We investigate the local density of states of the one-dimensional half-filled spinless fermion model with nearest-neighbor hopping t>0 and interaction V in its Luttinger liquid phase -2t < V <= 2t. The bulk density of states and the local density of states in open chains are calculated over the full band width 4t with an energy resolution <= 0.08t using the dynamical density-matrix renormalization group (DDMRG) method. We also perform DDMRG simulations with a resolution of 0.01t around the Fermi energy to reveal the power-law behaviour predicted by the Luttinger liquid theory for bulk and boundary density of states. The exponents are determined using a finite-size scaling analysis of DDMRG data for lattices with up to 3200 sites. The results agree with the exact exponents given by the Luttinger liquid theory combined with the Bethe Ansatz solution. The crossover from boundary to bulk density of states is analyzed. We have found that boundary effects can be seen in the local density of states at all energies even far away from the chain edges.
The spinless fermion model with hard core repulsive potential extended on a few lattice sites is considered.The Luttinger liquid behaviour is studied for the different values of a hard core radius. A critical exponent of the one particle correlation function for arbitrary electron density and coupling constant are obtained.
We show that a simple one-dimensional model of spinless fermions with pair hopping displays a phase in which a Luttinger liquid of paired fermions coexists with a Luttinger liquid of unpaired fermions. Our results are based on extensive numerical density-matrix renormalisation group calculations and are supported by a two-fluid model that captures the essence of the coexistence region.
Haldane hypothesis about the universality of Luttinger liquid (LL) behavior in conducting one-dimensional (1D) fermion systems is checked numerically for spinless fermion model with next-nearest-neighbor interactions. It is shown that for large enough interactions the ground state can be gapless (metallic) due to frustrations but not be LL. The exponents of correlation functions for this unusual conducting state are found numerically by finite-size method.
The system of interacting spinless fermions hopping on a two-leg ladder exhibits a series of quantum phase transitions when subjected to an external magnetic field. At half filling, these are either U(1) Gaussian phase transitions between two phases with distinct types of long-range order or Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions between ordered and gapless phases.
We found that when the spinless model is off the half-filling regime ($μ\neq V$), the Helmholtz free energy (HFE) can be written as two $β$-expansions: one expansion comes from the half-filling configuration and another one that depends on the parameter $x = μ- V$. We show numerically that the chemical potential as a function of temperature satisfies a relation similar to the one derived from the particle-hole symmetry of the fermionic spinless model. We extend the $β$-expansion of the HFE of the one-dimensional fermionic spinless Hubbard model up to order $β^8$.
Starting from the two-orbital Kondo-lattice model with classical t_2g spins, an effective spinless fermion model is derived for strong Hund coupling J_H with a projection technique. The model is studied by Monte Carlo simulations and analytically using a uniform hopping approximation. The results for the spinless fermion model are in remarkable agreement with those of the original Kondo-lattice model, independent of the carrier concentration, and even for moderate Hund coupling J_H. Phase separation, the phase diagram in uniform hopping approximation, as well as spectral properties including t…
We study the dynamical properties of spinless fermions on the checkerboard lattice. Our main interest is the limit of large nearest-neighbor repulsion $V$ as compared with hopping $|t|$. The spectral functions show broad low-energy excitation which are due to the dynamics of fractionally charged excitations. Furthermore, it is shown that the fractional charges contribute to the electrical current density.
We propose an eigen-operator scheme to study the lattice model of interacting spinless fermions at half filling and show that this model possesses a hidden form of reflection positivity in its Majorana fermion representation. Based on this observation, we prove rigourously that the ground state of this model is either unique or doubly degenerate if the lattice size $N$ is even, and is always doubly degenerate if $N$ is odd. This proof holds in all dimensions with arbitrary lattice structures.
We calculate the half-chain entanglement entropy of the ground state in the one-dimensional spinless fermion model. Considering a tiny corner of the Hilbert space represented by matrix product states, we efficiently find the ground state by the infinite time-evolving block decimation. The Schmidt coefficients are used to determine the half-chain entanglement entropy. Using the bond dimension scaling of the half-chain entanglement entropy, we find the critical region, which is consistent with the previous results.
