arXiv subjects

S. A. Jafari

Publications and source records attributed to S. A. Jafari.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Quantitative measure for the spin-charge separation in two dimensional Hubbard model

We introduce a qauantitative measure of spin-charge separation, $ζ(t)$ which is based on the difference between the fluctuations with respect to background of the spin and charge profiles at any time t and is suitable for studying the non-equilibrium dynamics of excitations in strongly correlated systems. This quantity is not only a direct measure of the spin-charge separation in strongly correlated systems, but its long time behaviour can further serve as a possible order parameter for the interaction induced (Mott) insulating state. Within the nu- merically exact diagonzalization we calculate this quantity for the two dimensional Hubbard model away from Half filling. Our quantitative measure in chain, ladder and two-dimensional geometries gives the same order of magnitude for the quantity of spin-charge separation. Furthermore from the temporal behaviour of $ζ(t)$ a threshold time can be identified that provides clues onto the breakdown of underlying Mott insulating phase.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Semiconductor of spinons: from Ising band insulator to orthogonal band insulator

Within the ionic Hubbard model, electron correlations transmute the single-particle gap of a band insulator into a Mott gap in the strong correlation limit. However understanding the nature of possible phases in between these two extreme insulating phases remains an outstanding challenge. We find two strongly correlated insulating phases in between the above extremes: (i) The insulating phase just before the Mott phase can be viewed as gapping a non-Fermi liquid state of spinons through staggered ionic potential. The quasi-particles of underlying spinons are orthogonal to physical electrons and hence they do not couple to photoemission probes, giving rise to "ARPES-dark" state due to which the ARPES gap will be larger than optical and thermal gap. (ii) The correlated insulating phase just after the normal band insulator corresponds to the ordered phase of slave Ising spins (Ising insulator) where charge configuration is controlled by an underlying Ising variable which indirectly couples to external magnetic field and hence gives rise to additional temperature and field dependence in semiconducting properties. In the absence of tunability for the Hubbard $U$, such a temperature and field dependence can be conveniently employed to achieve further control on the transport properties of Ising-based semiconductors. The rare earth monochalcogenide semiconductors where the magneto-resistance is anomalously large can be a candidate system for the ordered phase of Ising variable where pairs of charge bosons are condensed in the background. Combining present results with our previous dynamical mean field theory study, we argue that the present picture holds if the ionic potential is strong enough to survive the downward renormalization of the ionic potential caused by Hubbard $U$.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Exactly solvable spin chain models corresponding to BDI class of topological superconductors

We present an exactly solvable extension of the quantum XY chain with longer range multi-spin interactions. Topological phase transitions of the model are classified in terms of the number of Majorana zero modes which are in turn related to an integer winding number. We further find a general relation between the winding number and the number of Majorana fermions at the ends of an open chain. The present class of exactly solvable models belong to the BDI class in the Altland-Zirnbauer classification (A. Altland, M. R. Zirnbauer, Phys. Rev. B (1997) 55 1142) of topological superconductors. We show that time reversal (TR) symmetry of the spin variables translates into a peculiar particle-hole transformation in the language of Jordan-Wigner (JW) fermions that is accompanied by a π shift in the wave vector ($π$PH). Presence of $π$PH symmetry restricts the winding number of TR symmetric extensions of XY to odd integers. The πPH operator may serve in further detailed classification of topological superconductors.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Strong coupling approach to Mott transition of massless and massive Dirac fermions on honeycomb lattice

Phase transitions in the Hubbard model and ionic Hubbard model at half-filling on the honeycomb lattice are investigated in the strong coupling perturbation theory which corresponds to an expansion in powers of the hopping $t$ around the atomic limit. Within this formulation we find analytic expressions for the single-particle spectrum, whereby the calculation of the insulating gap is reduced to a simple root finding problem. This enables high precision determination of the insulating gap that does not require any extrapolation procedure. The critical value of Mott transition on the honeycomb lattice is obtained to be $U_c\approx 2.38 t$. Studying the ionic Hubbard model at the lowest order, we find two insulating states, one with Mott character at large $U$ and another with single-particle gap character at large ionic potential, $Δ$. The present approach gives a critical gapless state at $U=2Δ$ at lowest order. By systematically improving on the perturbation expansion, the density of states around this critical gapless phase reduces.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Localized magnetic states in three dimensional Dirac solids

