We employ mean-field approximation to investigate the interplay between the nontrivial band topology and the formation of excitonic insulator (EI) in a one-dimensional chain of atomic $s-p$ orbitals in the presence of repulsive inter-orbital Coulomb interaction. We find that our model, in a non-interacting regime, admits topological and trivial insulator phases, whereas, in strong Coulomb interaction limit, the chiral symmetry is broken and the system undergoes a topological-excitonic insulator phase transition. The latter phase transition stems from an orbital pseudomagnetization and band inversion around $k=0$. Our findings show that contrary to the topological insulator phase, electron-hole bound states do not form exciton condensate in the trivial band insulator phase due to lack of band inversion. Interestingly, the EI phase in low $s-p$ hybridization limit hosts a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)/Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover. Irradiated by a pump pulse, our findings reveal that the oscillations of exciton states strongly depend on the frequency of the laser pulse. We further explore the signatures of dynamics of the exciton condensate in optical measurements.
The theory of doped excitonic insulators is reinvestigated in light of recent experiments on hexaborides. For the appropriate valley-degenerate X_3,X_3' band structure, ``intra-valley'' condensation is energetically favored. Ferromagnetism occurs upon doping due to the quenching of kinetic energy at the otherwise direct first-order excitonic insulator-metal transition. The phase diagram includes states of spatially inhomogeneous density and magnetization at low temperatures.
The theory of impurities in excitonic insulator is investigated in the light of the recent experiments on hexaborides. First, we study the bound state around the impurity and find that the bound state emerges when ${Re}Δ$ is positive. Second, we study the continuum state using Abrikosov-Gor'kov's approach. We find that the energy gap is reduced strongly when ${Im}Δ=0$. Finally, we solve Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations for excitonic insulator numerically. We get the results consistent with the analytic ones. We also find that incomplete ferromagnetism appears in doped triplet excitonic insulator…
The excitonic insulator is an elusive electronic phase exhibiting a correlated excitonic ground state. Materials with such a phase are expected to have intriguing properties such as excitonic high-temperature superconductivity. However, compelling evidence on the experimental realization is still missing. Here, we theoretically propose hybrids of two-dimensional semiconductors functionalized by organic molecules as prototypes of excitonic insulators, with the exemplary candidate WS$_2$-F6TCNNQ. This material system exhibits an excitonic insulating phase at room temperature with a ground state …
Excitonic insulators are insulating states formed by the coherent condensation of electron and hole pairs into BCS-like states. Isotropic spatial wave functions are commonly considered for excitonic condensates since the attractive interaction among the electrons and the holes in semiconductors usually leads to $s$-wave excitons. Here, we propose a new type of excitonic insulator that exhibits order parameter with $p+ip$ symmetry and is characterized by a chiral Chern number $C_\textrm{c}=1/2$. This state displays the parity anomaly, which results in two novel topological properties: fractiona…
We show how strongly correlated materials could be described within the framework of an excitonic insulator formalism, and delineate the relationship between inter- and intra-band ordering phenomena. Our microscopic model of excitons clarifies the fundamental role of Van-Hove-singularity-nesting in driving both inter- and intra-band ordering transitions, and uncovers an interesting connection with resonating-valence-bond physics.
We investigate a model of excitonic ordering (i.e electron-hole pair condensation) appropriate for the divalent hexaborides. We show that the inclusion of imperfectly nested electron hole Fermi surfaces can lead to the formation of an undoped excitonic metal phase. In addition, we find that weak ferromagnetism with compensated moments arises as a result of gapless excitations. We study the effect of the low lying excitations on the density of states, Fermi surface topology and optical conductivity and compare to available experimental data.
Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations we have mapped out the zero temperature phase diagram of a symmetric electron-hole bilayer with twofold valley degeneracy, as function of the interlayer distance $d$ and in-layer density $n$. We find that the effect of the valley degeneracy is to shrink the region of stability of the excitonic condensate, in favor of quadriexcitons at small $d$ and of the four-component plasma at large $d$, with minor effects on the value of the excitonic condensate fraction. The enclosure of the condensate in a density window possibly explains why anomalous tunnelling con…
Excitonic insulator is a coherent electronic phase that results from the formation of a macroscopic population of bound particle-hole pairs - excitons. With only a few candidate materials known, the collective excitonic behavior is challenging to observe, being obscured by crystalline lattice effects. Here we use polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy to reveal the quadrupolar excitonic mode in the candidate zero-gap semiconductor Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ disentangling it from the lattice phonons. The excitonic mode pronouncedly softens close to the phase transition, showing its electronic character, …
We study the thermal conductivity in the excitonic insulator using a simple quasi one-dimensional two-band model consisting of electron and hole bands with the Coulomb interactions between these bands. Based on the linear response theory within a mean-field scheme, we develop a method to identify the contributions to thermal conductivity driven by excitonic insulator. It is found that there is an additional heat current operator owing to the excitonic phase transition, and that it gives contributions to thermal conductivity which are not expressed in the form of Sommerfeld-Bethe relations writ…
A recent paper on the insulating state of monolayer WTe2 reported the observation of large oscillations in the conductivity that are periodic in 1/B, resembling quantum oscillations in metals. This remarkable observation has inspired suggestions of exotic physics such as spin-charge separation. We show that a rather more conventional but still nontrivial explanation in terms of gap modulation may be possible in a model of excitonic insulator subject to a magnetic field.
To study excitonic effects on high-harmonic generation (HHG) in Mott insulators, we investigate pumped nonequilibrium dynamics in the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model. By employing time-dependent calculations based on the exact diagonalization and infinite time-evolving block decimation methods, we find the strong enhancement of the HHG intensity around the exciton energy. The subcycle analysis in the sub-Mott-gap regime shows that the intensity region of the time-resolved spectrum around the exciton energy splits into two levels and oscillates following the driving electric field. This …
We employ the multi-orbital dynamical mean-field theory to examine the ground state of a three-orbital Hubbard model with a relativistic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) at four electrons per site. We demonstrate that the interplay between the strong electron correlations and the SOC induces a Van Vleck-type nonmagnetic insulator and its magnetic exciton condensation. We also find in the moderate electron correlation regime that the SOC induces another type of a nonmagnetic excitonic insulator, in addition to a relativistic band insulator. The characteristic features among these insulators are manife…
Motivated by the possibility of pressure-induced exciton condensation in intermediate-valence Tm[Se,Te] compounds we study the Falicov-Kimball model extended by a finite f-hole valence bandwidth. Calculating the Frenkel-type exciton propagator we obtain excitonic bound states above a characteristic value of the local interband Coulomb attraction. Depending on the system parameters coherence between c- and f-states may be established at low temperatures, leading to an excitonic insulator phase. We find strong evidence that the excitonic insulator typifies either a BCS condensate of electron-hol…
We study the photo-induced dynamics of the excitonic insulator in the two-band Hubbard model on the Penrose tiling by means of the time-dependent real-space mean-field approximation. We show that, with a single-cycle electric-field pulse, the bulk (spatially averaged) excitonic order parameter decreases in the BCS regime, while it increases in the BEC regime. To clarify the dynamics peculiar to the Penrose tiling, we examine the coordination number dependence of observables and analyze the perpendicular space. In the BEC regime, characteristic oscillations of the electron number at each site a…
It is shown that the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin orbit couplings enhance the conclusive power in the experiments on the excitonic condensed state by at least three low temperature effects. First, spin orbit coupling facilitates the photoluminescense measurements via enhancing the bright contribution in the otherwise dominantly dark exciton condensed state. The second is the presence of a power law temperature dependence of the thermodynamic observables in low temperatures and the weakening of the second order transition at the critical temperature. The third is the appearance of the nondiagona…
