Comment on ``Stripes and the t-J Model''
This is a comment being submitted to Physical Review Letters on a recent letter by Hellberg and Manousakis on stripes in the t-J model.
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Publications and source records attributed to Steven R. White.
This is a comment being submitted to Physical Review Letters on a recent letter by Hellberg and Manousakis on stripes in the t-J model.
We study the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model using the Density-Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG).For the cases of on-site interactions and additional nearest-neighbor interactions the phase boundaries of the Mott-insulators and charge density wave phases are determined. We find a direct phase transition between the charge density wave phase and the superfluid phase, and no supersolid or normal phases. In the presence of nearest-neighbor interaction the charge density wave phase is completely surrounded by a region in which the effective interactions in the superfluid phase are repulsive. It is known from Luttinger liquid theory that a single impurity causes the system to be insulating if the effective interactions are repulsive, and that an even bigger region of the superfluid phase is driven into a Bose-glass phase by any finite quenched disorder. We determine the boundaries of both regions in the phase diagram. The ac-conductivity in the superfluid phase in the attractive and the repulsive region is calculated, and a big superfluid stiffness is found in the attractive as well as the repulsive region.
We study the one-dimensional Holstein model with spin-1/2 electrons at half-filling. Ground state properties are calculated for long chains with great accuracy using the density matrix renormalization group method and extrapolated to the thermodynamic limit. We show that for small electron-phonon coupling or large phonon frequency, the insulating Peierls ground state predicted by mean-field theory is destroyed by quantum lattice fluctuations and that the system remains in a metallic phase with a non-degenerate ground state and power-law electronic and phononic correlations. When the electron-phonon coupling becomes large or the phonon frequency small, the system undergoes a transition to an insulating Peierls phase with a two-fold degenerate ground state, long-range charge-density-wave order, a dimerized lattice structure, and a gap in the electronic excitation spectrum.
The density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method allows for very precise calculations of ground state properties in low-dimensional strongly correlated systems. We investigate two methods to expand the DMRG to calculations of dynamical properties. In the Lanczos vector method the DMRG basis is optimized to represent Lanczos vectors, which are then used to calculate the spectra. This method is fast and relatively easy to implement, but the accuracy at higher frequencies is limited. Alternatively, one can optimize the basis to represent a correction vector for a particular frequency. The correction vectors can be used to calculate the dynamical correlation functions at these frequencies with high accuracy. By separately calculating correction vectors at different frequencies, the dynamical correlation functions can be interpolated and pieced together from these results. For systems with open boundaries we discuss how to construct operators for specific wavevectors using filter functions.
The spectral weight functions and the optical conductivity of the Holstein model are studied on a one-dimensional six-site lattice with periodic boundary conditions for three different electron concentrations: a single electron, two electrons of opposite spins, and half filling. A density matrix approach is used to obtain an optimal phonon basis and to truncate the phonon Hilbert space without significant loss of accuracy. This approach allows us to calculate spectral functions for electrons dressed locally by the optimal phonons as well as for bare electrons. We obtain evidence for a smooth crossover from quasi-free electrons to an heavy itinerant small polaron (single-electron case) or bipolaron (two-electron case) as the electron-phonon coupling strength increases. At half filling we observe a crossover from a quasi-free-electron ground state to a quasi-degenerate Peierls charge-density-wave ground state for a finite electron-phonon coupling. This crossover is marked by an abrupt drop of the Drude weight which is vanishingly small in the Peierls phase.
As the number of legs n of an n-leg, t-J ladder increases, density matrix renormalization group calculations have shown that the doped state tends to be characterized by a static array of domain walls and that pairing correlations are suppressed. Here we present results for a t-t'-J model in which a diagonal, single particle, next-near-neighbor hopping t' is introduced. We find that this can suppress the formation of stripes and, for t' positive, enhance the d_{x^2-y^2}-like pairing correlations. The effect of t' > 0 is to cause the stripes to evaporate into pairs and for t' < 0 to evaporate into quasi-particles. Results for n=4 and 6-leg ladders are discussed.
We present a new type of basis set which is local, compact, and orthogonal. The basis functions, called orthlets, are centered at the sites of a lattice and are specifically adapted to represent the system being studied. The adaptability includes the ability to have singular behavior within an orthlet, allowing a single orthlet to represent a function in the vicinity of a singularity.
In this paper we describe how the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) can be used for quantum chemical calculations for molecules, as an alternative to traditional methods, such as configuration interaction or coupled cluster approaches. As a demonstration of the potential of this approach, we present results for the H$_2$O molecule in a standard gaussian basis. Results for the total energy of the system compare favorably with the best traditional quantum chemical methods.