A renormalization scheme for interacting fermionic systems is presented where the renormalization is carried out in terms of the fermionic degrees of freedom. The scheme is based on continuous unitary transformations of the hamiltonian which stays hermitian throughout the renormalization flow, whereby any frequency dependence is avoided. The approach is illustrated in detail for a model of spinless fermions with nearest neighbour repulsion in one dimension. Even though the fermionic degrees of freedom do not provide an easy starting point in one dimension very good results are obtained which a…
The effect of interchain hopping and interaction on Anderson localization has been investigated for two coupled chains of spinless fermions with nearest neighbor interaction. Using the renormalization group method, we find that interchain hopping plays a significant role when the correlation gap induced by the interplay of interchain hopping and intrachain interaction becomes larger than the Anderson localization energy scale induced by impurities. The strong competition between localization and delocalization is examined for attractive interaction.
We examine zero-temperature one-particle spectral functions for the one-dimensional two-band spinless fermions with different velocities and general forward-scattering interactions. By using the bosonization technique and diagonalizing the model to two Tomonaga-Luttinger-liquid Hamiltonians, we obtain general expressions for the spectral functions which are given in terms of the Appell hypergeometric functions. For the case of identical two-band fermions, corresponding to the SU(2) symmetric spin-1/2 fermions with repulsive interactions,the spectral functions can be expressed in terms of the G…
An accurate numerical consideration is carried out of the ground state for the simplified model which is traditionally used for the description of Verwey transition and related phenomena. In the framework of 1D spinless fermion model, the effects of next-nearest neighbour (NNN) interaction on the metal-insulator transition are investigated for electron concentrations 1/2 and 2/3. It is shown that for large enough NNN transfer integrals the electronic topological transition of metal-metal type is also possible. The corresponding phase diagrams are presented.
What kind of lattice Hamiltonian manifestly has an ordered state with spontaneous orbital currents? We consider interacting spinless fermions on an array of square plaquettes, connected by weak hopping; the array geometry may be a 2 x 2L ladder, a 2 x 2 x 2L "tube", or a 2L x 2L square grid. At half filling, we derive an effective Hamiltonian in terms of pseudospins, of which one component represents orbital currents, and find the conditions sufficient for orbital current long-range order. We consider spinfull variants of the aforesaid spinless models and make contact with other spinfull model…
In the spinless fermion model on a square lattice with infinite nearest-neighbor repulsion, holes doped into the half-filled ordered state form stripes which, at low doping, are stable against phase separation into an ordered state and a hole-rich metal. Here we consider transport of additional holes along these stripes. The motion of a single hole on a stripe is mapped to a one-dimensional problem, a variational wavefunction is constructed and the energy spectrum is calculated and compared to energies obtained by exact diagonalization.
The strong coupling phase diagram of the spinless fermions on the anisotropic triangular lattice at half-filling is presented. The geometry of inter-site Coulomb interactions rules the phase diagram. Unconventional charge ordered phases are detected which are the recently reported pinball liquid and the striped chains. Both are induced by the quantum dynamics out of classical disordered states and afford extremely correlated metallic states and the particular domain wall-type of excitations, respectively. The disorder once killed by the quantum effect revives at the finite temperature, which i…
We investigate the quantum many-body instabilities of the extended Hubbard model for spinless fermions on the honeycomb lattice with repulsive nearest-neighbor and 2nd nearest-neighbor density-density interactions. Recent exact diagonalization and infinite density matrix renormalization group results suggest that a putative topological Mott insulator phase driven by the 2nd nearest-neighbor repulsion is suppressed, while other numerically exact approaches support the topological Mott insulator scenario. In the present work, we employ the functional renormalization group (fRG) for correlated fe…
We investigate the quantum phase transition from antiferromagnetism ($AF$) to algebraic spin liquid ($ASL$). {\it We propose that spin 1/2 fermionic spinons in the $ASL$ fractionalize into spin 1/2 bosonic spinons and spinless fermions at the quantum critical point ($QCP$) between the $AF$ and the $ASL$}. Condensation of the bosonic spinons leads to the $AF$, where the condensed bosonic spinons are confined with the spinless fermions to form the fermionic spinons. These fermionic spinons are also confined to make antiferromagnons as elementary excitations in the $AF$. {\it Approaching the $QCP…
The decoration or iteration transformation was widely applied to solve exactly the magnetic spin models in one-dimensional and two-dimensional lattice. The motif of this letter is to extend the decoration transformation approach for models that describe interacting electron systems instead of spin magnetic systems, one illustrative model to be studied, will be the spinless fermion model on diamond chain. Using the decoration transformation, we are able to solve this model exactly. The phase diagram of this model was explored at zero temperature as well as the thermodynamics properties of the m…
We discuss the nature of the different ground states of the half-filled Holstein model of spinless fermions in 1D. In the metallic regime we determine the renormalised effective coupling constant and the velocity of the charge excitations by a density-matrix renormalisation group (DMRG) finite-size scaling approach. At low (high) phonon frequencies the Luttinger liquid is characterised by an attractive (repulsive) effective interaction. In the charge-density wave Peierls-distorted state the charge structure factor scales to a finite value indicating long-range order.
