In recent experiments with ultracold atoms, both two-dimensional (2d) Chern insulators and one-dimensional (1d) topological charge pumps have been realized. Without interactions, both systems can be described by the same Hamiltonian, when some variables are being reinterpreted. In this paper, we study the relation of both models when Hubbard interactions are added, using the density-matrix renormalization-group algorithm. To this end, we express the fermionic Hofstadter model in a hybrid-space representation, and define a family of interactions, which connects 1d Hubbard charge pumps to 2d Hubbard Chern insulators. We study a three-band model at particle density $ρ=2/3$, where the topological quantization of the 1d charge pump changes from Chern number $C=2$ to $C=-1$ as the interaction strength increases. We find that the $C=-1$ phase is robust when varying the interaction terms on narrow-width cylinders. However, this phase does not extend to the limit of the 2d Hofstadter-Hubbard model, which remains in the $C=2$ phase. We discuss the existence of both topological phases for the largest cylinder circumferences that we can access numerically. We note the appearance of a ferromagnetic ground state between the strongly interacting 1d and 2d models. For this ferromagnetic state, one can understand the $C=-1$ phase from a bandstructure argument. Our method for measuring the Hall conductivity could similarly be realized in experiments: We compute the current response to a weak, linear potential, which is applied adiabatically. The Hall conductivity converges to integer-quantized values for large system sizes, corresponding to the system's Chern number.
We analyze the momentum distribution function and its artificial-gauge-field dependence for the Mott insulator phases of the Hofstadter-Bose-Hubbard model. By benchmarking the results of the random-phase approximation (RPA) approach against those of the strong-coupling expansion (SCE) for the Landau and symmetric gauges, we find pronounced corrections to the former results in two dimensions.
We investigate the new quantum phases on the extended Kane-Mele-Hubbard model of honeycomb lattice in the Hofstadter regime. In this regime, orbital motion of the electrons can induce various topological phases with spontaneously broken symmetries when the spin orbit coupling and electron correlations coexist. Here, we consider the interaction effects in the Kane-Mele model and discuss possible phases in the presence of magnetic field at integer fillings of electrons. In particular, focusing on 2π/3 magnetic flux per plaquette, the realization of numerous quantum phases are discussed within th…
Interaction effects have been a subject of contemporary interest in topological phases of matter. But in the presence of interactions, the accurate determination of topological invariants in their general form is difficult due to their dependence on multiple integrals containing Green's functions and their derivatives. Here we employ the recently proposed "effective topological Hamiltonian" approach to explore interaction-induced topological phases in the time-reversal-invariant Hofstadter-Hubbard model. Within this approach, the zero-frequency part of the self-energy is sufficient to determin…
We use microscopic Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism to explore the ground-state phase diagram of the single-band attractive Hofstadter-Hubbard model on a square lattice. We show that the interplay between the Hofstadter butterfly and superfluidity breaks spatial symmetry, and gives rise to stripe-ordered superfluid and supersolid phases in large parameter spaces. We also discuss the effects of a trapping potential and comment on the viability of observing stripe-ordered phases with cold Fermi gases.