In this paper, first, we present a general formulation to investigate the ground-state and elementary excitations of an excitonic insulator (EI) in real materials. In addition, we discuss the out-of-equilibrium state induced (albeit transiently) by high-intensity light illumination of a conventional two-dimensional (2D) insulator. We then, present various band-structure models which allow us to study the transition from a conventional insulator to an EI in 2D materials as a function of the dielectric constant, the conventional insulator gap (and chemical potential), the bandwidths of the condu…
The influence of phonons on the formation of the excitonic insulator has hardly been analyzed so far. Recent experiments on $\rm Ta_2NiSe_5$, 1$T$-$\rm TiSe_2$, and $\rm TmSe_{0.45}Te_{0.55}$, being candidates for realizing the excitonic-insulator state, suggest, however, that the underlying lattice plays a significant role. Employing the Kadanoff-Baym approach we address this issue theoretically. We show that owing to the electron-phonon coupling a static lattice distortion may arise at the excitonic instability. Most importantly such a distortion will destroy the acoustic phase mode being pr…
We comparatively study the excitonic insulator state in the extended Falicov-Kimball model (EFKM, a spinless two-band model) on the two-dimensional square lattice using the variational cluster approximation (VCA) and the cluster dynamical impurity approximation (CDIA). In the latter, the particle-bath sites are included in the reference cluster to take into account the particle-number fluctuations in the correlation sites. We thus calculate the particle-number distribution, order parameter, ground-state phase diagram, anomalous Green's function, and pair coherence length, thereby demonstrating…
We explore the spontaneous formation of an excitonic insulator state at the semimetal-semiconductor transition of mixed-valence materials in the framework of the spinless Falicov-Kimball model with direct $f$-$f$ electron hopping. Adapting the projector-based renormalization method, we obtain a set of renormalization differential equations for the extended Falicov-Kimball model parameters and finally derive analytical expressions for the order parameter, as well as for the renormalized $c$- and $f$-electron dispersions, momentum distributions, and wave-vector resolved single-particle spectral …
Motivated by recent experiments, which give strong evidence for an excitonic insulating phase in $\rm TmSe_{0.45}Te_{0.55}$, we developed a scheme to quantitatively construct, for generic two-band models, the phase diagram of an excitonic insulator. As a first application of our approach, we calculated the phase diagram for an effective mass two-band model with long-range Coulomb interaction. The shielded potential approximation is used to derive a generalized gap equation controlling for positive (negative) energy gaps the transition from a semi-conducting (semi-metallic) phase to an insulati…
The excitonic insulator is an intriguing electronic phase of quasi-condensed excitons. A prominent candidate is the small bandgap semiconductor Ta2NiSe5, in which excitons are believed to undergo a BEC-like transition. But experimental evidence for the existence of a coherent condensate in this material is still missing. A direct fingerprint of such a state would be the observation of its collective modes, which are equivalent to the Higgs- and Goldstone-modes in superconductors. Here we report evidence for the existence of a coherent amplitude response in the excitonic insulator phase of Ta2N…
The stability of the excitonic condensation at low temperature driven by a coupling of electrons to vibrational degrees of freedom in semimetal two-dimensional electronic system is discussed. In the framework of the unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation, we derive a set of equations to determine both the excitonic condensate order parameter and lattice displacement self-consistently. By lowering temperature we find out a semimetal-insulator transition in the system if the coupling is large enough. The insulating state typifies an excitonic condensation accompanied by a finite lattice distort…
We performed ultrasonic measurements on (Ta$_{0.952}$V$_{0.048}$)$_2$NiSe$_5$ to investigate the contribution of acoustic phonons at the zone center to structural and possible excitonic transitions. The transverse elastic constant $C_{55}$ with irreducible representation $B_\mathrm{2g}$ exhibits softening over 90\% above a transition temperature of $T_\mathrm{s} = 280$ K, indicating the soft mode of corresponding TA phonons. Our analysis based on the quadrupole response indicates that the electron-phonon interaction contributes to the excitonic transition in addition to the hybridization betwe…
Theoretical studies recently predicted the condensation of spin-orbit excitons at momentum $q$=$π$ in $t_{2g}^4$ spin-orbit coupled three-orbital Hubbard models at electronic density $n=4$. In parallel, experiments involving iridates with non-integer valence states for the Ir ions are starting to attract considerable attention. In this publication, using the density matrix renormalization group technique we present evidence for the existence of a novel excitonic condensate at $n=3.5$ in a one-dimensional Hubbard model with a degenerate $t_{2g}$ sector, when in the presence of spin-orbit coupli…