It is shown that for some special values of Hamiltonian parameters the Tomonaga-Luttinger model with nonlinear dispersion is unitary equivalent to the system of noninteracting fermions. For such parameter values the density-density propagator of the Tomonaga-Luttinger Hamiltonian with nonlinear dispersion can be found exactly. In a generic situation the exact solution can be used as a reference point around which a perturbative expansion in orders of certain irrelevant operators may be constructed.
We study a half filled ladder of spinless fermions. We show that contrarily to a single chain, the ladder becomes a Mott insulator for arbitrarily small repulsive interactions. We obtain the full phase diagram and physical quantities such as the charge gap. We show that there is only a single insulating phase for repulsive interactions, regardless of the stength of the interchain hopping and single chain Mott gap. There is thus no confinement-deconfinement transition in this system but a simple crossover. We show that upon doping the system becomes a Luttinger liquid with a universal parameter…
We reexamine the nature of the metallic phase of the one-dimensional half-filled Holstein model of spinless fermions. To this end we determine the Tomonaga-Luttinger-liquid correlation parameter $K_ρ$ by large-scale density-matrix renormalisation-group (DMRG) calculations, exploiting (i) the leading-order scaling relations between the ground-state energy and the single-particle excitation gap and (ii) the static charge structure factor in the long-wavelength limit. While both approaches give almost identical results for intermediate-to-large phonon frequencies, we find contrasting behaviour in…
Fermions hopping on a hexagonal lattice represent one of the most active research field in condensed matter since the discovery of graphene in 2004 and its numerous applications. Another exciting aspect of the interplay between geometry and quantum mechanical effects is given by the Haldane model (F. D. M. Haldane, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2015 (1988)) where spinless fermions experiencing a certain flux pattern on the honeycomb lattice leads to the stabilization of a topological phase of matter, distinct from a Mott insulator and dubbed Chern insulator nowadays. In this context, it is crucial to u…
We study ground state properties and particle excitation spectra across a commensurate charge density wave transition in a system of strongly interacting fermions, using series expansion methods and mean-field theory. We consider a 1/3-filled system of spinless fermions on a triangular-lattice, with hopping parameter $t$, nearest-neighbor repulsion $V$, and a sublattice dependent chemical potential $μ_s$. The phase transition is found to be first order for $μ_s=0$, but becomes continuous with increasing $μ_s$. The particle and hole excitation spectra exhibit dramatic changes in the vicinity of…
The Hubbard model is used to study an electronic system at half filling. Starting from a functional integral representation the spin-up Grassmann field is integrated out. It is shown that the resulting spinless fermion theory has an instantaneous cluster interaction, and that the spinless fermions are coupled to thermally fluctuating Ising spins. The coupling parameter of the spinless fermion interaction is a product of the Hubbard interaction and the hopping rate. As an example the strongly metallic as well as the strongly insulating regime are investigated in terms of the effective Ising sta…
We investigate the effect of electron-phonon interaction on the phononic properties in the one-dimensional half-filled Holstein model of spinless fermions. By means of determinantal Quantum Monte Carlo simulation we show that the behavior of the phonon dynamics gives a clear signal of the transition to a charge-ordered phase, and the phase diagram obtained in this way is in excellent agreement with previous DMRG results. By analyzing the phonon propagator we extract the renormalized phonon frequency, and study how it first softens as the transition is approached and then subsequently hardens i…
Currently, there is much interest in discovering analytically tractable (3+1)-dimensional models that describe interacting fermions with emerging topological properties. Towards that end we present a three-dimensional tight-binding model of spinless interacting fermions that reproduces, in the low energy limit, a (3+1)-dimensional Abelian topological quantum field theory called BF model. By employing a mechanism equivalent to the Haldane's Chern insulator, we can turn the non-interacting model into a three-dimensional chiral topological insulator. We then isolate energetically one of the two F…