Formation of localized magnetic states in a metallic host is a classic problem ofcondensed matter physics formalized by P. W. Anderson within the so called single impurity Anderson model (SIAM). The general picture in a host of a simple one-band metal is that a large Hubbard $U$ in the impurity orbital is pre-requisite for the formation of localized magnetic states. In recent years three dimensional (3D) Dirac solids have emerged the hallmark of which is strong spin-orbit interaction. In this work we show that such a strong spin-orbit interaction allows to form localized magnetic states even with small values of Hubbard $U$. This opens up the fascinating possibility of forming magnetic states with $s$ or $p$ orbital impurities -- different from traditional paradigms of $d$ or $f$ orbital based magnetic moments.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Quantum transport through 3D Dirac materials

Bismuth and its alloys provide a paradigm to realize three dimensional materials whose low-energy effective theory is given by Dirac equation in 3+1 dimensions. We study the quantum transport properties of three dimensional Dirac materials within the framework of Landauer-Büttiker formalism. Charge carriers in normal metal satisfying the Schrödinger equation, can be split into four-component with appropriate matching conditions at the boundary with the three dimensional Dirac material (3DDM). We calculate the conductance and the Fano factor of an interface separating 3DDM from a normal metal, as well as the conductance through a slab of 3DDM. Under certain circumstances the 3DDM appears transparent to electrons hitting the 3DDM. We find that electrons hitting the metal-3DDM interface from metallic side can enter 3DDM in a reversed spin state as soon as their angle of incidence deviates from the the direction perpendicular to interface. However the presence of a second interface completely cancels this effect.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Valence Bond Phases in $S=1/2$ Kane-Mele-Heisenberg Model

The phase diagram of Kane-Mele-Heisenberg (KMH) model in classical limit~\cite{zare}, contains disordered regions in the coupling space, as the result of to competition among different terms in the Hamiltonian, leading to frustration in finding a unique ground state. In this work we explore the nature of these phase in the quantum limit, for a $S=1/2$. Employing exact diagonalization (ED) in $S_z$ and nearest neighbor valence bond (NNVB) bases, bond and plaquette valence bond mean field theories, We show that the disordered regions are divided into ordered quantum states in the form of plaquette valence bond crystal(PVBC) and staggered dimerized (SD) phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Gapless chiral excitons in thin films of topological insulators

In a nanoscopic thin film of a strong topological insulator (TI) the Coulomb interaction in the channel that exchanges the two electrons with the same chirality in two different planes of the slab takes advantage of the minus sign resulting from such "exchange" and gives rise to a bound state between the positive energy states in one surface and the negative energy states in the opposite surfaces. Therefore particle and hole pairs in the {\em undoped} Dirac cone of the TI thin film form an inter-surface spin-singlet state that lies below the continuum of free particle-hole pairs. This mode is similar to the excitons of semiconductors, albeit formed between the electron and hole pairs from two different two-dimensional surfaces. For low-momenta the dispersion relation characterizing this collective mode is linear. Experimental comparison of two slabs with different thicknesses can capture the exponential dependence of the present effect on the slab thickness.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Stable local moments of vacancies and hollow-site impurities in graphene

Taking into account the possibility of a p-wave hybridization function $V(\vec k)$ of ad-atom with Dirac electrons in graphene -- which arises for vacancies and hollow-site impurities -- we study the nature of magnetic moment formation within the single impurity Anderson model (SIAM). Compared to the s-wave hybridization function, we find that the local moments formed within the Hartree mean field are robust against the change in the parameters of the model. Further we investigate the stability of the local moments with respect to quantum fluctuations by going beyond the Hartree approximation. We find that for parameter regimes where local moments formed by top-site ad-atoms are completely washed out by quantum fluctuations, those formed by vacancies (or hollow-site impurities) survive the quantum fluctuations captured by post-Hartree approximation. Hence vacancies and hollow-site ad-atoms are suitable candidates to produce stable local moments.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Kondo resonance from vacancies in graphene