Chiral Spin Liquid and Quantum Phase Transition in the Triangular Lattice Hofstadter-Hubbard Model
University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Center for Computational Quantum Physics, Flatiron Institute（Flatiron Institute计算量子物理中心）；Harvard University（哈佛大学）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）；Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）
Despite the multi-band spectrum of the widely-known Hofstadter butterfly, it turns out that the pairing correlations of the time-reversal-symmetric Hofstadter-Hubbard model are well-described by a single order parameter that is uniform in real space. By exploiting a BCS mean-field theory for the nearly-flat butterfly-bands regime of low magnetic-flux limit, here we reveal a number of unusual superfluid properties both in the ground state and at finite temperatures. Our thorough analysis includes but is not limited to the order parameter, condensate and superfluid fractions, and the critical BC…
We study two-component bosons on the Harper-Hofstadter model with two legs. The synthetic magnetic fields for the two types of bosons point to either the same direction or opposite directions. The bosons have hardcore intra-species interaction such that there can be no more than one boson of the same type on each lattice site. For certain filling factors in the absence of inter-species interaction, each component realizes a vortex Mott insulator with rung current or a Meissner superfluid without rung current. The system undergoes phase transitions to other phases as inter-species interaction i…
Assuming that two-component Fermi gases with opposite artificial magnetic fields on a square optical lattice are well-described by the so-called time-reversal-symmetric Hofstadter-Hubbard model, we explore the thermal superfluid properties along with the critical Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition temperature in this model over a wide-range of its parameters. In particular, since our self-consistent BCS-BKT approach takes the multi-band butterfly spectrum explicitly into account, it unveils how dramatically the inter-band contribution to the phase stiffness dominates the intra-ba…
The Hubbard Hamiltonian on a two-leg ladder is studied numerically using quantum Monte Carlo and Exact Diagonalization techniques. A rung interaction, $V$, is turned on such that the resulting model has an exact SO(5) symmetry when $V=-U$. The evolution of the low energy excitation spectrum is presented from the pure Hubbard ladder to the SO(5) ladder. It is shown that the low energy excitations in the pure Hubbard ladder have an approximate SO(5) symmetry.
The behavior of a two leg Hubbard ladder in the presence of a magnetic field is studied by means of Abelian bosonization. We predict the appearance of a new (doping dependent) plateau in the magnetization curve of a doped 2-leg spin ladder in a wide range of couplings. We also discuss the extension to N-leg Hubbard ladders.
Asymmetric two-leg Hubbard ladders with different on-site interactions $U_y$ and hoppings $t_y$ on each leg are investigated using the density matrix renormalization group method and exact diagonalizations. The pairing found in symmetric ladders is robust against the introduction of the leg asymmetry. When studying pairing, one-band Hubbard ladder models are better described as one-dimensional correlated two-band models than as sublattices of higher dimensional systems. The asymmetric Hubbard ladder provides us with a simple model for studying pairing in the crossover regime between charge tra…
We study the interplay between the Hofstadter butterfly, strong interactions and Zeeman field within the mean-field Bogoliubov-de Gennes theory in real space, and explore the ground states of the attractive single-band Hofstadter-Hubbard Hamiltonian on a square lattice, including the exotic possibility of imbalanced vector potentials. We find that the cooperation between the vector potential and superfluid order breaks the spatial symmetry of the system, and flourish stripe-ordered Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO)-like superfluid and supersolid phases that can be distinguished and chara…
The Hofstadter-Hubbard model captures the physics of strongly correlated electrons in an applied magnetic field, which is relevant to many recent experiments on Moiré materials. Few large-scale, numerically exact simulations exists for this model. In this work, we simulate the Hubbard-Hofstadter model using the determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) algorithm. We report the field and Hubbard interaction strength dependence of charge compressibility, fermion sign, local moment, magnetic structure factor, and specific heat. The gross structure of magnetic Bloch bands and band gaps determined by …
We consider a Fermi gas that is loaded onto a square optical lattice and subjected to a perpendicular artificial magnetic field, and determine its superfluid transition boundary by adopting a BCS-like mean-field approach in momentum space. The multi-band structure of the single-particle Hofstadter spectrum is taken explicitly into account while deriving a generalized pairing equation. We present the numerical solutions as functions of the artificial magnetic flux, interaction strength, Zeeman field, chemical potential, and temperature, with a special emphasis on the roles played by the density…
Computational studies of basic models of strongly-correlated electron systems can provide guidance in the search for new materials as well as insight into the physical mechanisms responsible for their properties. Here, we illustrate this by examining what numerical computations have shown us about the 2-leg Hubbard ladder.
Superconducting properties of the three-dimensional Hofstadter-Hubbard model below the critical flux for Weyl points
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona（巴塞罗那自治大学）；Università di Parma（帕尔马大学）；INFN-Sezione Milano-Bicocca（意大利国家核物理研究所米兰-比可卡分部）；INSTM（意大利材料科学与技术创新网络）；University of Trieste（的里雅斯特大学）；SISSA（国际高等研究学院）；INFN, Sezione di Trieste（意大利国家核物理研究所的里雅斯特分部）
The formation of stripes in six-leg Hubbard ladders with cylindrical boundary conditions is investigated for two different hole dopings, where the amplitude of the hole density modulation is determined in the limits of vanishing DMRG truncation errors and infinitely long ladders. The results give strong evidence that stripes exist in the ground state of these systems for strong but not for weak Hubbard couplings. The doping dependence of these findings is analysed.