The excitonic insulator is an intriguing correlated electron phase formed of condensed excitons. A promising candidate is the small band gap semiconductor Ta2NiSe5. Here we investigate the quasiparticle and coherent phonon dynamics in Ta2NiSe5 in a time resolved pump probe experiment. Using the models originally developed by Kabanov et al. for superconductors, we show that the material's intrinsic gap can be described as almost temperature independent for temperatures up to about 250 K to 275 K. This behavior supports the existence of the excitonic insulator state in Ta2NiSe5. The onset of an …
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics in the pump-probe spectroscopy of excitonic insulators using the spinless two-orbital model with phonon degrees of freedom in the time-dependent mean-field approximation. We introduce the pulse light as a time-dependent vector potential via the Peierls phase in the Hamiltonian. We find that, in the Bose-Einstein condensation regime where the normal state is semiconducting, the excitonic order is suppressed when the frequency of the pulse light is slightly larger than the band gap, while the order is enhanced when the frequency of the pulse is much larger th…
Excitonic insulators are usually considered to form via the condensation of a soft charge mode of bound electron-hole pairs. This, however, presumes that the soft exciton is of spin-singlet character. Early theoretical considerations have also predicted a very distinct scenario, in which the condensation of magnetic excitons results in an antiferromagnetic excitonic insulator state. Here we report resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) measurements of Sr3Ir2O7. By isolating the longitudinal component of the spectra, we identify a magnetic mode that is well-defined at the magnetic and struc…
We consider the excitonic correlations in the two band solid state system composed of the valence band and conduction band electrons. We treat the phase coherence mechanism in the system by presenting the electron operator as a fermion attached to the U(1) phase-flux tube. The emergent bosonic gauge field, related to the phase variables appears to be crucial for the coherent Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of excitons. We calculate the normal excitonic Green functions, and the single-particle density of states functions being a convolution between bosonic and fermionic counterparts. We obtain…
We study the dynamical phase transition out of an excitonic insulator phase after photo-excitation using a time-dependent extension of the selfconsistent GW method. We connect the evolution of the photoemission spectra to the dynamics of the excitonic order parameter and identify two dynamical phase transition points marked by a slowdown in the relaxation: one critical point is connected with the trapping in a nonthermal state with reduced exciton density and the second corresponds to the thermal phase transition. The transfer of kinetic energy from the photoexcited carriers to the exciton con…
Utilizing the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group technique, we numerically prove photoinduced pairing states in the extended Falicov-Kimball model (EFKM) at half filling, both with and without internal SU(2) symmetry. In the time-dependent photoemission spectra an extra band appears above the Fermi energy after pulse irradiation, indicating an insulator-to-metal transition. Even in the absence of the SU(2) structure, the pair correlations are enhanced during the pump, and afterwards decrease over time. This implies the possible metallization of Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$, a strong candida…
We report on the nonequilibrium dynamics of the electronic structure of the layered semiconductor Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ investigated by time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy. We show that below the critical excitation density of $F_{C} = 0.2$ mJ cm$^{-2}$, the band gap $narrows$ transiently, while it is $enhanced$ above $F_{C}$. Hartree-Fock calculations reveal that this effect can be explained by the presence of the low-temperature excitonic insulator phase of Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$, whose order parameter is connected to the gap size. This work demonstrates the ability to manipulate the band g…
Ta2NiSe5 is considered a promising excitonic insulator (EI) candidate with slight phonon contributions, since it exhibits a tiny orthorhombic-to-monoclinic structural distortion at 328 K without any superlattice structure. Our synchrotron inelastic x-ray scattering measurements reveal strong electron-optical-phonon coupling occurring at temperatures higher than the transition temperature. Density functional theoretical calculations indicate that two coupled optical modes arise due to the vibration of Ta and Se ions. Further, the two modes are frozen such that Ta and Se approach each other, for…
We investigate out-of-equilibrium dynamics in an excitonic insulator (EI) with a finite momentum pairing perturbed by a laser-pulse excitation and a sudden coupling to fermionic baths. The transient dynamics of the excitonic order parameter is resolved using the full nonequilibrium Green's function approach and the generalized Kadanoff-Baym ansatz (GKBA) within the second-Born approximation. The comparison between the two approaches after a laser pulse excitation shows a good agreement in the weak and the intermediate photo-doping regime. In contrast, the laser-pulse dynamics resolved by the G…
