arXiv subjects

Vladimir Dobrosavljević

Publications and source records attributed to Vladimir Dobrosavljević.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Mechanism of charge transfer and electrostatic field fluctuations in complex metallic alloys

Complex metallic alloys exhibit rich disorder-driven electronic, magnetic, and vibrational behavior arising from strong chemical disorder, leading to unconventional structure-property relationships with applications in extreme-environment materials, catalysis, spintronics, and thermoelectrics. Despite their technological relevance, the microscopic nature of charge redistribution and electrostatic fluctuations in chemically disordered alloys remains incompletely understood. Here, we develop a theoretical framework that uncovers universal statistical trends of disorder-driven charge transfer and Madelung-field fluctuations. Our analytical formalism demonstrates that local charge transfer and electrostatic potentials exhibit Gaussian-like statistics and universal linear charge-potential (qV) correlations emerging directly from the underlying disorder landscape. We identify the physical origin of these correlations in the interplay between electronic screening and impurity scattering and show how their statistical properties depend on carrier density, disorder strength, and compositional complexity. We further derive scaling relations governing qV trends across binary and multicomponent alloys, including high-entropy materials. Large-supercell density-functional theory (DFT) calculations show good quantitative agreement with the predicted statistical behavior for representative metallic alloys. Our results provide a computationally efficient framework for incorporating disorder-driven electrostatic fluctuations into effective-medium electronic-structure theories and establish a statistical-physics foundation for the predictive design of complex alloys.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

Mott Intermittency at the Metal-Insulator Boundary

The resistivity maximum at a temperature $T=T_{\mathrm{max}}$ is a recurring feature of bandwidth-tuned Mott systems, yet its meaning remains controversial: is it a coherence-incoherence crossover of an electronically homogeneous metal, or does it mark the onset of transport through a mixed landscape of metallic and insulating regions? Even more debated is whether a true phase-coexistence regime survives in the relevant parameter range, or whether apparent inhomogeneity is merely extrinsic. Here we address these questions by moving beyond temperature sweeps and probe charge transport in the time domain. Near $T=T_{\mathrm{max}}$, we find that the resistance of a model system, a quasi-two-dimensional Mott spin liquid material, exhibits clear random-telegraph switching between discrete levels over long timescales. The statistics of the switching - sharp two-level behavior with thermally activated dwell times - point to a mesoscopic "current-controlling" region that dynamically toggles between metallic and insulating states, intermittently opening and closing the dominant conduction channel. This characteristic fluctuating dynamics provides direct evidence for intrinsic metal-insulator coexistence and establishes $T\sim T_{\mathrm{max}}$ as the regime of Mott intermittency, where transport is governed by stochastic domain switching rather than quasiparticle decoherence.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Relevance of long-range screening in Mott transition examined via a hydrogen lattice

The Mott transition, a metal-insulator transition due to strong electronic interaction, is observed in many materials without an accompanying change of system symmetry. An important open question in Mott's proposal is the role of long-range screening, whose drastic change across the quantum phase transition may self-consistently make the transition more abrupt, toward a first-order one. Here we investigate this effect in a model system of hydrogen atoms in a cubic lattice, using charge self-consistent dynamical mean-field theory that incorporates approximately the long-range interaction within the density functional treatment. We found that the system is well within the charge-transfer regime and that the charge-transfer gap intimately related to the Mott transition closes smoothly instead. This indicates that the long-range screening does not play an essential role in this prototypical example. This finding can be understood from the fact that the obtained insulating phase in this model system is driven by strong local interaction, and the transition is associated with the closing of charge-transfer gap. Contrary to Mott's length scale argument, such energetic competition between kinetic energy and local interaction is thus insensitive to long-range screening.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Kondo screening and random-singlet formation in highly disordered systems