We study the interplay between topological and conventional long range order of attractive fermions in a time reversal symmetric Hofstadter lattice using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, focussing on the case of one-third flux quantum per plaquette. At half-filling, the system is unstable towards s-wave pairing and charge-density-wave order at infinitesimally small interactions. At one-third-filling, the noninteracting system is a topological insulator, and a nonzero critical interaction strength is needed to drive a transition from the quantum spin Hall insulator to a superfluid. We probe the…
The fermionic, time-reversal invariant Hofstadter-Hubbard model with a population difference between the two spin states is investigated. In the strongly interacting regime, where the system can be described by an effective spin model, we find an exotic spin structure by means of classical Monte-Carlo calculations. Remarkably, this spin structure exhibits a transverse net magnetization perpendicular to the magnetization induced by the population imbalance. It is thus inherently different from canted antiferromagnetism. We further investigate effects of quantum fluctuations within the dynamical…
We consider the time-reversal-invariant Hofstadter-Hubbard model which can be realized in cold atom experiments. In these experiments, an additional staggered potential and an artificial Rashba--type spin-orbit coupling are available. Without interactions, the system exhibits various phases such as topological and normal insulator, metal as well as semi--metal phases with two or even more Dirac cones. Using a combination of real-space dynamical mean-field theory and analytical techniques, we discuss the effect of on-site interactions and determine the corresponding phase diagram. In particular…
The competition between the length scales associated with the periodicity of a lattice potential and the cyclotron radius of a uniform magnetic field is known to have dramatic effects on the single-particle properties of a quantum particle, e.g., the fractal spectrum is known as the Hofstadter butterfly. Having this intricate competition in mind, we consider a two-component Fermi gas on a square optical lattice with opposite synthetic magnetic fields for the components, and study its effects on the many-body BCS-pairing phenomenon. By a careful addressing of the distinct superfluid transitions…
Models of interacting Majorana modes may be realized in vortex lattices in superconducting films in contact with topological insulators and may be tuned to the strong-interaction regime by adjusting the chemical potential. Extending the results on one- and two-dimensional Majorana-Hubbard models, here we determine the phase diagrams of two- and four-leg ladders using both field theory and the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods.
In order to shed light whether the `even-odd conjecture' (even numbers of legs will superconduct accompanied by a spin gap while odd ones do not) for correlated electrons in ladder systems, the pairing correlation is studied for the Hubbard model on a two- and three-leg ladders. We have employed both the weak-coupling renormalization group and the quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method for strong interactions. For the two-leg Hubbard ladder, a systematic QMC (with a controlled level spacings) has detected an enhanced pairing correlation, which is consistent with the weak-coupling prediction. We also…
Antiferromagnetic and d_{x2-y2}-pairing correlations appear delicately balanced in the 2D Hubbard model. Whether doping can tip the balance to pairing is unclear and models with additional interaction terms have been studied. In one of these, the square of a local hopping kinetic energy H_W was found to favor pairing. However, such a term can be separated into a number of simpler processes and one would like to know which of these terms are responsible for enhancing the pairing. Here we analyze these processes for a 2-leg Hubbard ladder.
Using a functional renormalization group method, we obtain the phase diagram of the two-leg ladder system within the Holstein-Hubbard model, which includes both electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions. Our renormalization group technique allows us to analyze the problem for both weak and strong electron-phonon coupling. We show that, in contrast results from conventional weak coupling studies, electron-phonon interactions can dominate electron-electron interactions because of retardation effects.
The one-dimensional Hubbard model is integrable in the sense that it has an infinite family of conserved currents. We explicitly construct a ladder operator which can be used to iteratively generate all of the conserved current operators. This construction is different from that used for Lorentz invariant systems such as the Heisenberg model. The Hubbard model is not Lorentz invariant, due to the separation of spin and charge excitations. The ladder operator is obtained by a very general formalism which is applicable to any model that can be derived from a solution of the Yang-Baxter equation.
