows us to analyze the competition between superconducting and various magnetic Fermi surface instabilities in the one-loop approximation. In particular this includes ferromagnetic fluctuations, which are difficult to treat on an equal footing in conventional Wilsonian momentum space techniques. Applying the scheme to the two-dimensional t-t' Hubbard model we investigate the RG flow of the interactions at the van Hove filling with varying next-nearest neighbor hopping t'. Starting at t'=0 we describe the evolution of the flow to strong coupling from an antiferromagnetic nesting regime over a d-wave regime at moderate t' to a ferromagnetic region at larger absolute values of t'. Upon increasing the particle density in the latter regime the ferromagnetic tendencies are cut off and the leading instability occurs in the triplet superconducting pairing channel.
We compare the one-loop renormalization group flow to strong coupling of the electronic interactions in the two-dimensional t-t'-Hubbard model with t'=-0.3t for band fillings smaller and larger than half-filling. Using a numerical N-patch scheme (N=32...96) we show that in the electron-doped case with decreasing electron density there is a rapid transition from a d(x^2-y^2)-wave superconducting regime with small characteristic energy scale to an approximate nesting regime with strong antiferromagnetic tendencies and higher energy scales. This contrasts with the hole-doped side discussed recently which exhibits a broad parameter region where the renormalization group flow suggests a truncation of the Fermi surface at the saddle points. We compare the quasiparticle scattering rates obtained from the renormalization group calculation which further emphasize the differences between the two cases.
We compare different scenarios for the low temperature splitting of the zero-energy peak in the local density of states at (110) surfaces of d_{x^2-y^2}-wave superconductors, observed by Covington et al. (Phys.Rev.Lett.79 (1997), 277). Using a tight binding model in the Bogolyubov-de Gennes treatment we find a surface phase transition towards a time-reversal symmetry breaking surface state carrying spontaneous currents and an s+id-wave state. Alternatively, we show that electron correlation leads to a surface phase transition towards a magnetic state corresponding to a local spin density wave state.
The quasiparticle reflection and transmission properties at normal conductor-superconductor interfaces are discussed for unitary and non-unitary spin triplet pairing states recently proposed for Sr_2RuO_4. We find resonance peaks in the Andreev reflection amplitude, which are related to surface bound states in the superconductor. They lead to conductance peak features below the quasiparticle gap in the superconductor. The position of the peaks depends on the angle of the incident quasiparticles in a different way for unitary and non-unitary states. Based on this observation we propose a possible experiment which allows to distinguish between the two kinds of superconducting states.