We propose a minimal model to capture the anomalous low-temperature thermodynamics of doped semiconductors, such as Si:P, across the metal-insulator transition. We consider pairs of local magnetic moments coupled to a highly disordered, non-interacting electronic bath that undergoes a metal-insulator transition with increasing doping. Using a large-$\mathcal{N}$ variational approach, we capture both the inhomogeneous local Fermi-liquid and the insulating random-singlet phase, and find that the local moment susceptibility exhibits a robust power-law behavior, $χ(T) \propto T^{-α}$, with $α$ evolving smoothly with doping before saturating in the metal. Our results highlight the competition between Kondo screening and random-singlet formation as the key ingredient in constructing a complete theory for the low-temperature behavior of strongly disordered interacting systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Failed superconductivity in a Mott spin liquid material

A central challenge for understanding unconventional superconductivity in most strongly correlated electronic materials is their complicated band structure and presence of competing orders. In contrast, quasi-two-dimensional organic spin liquids are single-band systems with superconductivity arising near the bandwidth-tuned Mott metal-insulator transition in the absence of other orders. Here, we study chemically substituted $κ$-organics in which superconducting fluctuations emerge in the phase coexistence region between the Mott insulator and the Fermi liquid. Using magnetotransport and ac susceptibility measurements, we find that global superconductivity fails to set in as temperature $T\rightarrow 0$. Our results indicate instead the presence of superconducting domains embedded in the metallic percolating cluster that undergo a magnetic field-tuned quantum superconductor-to-metal phase transition. Surprisingly, albeit consistent with the percolation picture, universal conductance fluctuations are seen at high fields in macroscopic samples. The observed interplay of the intrinsic inhomogeneity and quantum phase fluctuations provides a new insight into failed superconductivity, a phenomenon seen in various conventional and unconventional superconductors, including cuprates.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2025

Precursors to Anderson Localization in the Holstein Model: Quantum and Quantum-Classical Solutions

We calculate the frequency-dependent mobility of the Holstein polaron in one dimension near adiabatic limit using the method based on dynamical quantum tipicality, as well as the quantum-classical method. The agreement between fully quantum and quantum-classical solutions is very good. The most prominent feature is the appearance of a zero-frequency peak in the mobility, in addition to the displaced peak associated to the precursors of Anderson localization. The zero-frequency peak cannot be obtained within the phenomenological transient localization approach, which is often used in a semiquantitative description of charge transport in quasi-one-dimensional organic semiconductors.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Doping a Wigner-Mott insulator: Exotic charge orders in transition-metal dichalcogenide moiré heterobilayers

The moiré pattern induced by lattice mismatch in transition-metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers causes the formation of flat bands, where interactions dominate the kinetic energy. At fractional fillings of the flat valence band, the long-range electron interactions then induce Wigner-Mott crystals. In this Letter we investigate the nontrivial electronic phases appearing away from commensurate fillings. Here, competing phases arise that are either characterized as doped Wigner-Mott charge transfer insulators or alternatively, a novel state with frozen charge order yet is conducting: the 'electron slush'. We propose that an extremely spatially inhomogeneous local density of states can serve as a key signature of the electron slush.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Quantum-embedding description of the Anderson lattice model with the ghost Gutzwiller Approximation

We present benchmark calculations of the Anderson lattice model based on the recently-developed "ghost Gutzwiller approximation". Our analysis shows that, in some parameters regimes, the predictions of the standard Gutzwiller approximation can be incorrect by orders of magnitude for this model. We show that this is caused by the inability of this method to describe simultaneously the Mott physics and the hybridization between correlated and itinerant degrees of freedom (whose interplay often governs the metal-insulator transition in real materials). Finally, we show that the ghost Gutzwiller approximation solves this problem, providing us with results in remarkable agreement with dynamical mean field theory throughout the entire phase diagram, while being much less computationally demanding. We provide an analytical explanation of these findings and discuss their implications within the context of ab-initio computation of strongly-correlated matter.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Rise and Fall of Landau's Quasiparticles While Approaching the Mott Transition