Topological Chiral Superconductivity in the Triangular-Lattice Hofstadter-Hubbard Model
The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging and Institute for Quantum Physics, University of Hamburg（汉堡超快成像中心与量子物理研究所，汉堡大学）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University Northridge（加州州立大学北岭分校物理与天文系）；Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校卡弗里理论物理研究所）；French American Center for Theoretical Science, CNRS, KITP, Santa Barbara（法国美国理论科学中心，法国国家科学研究中心，KITP，圣塔芭芭拉）；Canadian Institute for Advanced Research（加拿大高级研究院）
We demonstrate the existence of an insulating phase in the three-legged Hubbard ladder at two-thirds filling. In this phase chargons are bound because the physics within a unit cell favors the formation of triplets. The resultant moments lead to a ground state in the Haldane phase, a symmetry protected topological state of matter. In this purely fermionic model, reflection is protecting but time reversal and dihedral symmetries are not, in contrast to spin models.
An extensive Quantum Monte Carlo calculation is performed for the two-leg Hubbard ladder model to clarify whether the singlet pairing correlation decays slowly, which is predicted from the weak-coupling theory but controversial from numerical studies. Our result suggests that the discreteness of energy levels in finite systems affects the correlation enormously, where the enhanced pairing correlation is indeed detected if we make the energy levels of the bonding and anti-bonding bands lie close to each other at the Fermi level to mimic the thermodynamic limit.
We propose that when the Fermi level lies within a wide band and also lies close to but not within a coexisting narrow band, high $T_c$ superconductivity may take place due to the large number of interband pair scattering channels and the small renormalization of the quasiparticles. We show using fluctuation exchange method that this mechanism works for the Hubbard model on a ladder lattice with diagonal hoppings. From this viewpoint, we give a possible explanation for the low $T_c$ for the actual hole doped ladder compound, and further predict a higher $T_c$ for the case of electron doping.
We investigate the formation of stripes in $7\chunks \times 6$ Hubbard ladders with $4\chunks$ holes doped away from half filling using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. A parallelized code allows us to keep enough density-matrix eigenstates (up to $m=8000$) and to study sufficiently large systems (with up to $7\chunks = 21$ rungs) to extrapolate the stripe amplitude to the limits of vanishing DMRG truncation error and infinitely long ladders. Our work gives strong evidence that stripes exist in the ground state for strong coupling ($U=12t$) but that the structures found …
Emergent Gauge Flux and Spin Ordering in Magnetized Triangular Spin Liquids: Applications to Hofstadter-Hubbard Model
International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院量子材料中心）；Beijing Key Laboratory of Quantum Devices, Peking University（北京大学北京量子器件重点实验室）；Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter（量子物质协同创新中心）
We provide a detailed analysis of a realization of chiral gapless edge modes in the framework of the Hofstadter model of interacting electrons. In a transverse homogeneous magnetic field and a rational magnetic flux through an unit cell the fermion spectrum splits into topological subbands with well-defined Chern numbers, contains gapless edge modes in the gaps. It is shown that the behavior of gapless edge modes is described within the framework of the Kitaev chain where the tunneling of Majorana fermions is determined by effective hopping of Majorana fermions between chains. The proposed app…
Strongly interacting fermionic systems host a variety of interesting quantum many-body states with exotic excitations. For instance, the interplay of strong interactions and the Pauli exclusion principle can lead to Stoner ferromagnetism, but the fate of this state remains unclear when kinetic terms are added. While in many lattice models the fermions' dispersion results in delocalization and destabilization of the ferromagnet, flat bands can restore strong interaction effects and ferromagnetic correlations. To reveal this interplay, here we propose to study the Hofstadter-Fermi-Hubbard model …
Using the next-nearest neighbor (zig-zag) Hubbard chain as an one dimemensional model, we investigate the influence of interactions on the position of the Fermi wavevectors with the density-matrix renormalization-group technique (DMRG). For suitable choices of the hopping parameters we observe that electron-electron correlations induce very different renormalizations for the two different Fermi wavevectors, which ultimately lead to a complete destruction of one section of the Fermi sea in a quantum critical point.