Using the density matrix renormalization group, we calculate the energy of a domain wall in the 2D t-J model as a function of the linear hole density ρ_\ell, as well as the interaction energy between walls, for J/t=0.35. Based on these results, we conclude that the ground state always has domain walls for dopings 0 < x < 0.3. For x < 0.125, the system has (1,0) domain walls with ρ_\ell ~ 0.5, while for 0.125 < x < 0.17, the system has a possibly phase-separated mixture of walls with ρ_\ell ~ 0.5 and ρ_\ell =1. For x > 0.17, there are only walls with ρ_\ell =1. For ρ_\ell = 1, diagonal (1,1) domain walls have very nearly the same energy as (1,0) domain walls.
For the traditional low T_c superconductors, the superconducting condensation energy is proportional to the change in energy of the ionic lattice between the normal and superconducting state, providing a clear link between pairing and the electron-ion interaction. Here, for the t-J model, we discuss an analogous relationship between the superconducting condensation energy and the change in the exchange energy between the normal and superconducting states. We point out the possibility of measuring this using neutron scattering and note that such a measurement, while certainly difficult, could provide important evidence for an exchange interaction-based pairing mechanism.
Using both the density-matrix renormalization group method and the constrained-path quantum Monte Carlo method, we have studied the ground-state energies and the spin and hole densities of a $12 \times 3$ Hubbard model with open boundary conditions and 6 holes doped away from half-filling. Results obtained with these two methods agree well in the small and intermediate $U$ regimes. For $U/t \geq 6$ we find a ground-state with stripes.
We propose a new density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) approach to study lattices including bosons. The key to the new approach is an exact mapping of a boson site containing 2^N states to N pseudo-sites, each with 2 states. The pseudo-sites can be viewed as the binary digits of a boson level. We apply the pseudo-site DMRG method to the polaron problem in the one- and two-dimensional Holstein models. Ground state results are presented for a wide range of electron-phonon coupling strengths and phonon frequencies on lattices large enough (up to 80 sites in one dimension and up to 20x20 sites in two dimensions) to eliminate finite size effects, with up to 128 phonon states per phonon mode. We find a smooth but quite abrupt crossover from a quasi-free electron ground state with a slightly renormalized mass at weak electron-phonon coupling to a polaronic ground state with a large effective mass at strong coupling, in agreement with previous studies.
We present a density matrix approach for treating systems with a large or infinite number of degrees of freedom per site with exact diagonalization or the density matrix renormalization group. The method is demonstrated on the 1D Holstein model of electrons coupled to Einstein phonons. In this system, two or three optimized phonon modes per site give results as accurate as with 10-100 bare phonon levels per site.
Results for a doped 3-leg t-J ladder obtained using the density matrix renormalization group are reported. At low hole doping, the holes form a dilute gas with a uniform density. The momentum occupation of the odd band shows a sharp decrease at a large value of k_F similar to the behavior of a lightly doped t-J chain, while the even modes appear gapped. The spin-spin correlations decay as a power law consistent with the absence of a spin gap, but the pair field correlations are negligible. At larger doping we find evidence for a spin gap and as x increases further we find 3-hole diagonal domain walls. In this regime there are pair field correlations and the internal pair orbital has d_x^2-y^2 - like symmetry. However, the pair field correlations appear to fall exponentially at large distances.
Using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), we study the 2D t-J model at a hole doping of x=1/8 on clusters as large as 19x8. We find a striped phase which is consistent with recent neutron scattering experiments. We find that bond-centered and site-centered stripes have nearly the same energy, suggesting that in the absence of pinning effects the domain walls can fluctuate.
We show that the Kondo chain away from half-filling has a spin gap upon the introduction of an additional direct Heisenberg coupling between localized spins. This is understood in the weak-Kondo-coupling limit of the Heisenberg-Kondo lattice model by bosonization and in the strong-coupling limit by a mapping to a modified t-J model. Only for certain ranges of filling and Heisenberg coupling does the spin gap phase extend from weak to strong coupling.
Using the density matrix renormalization group, we study domain wall structures in the t-J model at a hole doping of x=1/8. We find that the domain walls are composed of d_{x^2-y^2} pairs and that the regions between the domain walls have antiferromagnetic correlations that are pi phase shifted across a domain wall. At x=1/8, the hole filling corresponds to one hole per two domain wall unit cells. When the pairs in a domain wall are pinned by an external field, the d_{x^2-y^2} pairing response is suppressed, but when the pinning is weakened, d_{x^2-y^2} pair-field correlations can develop.
Using density matrix renormalization group techniques, we have studied the ground state of the 4-leg t-J ladder doped near half-filling. Depending upon J/t and the hole doping x, three types of ground state phases are found: (1) a phase containing d_{x^2-y^2} pairs; (2) a striped CDW domain-wall phase, and (3) a phase separated regime. A CDW domain-wall consists of fluctuating hole pairs and this phase has significant d_{x^2-y^2} pair field correlations.