Landau suggested that the low-temperature properties of metals can be understood in terms of long-lived quasiparticles with all complex interactions included in Fermi-liquid parameters, such as the effective mass $m^{\star}$. Despite its wide applicability, electronic transport in bad or strange metals and unconventional superconductors is controversially discussed towards a possible collapse of the quasiparticle concept. Here we explore the electrodynamic response of correlated metals at half filling for varying correlation strength upon approaching a Mott insulator. We reveal persistent Fermi-liquid behavior with pronounced quadratic dependences of the optical scattering rate on temperature and frequency, along with a puzzling elastic contribution to relaxation. The strong increase of the resistivity beyond the Ioffe-Regel-Mott limit is accompanied by a `displaced Drude peak' in the optical conductivity. Our results, supported by a theoretical model for the optical response, demonstrate the emergence of a bad metal from resilient quasiparticles that are subject to dynamical localization and dissolve near the Mott transition.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Fragility of the Kondo insulating gap against disorder: relevance to recent puzzles in topological Kondo insulators

Kondo insulators are strongly correlated system in which a clean insulating gap emerges only at very low temperature due to many-body effects involving localized $f$-electrons. However, certain Kondo insulators, like SmB$_6$ and Ce${_3}$Bi${_4}$Pt${_3}$, display metallic behaviors at extremely low temperatures, that have defied current understanding. Recent advances in topological effects in materials has raised the attention on the protected surface states in these "topological Kondo insulators" as a potential resolution to some of the puzzling behaviors. Here we resolve these puzzles via a different route, by showing that the emergent Kondo insulating scale is extremely vulnerable against moderate degree of disorder, such that the gap is filled with a small number of states. Therefore, the real samples are probably never truly insulating and this in turn compromises the essential building block of topological considerations. Our results suggest strongly that systems like the Slater insulators would be a more promising direction to extend the realm of topology to strongly correlated systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Bypassing the computational bottleneck of quantum-embedding theories for strong electron correlations with machine learning

A cardinal obstacle to performing quantum-mechanical simulations of strongly-correlated matter is that, with the theoretical tools presently available, sufficiently-accurate computations are often too expensive to be ever feasible. Here we design a computational framework combining quantum-embedding (QE) methods with machine learning. This allows us to bypass altogether the most computationally-expensive components of QE algorithms, making their overall cost comparable to bare Density Functional Theory (DFT). We perform benchmark calculations of a series of actinide systems, where our method describes accurately the correlation effects, reducing by orders of magnitude the computational cost. We argue that, by producing a larger-scale set of training data, it will be possible to apply our method to systems with arbitrary stoichiometries and crystal structures, paving the way to virtually infinite applications in condensed matter physics, chemistry and materials science.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Quantum critical scaling for finite temperature Mott-like metal-insulator crossover in a few layered-MoS$_2$

The possibility of the strong electron-electron interaction driven insulating phase from the metallic phase in two-dimensions has been suggested for clean systems without intentional disorder, but its rigorous demonstration is still lacking. Here, we examine the finite-temperature transport behavior of a few layered-MoS$_2$ material in the vicinity of the density-driven metal-insulator transition (MIT), revealing previously overlooked universal features characteristic of strongly correlated electron systems. Our scaling analysis, based on the Wigner-Mott theoretical viewpoint, conclusively demonstrates that the transition is driven by strong electron-electron interactions and not disorder, in striking resemblance to what is seen in other Mott systems. Our results provide compelling evidence that transition-metal dichalcogenides provide an ideal testing ground for the study of strong correlation physics, which should open an exciting avenue for future research, making a parallel with recent advances in twisted bilayer graphene

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

The origin of Mooij correlations in disordered metals

Sufficiently disordered metals display systematic deviations from the behavior predicted by semi-classical Boltzmann transport theory. Here the scattering events from impurities or thermal excitations can no longer be considered as additive independent processes, as asserted by Matthiessen's rule following from this picture. In the intermediate region between the regime of good conduction and that of insulation, one typically finds a change of sign of the temperature coefficient of resistivity (TCR), even at elevated temperature spanning ambient conditions, a phenomenology that was first identified by Mooij in 1973. Traditional weak coupling approaches to identify relevant corrections to the Boltzmann picture focused on long distance interference effects such as "weak localization", which are especially important in low dimensions (1D, 2D) and close to the zero temperature limit. Here we formulate a strong-coupling approach to tackle the interplay of strong disorder and lattice deformations (phonons) in bulk three-dimensional metals at high temperatures. We identify a polaronic mechanism of strong disorder renormalization, which describes how a lattice locally responds to the relevant impurity potential. This mechanism, which quantitatively captures the Mooij regime, is physically distinct and unrelated to Anderson localization, but realizes early seminal ideas of Anderson himself, concerning the interplay of disorder and lattice deformations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Critical role of electronic correlations in determining crystal structure of transition metal compounds