We analyze a model of spinless fermions on a triangular lattice at half-filling interacting via strong nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions, V, using the variational Monte Carlo simulation technique. The existence of three-sublattice long-range order is confirmed by the finite-size scaling analysis of the charge structural factor at V_c/t > 12. This ordered phase shows characteristics expected for a so called "pinball liquid" state, which has the spontaneous separation of fermionic degrees of freedom into coexisting Wigner crystal-like charge order (pin) and a metal (ball). The pins are fix…
We study single-particle properties of a spinless p-band correlated fermionic gas in an optical lattice by means of a variational cluster approach (VCA). The single-particle spectral function is almost flat at half-filling and develops a strongly dispersive behavior at lower fillings. The competition between different orbital orderings is studied as a function of filling. We observe that an ``antiferromagnetic'' orbital order develops at half-filling and is destroyed by doping the system evolving into a disordered orbital state. At low filling limit, we discuss the possibility of ``ferromagnet…
We investigate the nature of the quantum phase transition out of charge-density-wave phase in the spinless fermion model with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor interaction at one-third filling. Using an extensive Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) simulations we show that the transition changes it nature. We show that for weak next-nearest-neighbor coupling the transition is of Kosterlitz-Thouless type in agreement with bosonisation predictions. We also provide strong numerical evidences that for large next-nearest-neighbor repulsion the transition belongs to the Pokrovsky-Talapov un…
We use exact diagonalization and cluster perturbation theory to address the role of strong interactions and quantum fluctuations for spinless fermions on the honeycomb lattice. We find quantum fluctuations to be very pronounced both at weak and strong interactions. A weak second-neighbor Coulomb repulsion $V_2$ induces a tendency toward an interaction-generated quantum anomalous Hall phase, as borne out in mean-field theory. However, quantum fluctuations prevent the formation of a stable quantum Hall phase before the onset of the charge-modulated phase predicted at large $V_2$ by mean-field th…
We study the Gutzwiller method for the spinless fermion model in one dimension, which is one of the simplest models that incorporates the intersite Coulomb interaction. The Gutzwiller solution of this model has been studied in the literature but with differing results. We obtain the Gutzwiller solution of the problem by a careful enumeration of the many-particle configurations and explain the origin of the discrepancy in the literature to be due to the neglect of the correlation between the neighbouring bond occupancies. The correct implementation of the Gutzwiller approach yields results diff…
We consider a Hubbard-like model of strongly-interacting spinless fermions and hardcore bosons on a square lattice, such that nearest neighbor occupation is forbidden. Stripes (lines of holes across the lattice forming antiphase walls between ordered domains) are a favorable way to dope this system below half-filling. The problem of a single stripe can be mapped to a spin-1/2 chain, which allows understanding of its elementary excitations and calculation of the stripe's effective mass for transverse vibrations. Using Lanczos exact diagonalization, we investigate the excitation gap and dispersi…
In our model, spinless fermions (or hardcore bosons) on a square lattice hop to nearest neighbor sites, and also experience a hard-core repulsion at the nearest neighbor separation. This is the simplest model of correlated electrons and is more tractable for exact diagonalization than the Hubbard model. We study systematically the dilute limit of this model by a combination of analytical and several numerical approaches: the two-particle problem using lattice Green functions and the t-matrix, the few-fermion problem using a modified t-matrix (demonstrating that the interaction energy is well c…
By removing one empty site between two occupied sites, we map the ground states of chains of hardcore bosons and spinless fermions with infinite nearest-neighbor repulsion to ground states of chains of hardcore bosons and spinless fermions without nearest-neighbor repulsion respectively, and ultimately in terms of the one-dimensional Fermi sea. We then introduce the intervening-particle expansion, where we write correlation functions in such ground states as a systematic sum over conditional expectations, each of which can be ultimately mapped to a one-dimensional Fermi-sea expectation. Variou…