The density-matrix-renormalization-group (DMRG) method and the Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation with the charge-density-wave (CDW) instability are used to study a formation and condensation of excitonic bound states in the generalized Falicov-Kimball model. In particular, we examine effects of various factors, like the $f$-electron hopping, the local and nonlocal hybridization, as well as the increasing dimension of the system on the excitonic momentum distribution $N(q)$ and especially on the number of zero momentum excitons $N_0=N(q=0)$ in the condensate. It is found that the negative values …
We investigate the effect of nonlocal interactions on the photo-doped Mott insulating state of the two-dimensional Hubbard model using a nonequilibrium generalization of the dynamical cluster approximation. In particular, we compare the situation where the excitonic states are lying within the continuum of doublon-holon excitations to a set-up where the excitons appear within the Mott gap. In the first case, the creation of nearest-neighbor doublon-holon pairs by excitations across the Mott gap results in enhanced excitonic correlations, but these excitons quickly decay into uncorrelated doubl…
The layered chalcogenide Ta2NiSe5 has recently attracted much interest as a strong candidate for the long sought excitonic insulator (EI). Since the physical properties of an EI are expected to depend sensitively on the external pressure, it is important to clarify the pressure evolution of microscopic electronic state in Ta2NiSe5. Here we report the optical conductivity [s(w)] of Ta2NiSe5 measured at high pressures to 10 GPa and at low temperatures to 8 K. With cooling at ambient pressure, s(w) develops an energy gap of about 0.17 eV and a pronounced excitonic peak at 0.38 eV, as already repo…
The competition between spin-orbit coupling $λ$ and electron-electron interaction $U$ leads to a plethora of novel states of matter, extensively studied in the context of $t_{2g}^4$ and $t_{2g}^5$ materials, such as ruthenates and iridates. Excitonic magnets -- the antiferromagnetic state of bounded electron-hole pairs -- is a prominent example of phenomena driven by those competing energy scales. Interestingly, recent theoretical studies predicted that excitonic magnets can be found in the ground-state of spin-orbit-coupled $t_{2g}^4$ Hubbard models. Here, we present a detailed computational …
A ferromagnet with a small spontaneous moment but with a high Curie temperature can be obtained by doping an excitonic insulator made from a spin triplet exciton condensate. Such a condensate can occur in a semimetal with a small overlap or a semiconductor with a small bandgap. We propose that it is responsible for the unexpected ferromagnetism in the doped hexaboride material Ca_{1-x}La_xB_6.
Recently, detailed calculations of the excitonic insulator phase model adapted to the case of 1\textit{T}-TiSe$_2$ have been presented. Through the spectral function theoretical photoemission intensity maps can be generated which are in very good agreement with experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 99}, (2007) 146403]. In this model, excitons condensate in a BCS-like manner and give rise to a charge density wave, characterized by an order parameter. Here, we assume an analytical form of the order parameter, allowing to perform temperature dependent calculations. The influence of this order paramet…
In the 1960s speculations arose if a ground state exists in solid state materials with an electron and a hole bound to a pair with their spins added to integer values, i.e. excitons. Here we show that electrons and holes in TmSe0.45Te0.55 do form excitons as the thermodynamical ground state. The formation of a large number of excitons in an indirect gap semiconductor requires momentum conservation by means of phonons and, hence, implies a significant change of the heat capacity of the lattice, as found experimentally. The thermodynamically derived phase diagram sustains a bosonic ground state …
We study third-harmonic generation (THG) in an excitonic insulator (EI) described in a two-band correlated electron model. Employing the perturbative expansion with respect to the external electric field, we derive the THG susceptibility taking into account the collective dynamics of the excitonic order parameter. In the inversion-symmetric EI, the collective order parameter motion is activated at second order of the external field and its effects arise in THG. We find three peaks in the THG susceptibility at energies $\hbar Ω= Δ_g/3$, $Δ_g/2$, and $Δ_g$, where $Δ_g$ is the band gap. While the…
We introduce a generalized Gross-Neveu (GN) model to describe the excitonic instabilities in two different systems: a small overlap semi-metal (SM) and a small gap semi-conductor (SMC), both in two (2d) and three-dimensions (3d). We identify the excitonic order parameter (EOP) and obtain the effective potential within the Large $N$ limit approach where the GN model can be exactly solved. We obtain the excitonic insulator (EI) phase diagrams as a function of temperature, chemical potential, overlap between bands and gaps of the system. We show that the EI may undergo first- or second-order ther…