The choice that a solid system "makes" when adopting a crystal structure (stable or metastable) is ultimately governed by the interactions between electrons forming chemical bonds. By analyzing 6 prototypical binary transition-metal compounds we demonstrate here that the orbitally-selective strong $d$-electron correlations influence dramatically the behavior of the energy as a function of the spatial arrangements of the atoms. Remarkably, we find that the main qualitative features of this complex behavior can be traced back to simple electrostatics, i.e., to the fact that the strong $d$-electron correlations influence substantially the charge transfer mechanism, which, in turn, controls the electrostatic interactions. This result advances our understanding of the influence of strong correlations on the crystal structure, opens a new avenue for extending structure prediction methodologies to strongly correlated materials, and paves the way for predicting and studying metastability and polymorphism in these systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Emergent Bloch Excitations in Mott Matter

We develop a unified theoretical picture for excitations in Mott systems, portraying both the heavy quasiparticle excitations and the Hubbard bands as features of an emergent Fermi liquid state formed in an extended Hilbert space, which is non-perturbatively connected to the physical system. This observation sheds light on the fact that even the incoherent excitations in strongly correlated matter often display a well defined Bloch character, with pronounced momentum dispersion. Furthermore, it indicates that the Mott point can be viewed as a topological transition, where the number of distinct dispersing bands displays a sudden change at the critical point. Our results, obtained from an appropriate variational principle, display also remarkable quantitative accuracy. This opens an exciting avenue for fast realistic modeling of strongly correlated materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Slave Boson Theory of Orbital Differentiation with Crystal Field Effects: Application to UO$_2$

We derive an exact operatorial reformulation of the rotational invariant slave boson method and we apply it to describe the orbital differentiation in strongly correlated electron systems starting from first principles. The approach enables us to treat strong electron correlations, spin-orbit coupling and crystal field splittings on the same footing by exploiting the gauge invariance of the mean-field equations. We apply our theory to the archetypical nuclear fuel UO$_2$, and show that the ground state of this system displays a pronounced orbital differention within the $5f$ manifold, with Mott localized $Γ_8$ and extended $Γ_7$ electrons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Resolving the VO$_2$ controversy: Mott mechanism dominates the insulator-to-metal transition

We consider a minimal model to investigate the metal-insulator transition in VO$_2$. We adopt a Hubbard model with two orbital per unit cell, which captures the competition between Mott and singlet-dimer localization. We solve the model within Dynamical Mean Field Theory, characterizing in detail the metal-insulator transition and finding new features in the electronic states. We compare our results with available experimental data obtaining good agreement in the relevant model parameter range. Crucially, we can account for puzzling optical conductivity data obtained within the hysteresis region, which we associate to a novel metallic state characterized by a split heavy quasiparticle band. Our results show that the thermal-driven insulator-to-metal transition in VO$_2$ is compatible with a Mott electronic mechanism, providing fresh insight to a long standing "chicken-and-egg" debate and calling for further research of "Mottronics" applications of this system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Disorder-driven metal-insulator transitions in deformable lattices

We show that in presence of a deformable lattice potential, the nature of the disorder-driven metal-insulator transition (MIT) is fundamentally changed with respect to the non-interacting (Anderson) scenario. For strong disorder, even a modest electron-phonon interaction is found to dramatically renormalize the random potential, opening a mobility gap at the Fermi energy. This process, which reflects disorder-enhanced polaron formation, is here given a microscopic basis by treating the lattice deformations and Anderson localization effects on the same footing. We identify an intermediate "bad insulator" transport regime which displays resistivity values exceeding the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit and with a negative temperature coefficient, as often observed in strongly disordered metals. Our calculations reveal that this behavior originates from significant temperature-induced rearrangements of electronic states due to enhanced interaction effects close to the disorder-driven MIT.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