The low energy properties of different one-dimensional fermionic lattice models are investigated using the bosonization technique. We attach much importance to a proper consideration of the Klein factors which are neglected or inaccurately treated in the majority of the literature. In order to deal with the nonlinear terms, arising from the dimerization or similar scattering processes, we use the self-consistent harmonic approximation (SCHA), a variational method where the nonlinearities are replaced by a quadratic potential. We construct an extension of the SCHA in order to account for the ex…
We develop a procedure which systematically generates all conserved operators in the disordered models of interacting fermions. Among these operators, we identify and count the independent and local integrals of motion (LIOM) which represent the hallmark of the many-body localization (MBL). The method is tested first on the prototype disordered chain of interacting spinless fermions. As expected for full MBL, we find for large enough disorder $N_M=2^M-1$ independent and quasi-local LIOM with support on $M$ consecutive sites. On the other hand, the study of the disordered Hubbard chain reveals …
An interacting spinless fermion wire coupled to a three-dimensional (3D) semiconducting substrate is approximated by a narrow ladder model (NLM) with varying number of legs. We compute density distributions, gaps, charge-density-wave (CDW) order parameters, correlation functions, and the central charge using the density-matrix renormalization group method. Three ground-state phases are observed: a one-component Luttinger liquid, a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) CDW insulator, and a band insulator. We investigated the convergence of the NLM properties with increasing number of legs systematically a…
The reduced density matrix of an interacting system can be used as the basis for a truncation scheme, or in an unbiased method to discover the strongest kind of correlation in the ground state. In this paper, we investigate the structure of the many-body fermion density matrix of a small cluster in a square lattice. The cluster density matrix is evaluated numerically over a set of finite systems, subject to non-square periodic boundary conditions given by the lattice vectors $\bR_1 \equiv (R_{1x}, R_{1y})$ and $\bR_2 \equiv (R_{2x}, R_{2y})$. We then approximate the infinite-system cluster den…
In the framework of mean field approach, we study topological Mott transition in a two band model of spinless fermions on a square lattice at half filling. We consider the combined effect of the on-site Coulomb repulsion and the spin-orbit Rashba coupling. The ground state phase diagram is calculated as a function of the strength of the spin-orbit Rashba coupling and the Coulomb repulsion. The spin-orbit Rashba coupling leads to a distinct phase of matter, the topological semimetal. We study a new type of phase transition between the non-topological insulator and topological semimetal states. …
Spinless fermions on a honeycomb lattice provide a minimal realization of lattice Dirac fermions. Repulsive interactions between nearest neighbors drive a quantum phase transition from a Dirac semimetal to a charge-density-wave state through a fermionic quantum critical point, where the coupling of Ising order parameter to the Dirac fermions at low energy drastically affects the quantum critical behavior. Encouraged by a recently discovery of absence of the fermion sign problem in this model, we study the fermionic quantum critical point using the continuous time quantum Monte Carlo method wit…
An accurate numerical consideration of 1D spinless fermion model with next-nearest neighbour (NNN) interactions is carried out for the electron concentrations 4/7. It is shown that depending on the parameters of the model it can be either Luttinger liquid or bipolaron liquid. In the former case competing interactions can result in a smooth behavior of one-electron distribution function at the Fermi surface with a divergence in the second derivative with respect to the quasimomentum (and not in the first one, as usual). In this connection, uncommon photoemission spectra for some 1D conductors c…
We acquire a method of constructing an infinite set of exact eigenfunctions of 1--d interacting spinless Fermionic systems. Creation and annihilation operators for the interacting system are found and thereby the many--body Hamiltonian is diagonalised. The formalism is applied to several examples. One example is the theory of Jack polynomials. For the Calogero-Moser-Sutherland Hamiltonian a direct proof is given that the asymptotic Bethe Ansatz is correct.