Using the slave-rotor mean-field theory, we study the formation of Kondo resonance in graphene induced from vacancies. At the Dirac neutrality point, we find acritical hybridization strength beyond which the Kondo resonance takes place, despite vanishing density of states. We also find that the line-shapes of the Kondo peak are entirely different from Lorentzian shown in normal metallic hosts. The dependence of Kondo temperature on the effective hybridization parameter of the spinon field turns out to be linear in contrast to the quadratic dependence in normal metals. Upon doping we find strong electron-hole asymmetry for the dependence of Kondo temperature on the chemical potential.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

RKKY interaction in heavily vacant graphene

Dirac electrons in clean graphene can mediate the interactions between two localized magnetic moments. The functional form of the RKKY interaction in pristine graphene is specified by two main features: (i) an atomic scale oscillatory part determined by a wave vector $\vec Q$ connecting the two valleys. Furthermore with doping another longer range oscillation appears which arise from the existence of an extended Fermi surface characterized by a single momentum scale $k_F$. (ii) $R^α$ decay in large distances where the exponent $α=-3$ is a distinct feature of undoped Dirac sea (with a linear dispersion relation) in two dimensions. In this work, we investigate the effect of a few percent vacancies on the above properties. Depending on the doping level, if the chemical potential lies on the linear part of the density of states, the exponent $α$ remains close to -3. Otherwise $α$ reduces towards more negative values which means that the combined effect of vacancies and the randomness in their positions makes it harder for the carriers of the medium to mediate the magnetic interaction. Addition of a few percent of vacancies diminishes the atomic scale oscillations of the RKKY interaction signaling the destruction of two-valley structure of the parent graphene material. Surprisingly by allowing the chemical potential to vary, we find that the longer-range oscillations expected to arise from the existence of a $k_F$ scale in the vacant graphene are absent. This may indicate possible non-Fermi liquid behavior by "alloying" graphene with vacancies. The complete absence of oscillations in heavily vacant graphene can be considered an advantage for applications as a uniform sign of the exchange interaction is desirable for magnetic ordering.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Collective excitations and the nature of Mott transition in undoped gapped graphene

Particle-hole continuum (PHC) for massive Dirac fermions in presence of short range interactions, provides an unprecedented opportunity for formation of two collective split-off states, one in the singlet and the other in the triplet (spin-1) channel in undoped system. Both poles are close in energy and are separated from thec continuum of free particle-hole excitations by an energy scale of the order of gap parameter $Δ$. They both disperse linearly with two different velocities reminiscent of spin-charge separation in Luttinger liquids. When the strength of Hubbard interactions is stronger than a critical value, the velocity of singlet excitation which we interpret as a charge boson composite becomes zero, and renders the system a Mott insulator. Beyond this critical point, the low-energy sector is left with a linearly dispersing triplet mode -- a characteristic of a Mott insulator. The velocity of triplet mode at the Mott criticality is twice the velocity of underlying Dirac fermions. The phase transition line in the space of $U$ and $Δ$ is in qualitative agreement with a more involved dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) calculation.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Nonlinear optical response in gapped graphene

We present a formulation for the nonlinear optical response in gapped graphene, where the low-energy single-particle spectrum is modeled by massive Dirac theory. As a representative example of the formulation presented here, we obtain closed form formula for the third harmonic generation (THG) in gapped graphene. It turns out that the covariant form of the low-energy theory gives rise to a peculiar logarithmic singularities in the nonlinear optical spectra. The universal functional dependence of the response function on dimension-less quantities indicates that the optical nonlinearity can be largely enhanced by tuning the gap to smaller values.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Short range Coulomb correlations render massive Dirac fermions massless