We consider two aspects of the ground state of the $U=\infty$ Hubbard ladder: ferromagnetism and the metal-insulator transition at quarter-filling. First, we present rigorous results for the $U=\infty$ Hubbard ladder in the limit of the large inter-chain hopping ($t_{\perp}/t\to\infty$). In this limit, the total spin $S$ of the ground state is shown to be zero for the electron density $n\le 0.5$ and its maximum ($S=S_{max}$) for $n>0.5$. The charge gap at quarter-filling is $2t_{\perp}$. We extend these results to finite $t_{\perp}/t$ by means of the density-matrix renormalization group method…
The Hofstadter model describes non-interacting fermions on a lattice in the presence of an external magnetic field. Motivated by the plethora of solid-state phases emerging from electron interactions, we consider an interacting version of the Hofstadter model including a Hubbard repulsion U. We investigate this model in the large-U limit corresponding to a t-J Hamiltonian with an external (orbital) magnetic field. By using renormalized mean field theory supplemented by exact diagonalization calculations of small clusters, we find evidence for competing symmetry-breaking phases, exhibiting (pos…
Anfuso and Rosch [Phys. Rev. B 75, 144420 (2007)] showed that the "topological" Haldane phase in a fermionic spin-1/2 ladder can be continuously deformed into a "trivial" phase without explicitly breaking symmetries when local charge fluctuations are taken into account. Within the framework of symmetry protected topological phases, we revisit the model and demonstrate how the Haldane phase can be adiabatically connected to a trivial phase due to charge fluctuations. Furthermore, we show that the Haldane phase remains stable as long as the system is symmetric under particular reflection symmetr…
The charge carrier dynamics of doped electronic correlated systems on ladders and chains, subject to ultrafast photoirradiation, is investigated using the time-dependent Lanczos method. The time-resolved optical conductivity and the temporal profiles of other relevant quantities, including the doublon number, the kinetic energy, and the interaction energy, are calculated. Two competitive factors that can influence the transient charge carrier dynamics are identified as the thermal effect and the charge effect. We demonstrate that the analysis of their interplay can provide an intuitive way to …
We investigate the Hubbard Hamiltonian on ladders where the number of sites per rung alternates between two and three. These geometries are bipartite, with a non-equal number of sites on the two sublattices. Thus they share a key feature of the Hubbard model in a class of lattices which Lieb has shown analytically to exhibit long-range ferrimagnetic order, while being amenable to powerful numeric approaches developed for quasi-one-dimensional geometries. The Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method is used to obtain the ground state properties, e.g. excitation gaps, charge and spin d…
The dynamics of holon-doublon pairs is studied in Hubbard two-leg ladders using the time-dependent Density Matrix Renormalization Group method. We find that the geometry of the two-leg ladder, that is qualitatively different from a one-dimensional chain due to the presence of a spin-gap, strongly affects the propagation of a doublon-holon pair. Two distinct regimes are identified. For weak inter-leg coupling, the results are qualitatively similar to the case of the propagation previously reported in Hubbard chains, with only a renormalization of parameters. More interesting is the case of stro…
We study the magnetic phase diagram of two coupled mixed-spin $(1,{1/2})$ Heisenberg chains as a function of the frustration parameter related to diagonal exchange couplings. The analysis is performed by using spin-wave series and exact numerical diagonalization techniques. The obtained phase diagram--containing the Luttinger liquid phase, the plateau phase with a magnetization per rung $M=1/2$, and the fully polarized phase--is closely related to the generic $(J/U,μ/U)$ phase diagram of the one-dimensional boson Hubbard model.