The nonlinear optical response of an excitonic insulator coupled to lattice degrees of freedom is shown to depend in strong and characteristic ways on whether the insulating behavior originates primarily from electron-electron or electron-lattice interactions. Linear response optical signatures of the massive phase mode and the amplitude (Higgs) mode are identified. Upon nonlinear excitation resonant to the phase mode, a new in-gap mode at twice the phase mode frequency is induced, leading to a huge second harmonic response. Excitation of in-gap phonon modes leads to different and much smaller…
In Mott insulators with the t^4_{2g} electronic configuration such as of Re^{3+}, Ru^{4+}, Os^{4+}, and Ir^{5+} ions, spin-orbit coupling dictates a Van Vleck-type nonmagnetic ground state with angular momentum J=0, and the magnetic response is governed by gapped singlet-triplet excitations. We derive the exchange interactions between these excitons and study their collective behavior on different lattices. In perovskites, a conventional Bose condensation of excitons into a magnetic state is found, while an unexpected one-dimensional behavior supporting spin-liquid states emerges in honeycomb …
We have applied a many-body Wannier functions method to theoretically calculate an excitonic optical conductivity spectrum and energy structure in a one-dimensional (1D) Mott insulator at absolute zero temperature with large system size. Focusing on full charge fluctuations associated with pairs of a holon and doublon, we employ a charge model, which is interpreted as a good effective model to investigate photoexcitations of a 1D extended Hubbard model at half-filling in the spin-charge separation picture. As a result, the theoretical spectra with appropriate broadenings qualitatively reproduc…
Magnetic field (H) effects on a correlated electron system with the spin-state degree of freedom are examined. The effective Hamiltonian derived from the two-orbital Hubbard model is analyzed by the mean-field approximation. Applying H to the low-spin (LS) phase induces the excitonic insulating phase, as well as the spin-state ordered phase where the LS and high-spin (HS) states are ordered alternately. In the case where H is applied to the HS phase, a reentrant transition for the HS phase appears. A rich variety of the phase diagrams are attributed to the spin-state degree of freedom and thei…
Femtosecond time-resolved mid-infrared reflectivity is used to investigate the electron and phonon dynamics occurring at the direct band gap of the excitonic insulator Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ below the critical temperature of its structural phase transition. We find that the phonon dynamics show a strong coupling to the excitation of free carriers at the Γ point of the Brillouin zone. The optical response saturates at a critical excitation fluence $F_C = 0.30~\pm~0.08$~mJ/cm$^2$ due to optical absorption saturation. This limits the optical excitation density in Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ so that the system cannot …
The excitonic insulator Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ experiences a first-order structural transition under pressure from rippled to flat layer-structure at Ps = 3 GPa, which drives the system from an almost zero-gap semiconductor to a semimetal. The pressure-induced semimetal, with lowering temperature, experiences a transition to another semimetal with a partial-gap of 0.1-0.2 eV, accompanied with a monoclinic distortion analogous to that occurs at the excitonic transition below Ps. We argue that the partial-gap originates primarily from a symmetry-allowed hybridization of Ta-conduction and Ni-valence band…
Double-layer electron systems in the quantum Hall regime have excitonic condensate ground states when the layers are close together and the total Landau level filling factor is close to an odd integer. In this paper we discuss the microscopic physics of these states and recent progress toward building a theory of the anomalous collective transport effects that occur in separately contacted bilayers when the condensate is present.
The effects associated with interatomic hoppings of excitons and the excitonic Bose condensate formation in the strongly correlated spin crossover systems are considered in the framework of the effective Hamiltonian for the two-band Kanamori model. The appearance of antiferromagnetic ordering due to the exciton order is found even in the absence of interatomic exchange interaction. The spectrum of excitonic excitations is calculated at various points of the "temperature vs. crystal field" phase diagram. Outside the region of exciton ordering, the spectrum has a gap, which vanishes at the bound…
We re-examine the three-dimensional spinless Falicov-Kimball model with dispersive $f$ electrons at half-filling, addressing the dispute about the formation of an excitonic condensate, which is closely related to the problem of electronic ferroelectricity. To this end, we work out a slave-boson functional integral representation of the suchlike extended Falicov-Kimball model that preserves the $SO(2)\otimes U(1)^{\otimes 2}$ invariance of the action. We find a spontaneous pairing of $c$ electrons with $f$ holes, building an excitonic insulator state at low temperatures, also for the case of in…