Tight binding electrons on a honeycomb lattice are described by an effective Dirac theory at low energies. Lowering symmetry by an alternate ionic potential ($Δ$) generates a single-particle gap in the spectrum. We employ the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) technique, to study the effect of on-site electron correlation ($U$) on massive Dirac fermions. For a fixed mass parameter $Δ$, we find that beyond a critical value $U_{c1}(Δ)$ massive Dirac fermions become massless. Further increasing $U$ beyond $U_{c2}(Δ)$, there will be another phase transition to the Mott insulating state. Therefore the competition between the single-particle gap parameter, $Δ$, and the Hubbard $U$ restores the semi-metallic nature of the parent Hamiltonian. The width of the intermediate semi-metallic regime shrinks by increasing the ionic potential. However, at small values of $Δ$, there is a wide interval of $U$ values for which the system remains semi-metal.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Equations of motion method for triplet excitation operators in graphene

Particle-hole continuum in Dirac sea of graphene has a unique window underneath,which in principle leaves a room for bound state formation in the triplet particle hole channel [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 89}, 016402 (2002)]. In this work, we construct appropriate triplet particle-hole operators, and using a repulsive Hubbard type effective interaction, we employ equations of motions to derive approximate eigen-value equation for such triplet operators. While the secular equation for the spin density fluctuations gives rise to an equation which is second order in the strength of the short range interaction, the explicit construction of the triplet operators obtained here shows that in terms of these operators, the second order can be factorized to two first order equations, one of which gives rise to a solution below the particle-hole continuum of Dirac electrons in undoped graphene.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Neutral Triplet Collective Mode in Doped Graphene

Particle-hole continuum in Dirac sea of graphene has a unique window underneath, which provides a unique opportunity for emergence of a pole in the susceptibility of the {\em triplet} particle-hole channel in the entire Brillouin zone (BZ). Here we use random phase approximation (RPA) to study such collective mode at zero temperature, in a single layer of doped graphene. We find that due to the chiral nature of one-particle states, in undoped graphene, the wave function overlap factors do not lead to qualitative differences, while in doped graphene they will kill small momentum part of the branch of magnetic excitations by pushing it to touch the lower part of the continuum. The pole corresponding to magnetic excitations survives for for larger momenta in the BZ.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Collective Spin and Charge Excitations in Planar Aromatic Molecules

Employing high accuracy fixed node diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) method we calculated the lowest triplet collective excitation (spin gap), as well as an upper bound for the singlet excitations (charge gap) in a series of charge neutral planar non-ladder aromatic compounds. Both excitation energies lie below the continuum of particle-hole excitation energies obtained from Hartree-Fock orbitals. Hence they can be interpreted as genuine bound states in the particle-hole channel. Assuming a resonating valence bond (RVB) ground state which has been recently suggested for $sp^2$ bonded systems [ M. Marchi, {\em et. al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 107}, 086807 (2011)], offers a unified description of both excited states as two-spinon and doublon-holon bound states. We corroborate our interpretation, by Exact diagonalization study of a minimal model on finite honeycomb clusters.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Josephson super-current in graphene-superconductor junction

Within the tunneling Hamiltonian formulation for the eight-component spinors,the Josephson critical super-current has been calculated in a planar superconductor-normal graphene-superconductor junction. Coupling between superconductor regions and graphene is taken into account by a tunneling Hamiltonian which contains two types of tunneling, intra-valley and inter-valley tunneling. Within the present tunneling approach, we find that the contributions of two kinds of tunneling to the critical super-current, are completely separable. Therefore, it is possible to consider the effect of the inter-valley tunnelings in the critical super-current. The incorporation of these type of processes into the tunneling Hamiltonian, exposes a special feature of the graphene Josephson junctions. The effect of inter-valley tunneling appears in the length dependence plot of critical current in the form of oscillations. We also present the results for temperature dependence of critical super-current and compare with experimental results and other theoretical calculations.

cond-mat.supr-con↗