We investigate electronic properties of the doped two-leg Hubbard ladder with both the onsite and the nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsions, by using the the weak-coupling renormalization-group method. It is shown that, for strong nearest-neighbor repulsions, the charge-density-wave state coexisting with the p-density-wave state becomes dominant fluctuation where spins form intrachain singlets. By increasing doping rate, we have also shown that the effects of the nearest-neighbor repulsions are reduced and the system exhibits a quantum phase transition into the d-wave-like (or rung-singlet) supe…
Photoinduced carrier dynamics in a correlated electron system on a coupled two-leg ladder lattice are studied. The two-leg ladder Hubbard model is analyzed by utilizing the exact diagonalization method based on the Lanczos algorithm in finite size clusters. In order to reveal the transient carrier dynamics after photoirradiation, we calculate the low-energy components of the hole kinetic energy, the pair-field correlation function, the optical conductivity spectra and others. It is shown that the photoinduced metallic-like state appears in a half filled Mott insulating state, while the low-ene…
Motivated by the presence of different orders in multilayered high-temperature superconductors, we examine a model consisting of nonequivalent two Hubbard chains coupled by interchain hopping by using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) and a mean-field theory. As an example, we consider a system with noninteracting chain without order and a Hubbard chain with strong spin-density-wave correlation. We find that the magnitude of the interchain hopping controls the strength of induced order as well as that of original order and its fluctuation. It is also found that the induced order …
An extended Hubbard model on a two-leg ladder is numerically studied by means of the quantum Monte Carlo techniques. The model we study has the nearest-neighbor interactions which are repulsive along chains and attractive for rungs. The plots of the doping parameter versus the chemical potential show two cliff-like regions and a large plateau region. Results on the charge susceptibility suggest it diverges in these cliff-like regions. These observations might imply a signal to the phase separation, which should be related to the effective attractive interactions along chains.
Spin-charge separation in the triangular-lattice Hofstadter-Hubbard model
School of Intelligence Science and Technology, Peking University（北京大学智能科学学院）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh（匹兹堡大学物理与天文系）；Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）
We re-examine the zero temperature phase diagram of the two-leg Hubbard ladder in the small $U$ limit, both analytically and using density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG). We find a ubiquitous Luther-Emery phase, but with a crossover in behavior at a characteristic interaction strength, $U^\star$; for $U \gtrsim U^\star$, there is a single emergent correlation length $\log[ξ] \sim 1/U$, characterizing the gapped modes of the system, but for $U\lesssim U^\star$ there is a hierarchy of length scales, differing parametrically in powers of $U$, reflecting a two-step renormalization group flow …
Correlation functions and low-energy excitations are investigated in the asymmetric two-leg ladder consisting of a Hubbard chain and a noninteracting tight-binding (Fermi) chain using the density matrix renormalization group method. The behavior of charge, spin and pairing correlations is discussed for the four phases found at half filling, namely, Luttinger liquid, Kondo-Mott insulator, spin-gapped Mott insulator and correlated band insulator. Quasi-long-range antiferromagnetic spin correlations are found in the Hubbard leg in the Luttinger liquid phase only. Pair-density-wave correlations ar…
We investigate a ladder system with two inequivalent legs, namely a Hubbard chain and a one-dimensional electron gas. Analytical approximations, the density matrix renormalization group method, and continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulations are used to determine ground-state properties, gaps, and spectral functions of this system at half-filling. Evidence for the existence of four different phases as a function of the Hubbard interaction and the rung hopping is presented. First, a Luttinger liquid exists at very weak interchain hopping. Second, a Kondo-Mott insulator with spin and charge …
The Mott insulating state of the Hubbard model at half-filling could be depicted as a spin liquid of singly occupied sites with holon-doublon quantum fluctuations localized in pairs. In one dimension the behavior is captured by a finite value of the charge parity string correlator, which fails to remain finite when generalized to higher dimensions. We recover a definition of parity brane correlator which may remain nonvanishing in presence of interchain coupling, by assigning an appropriate fractional phase to the parity breaking fluctuations. In case of Hubbard ladders at half-filling, we fin…
The Hubbard model on a two-leg ladder structure has been studied by a combination of series expansions at T=0 and the density-matrix renormalization group. We report results for the ground state energy $E_0$ and spin-gap $Δ_s$ at half-filling, as well as dispersion curves for one and two-hole excitations. For small $U$ both $E_0$ and $Δ_s$ show a dramatic drop near $t/t_{\perp}\sim 0.5$, which becomes more gradual for larger $U$. This represents a crossover from a "band insulator" phase to a strongly correlated spin liquid. The lowest-lying two-hole state rapidly becomes strongly bound as $t/t…