The effect of spatially modulated interaction on quantum phase transition in one-dimensional interacting spinless fermion system is theoretically investigated by exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group method. Our calculations show that the periodically modulated interaction can drive the spinless fermion system into topological charge density wave state. The topological state is encoded by quasiparticle end states and the fractional quantized $e/2$ end charges, and characterized by Berry phase and Chern number. The quasiparticle energy spectra as a function of modulated…
We study the two-band model of spinless fermions in one dimension for weak repulsive interactions. In this case, the model is equivalent to the weakly interacting spinless two-leg ladder. We obtain analytic expressions for the superconducting pairing correlation function and the charge density correlation function, which show, that a finite interchain hopping t_p results in dominant superconductivity for repulsive interactions (for vanishing t_p, we recover previous results). We furthermore find that the transition from the superconducting phase to the usual one-dimensional (Luttinger) metal a…
The spectral properties of the spinless fermion model with nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions on a one-dimensional lattice are investigated using the Bethe ansatz. Although its bulk quantities are exactly the same as those of the spin-1/2 XXZ chain, the difference in the statistics of particles causes substantial effects on spectral features, such as gapless points of dispersion relations and line shapes of spectral functions. In this Letter, we clarify the origin of the differences in spectral features between fermionic and bosonic systems in terms of Bethe ansatz solutions. We also conf…
We show the stabilization of two trimer phases in a chain of spinless fermions with a correlated hopping term. A trimer fluid forms due to a gain in trimer kinetic energy and competes with a fluid of unbound fermions. Furthermore, we observe two intermediate phases where these two fluids coexist and do not spatially separate. Depending on the way trimers are created out of the Fermi sea, hybridization can occur, in which case the onset of correlations between the two fluids is well captured by a generalized BCS ansatz. These results are finally extended to the formation of larger multimers, wh…
The effects of quantum lattice fluctuations on the Peierls transition are studied within the one--dimensional Holstein molecular crystal model by means of exact diagonalization methods. Applying a very efficient variational Lanczos technique, the ground--state phase diagram is obtained in excellent agreement with predictions of recent density matrix renormalization group calculations. The transition to the charge--density--wave regime is signaled by a strong increase in the charge structure factor. In the metallic regime, the non--universal Luttinger liquid parameters (charge velocity and coup…
Combining the Bethe Ansatz with a functional deviation expansion and using an asymptotic expansion of the Bethe Ansatz equations, we compute the curvature of levels D_n at any filling for the one-dimensional lattice spinless fermion model. We use these results to study the finite temperature charge stiffness D(T). We find that the curvature of the levels obeys, in general, the relation D_n=D_0+δD_n, where D_0 is the zero-temperature charge stiffness and δD_n arises from excitations. Away from half filling and for the low-energy (gapless) eigenstates, we find that the energy levels are, in gene…
We compare the groundstate energies of bosons and fermions with the same form of the Hamiltonian. If both are noninteracting, the groundstate energy of bosons is always lower, owing to Bose-Einstein Condensation. However, the comparison is nontrivial when bosons do interact. We first prove that, when the hopping is unfrustrated (all the hopping amplitudes are non-negative), hard-core bosons still must have a lower groundstate energy than the fermions. When the hopping is frustrated, bosons can have higher groundstate energy than fermions. We prove rigorously that this inversion indeed occurs i…
We study the quantum phases of a three-color Hubbard model that arises in the dynamics of the p-band orbitals of spinless fermions in an optical lattice. Strong, color-dependent interactions are induced by an optical Feshbach resonance. Starting from the microscopic scattering properties of ultracold atoms, we derive the orbital exchange constants at 1/3 filling on the cubic optical lattice. Using this, we compute the phase diagram in a Gutzwiller ansatz. We find novel phases with 'axial orbital order' in which pz and px + ipy (or px - ipy) orbitals alternate.
A gas of strongly interacting spinless p-orbital fermionic atoms in 2D optical lattices is proposed and studied. Several interesting new features are found. In the Mott limit on a square lattice, the gas is found to be described effectively by an orbital exchange Hamiltonian equivalent to a pseudospin-1/2 XXZ model. For a triangular, honeycomb, or Kagome lattice, the orbital exchange is geometrically frustrated and described by a new quantum 120 degree model. We determine the orbital ordering on the Kagome lattice, and show how orbital wave fluctuations select ground states via the order by di…
In a recent letter [D. Poletti et al., EPL 93, 37008 (2011)] a model of attractive spinless fermions on the honeycomb lattice at half filling has been studied by mean-field theory, where distinct homogenous phases at rather large attraction strength $V>3.36$, separated by (topological) phase transitions, have been predicted. In this comment we argue that without additional interactions the ground states in these phases are not stable against phase separation. We determine the onset of phase separation at half filling $V_{ps}\approx 1.7$ by means of infinite projected entangled-pair states (iPE…
We study spinless fermions in a flux threaded AB$_2$ chain taking into account nearest-neighbor Coulomb interactions. The exact diagonalization of the spinless AB$_2$ chain is presented in the limiting cases of infinite or zero nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsion for any filling. Without interactions, the AB$_2$ chain has a flat band even in the presence of magnetic flux. We show that the respective localized states can be written in the most compact form as standing waves in one or two consecutive plaquettes. We show that this result is easily generalized to other frustrated lattices such as t…
