Frustrated Mott insulators such as transition metal dichalcogenides present an ideal platform for the experimental realization of externally tuned insulator-metal transition. In this paper, we present the first nonperturbative numerical investigation of the disorder-induced insulator-metal transition in a two-dimensional frustrated Mott insulator. Our approach is generic and captures the essential physics of Mott insulator-metal transition in geometrically frustrated lattices. For concreteness, we have compared our results with the experimental observations on copper (Cu) intercalated 1T-TaS2. Based on the magnetic, spectroscopic, and transport signatures, we have mapped out the thermal phase diagram of Cu intercalated 1T-TaS2 and established that over a regime of moderate disorder strength this material hosts an antiferromagnetic metal. Moreover, the insulator-metal transition in this system is not tied to the loss of magnetic correlations, thereby giving rise to two quantum critical points. The emergent non-Fermi liquid metal is governed by resilient quasiparticles, that survive as the relevant low energy excitations even after the break down of the Fermi liquid description. The transport and spectroscopic signatures discussed in this paper are expected to serve as important benchmarks for future experiments on this and related class of materials.
Recent studies demonstrated that there may appear different novel states in correlated systems close to localized-itinerant crossover. Especially favourable conditions for that are met in low-dimensional and in frustrated systems. In this paper I discuss on concrete examples some of such novel states. In particular, for some spinels and triangular systems there appears a "partial Mott transition", in which first some finite clusters (dimers, trimes, tetramers, heptamers) go over to the itinerant regime, and the real bulk Mott transition occurs only later. Also some other specific possibilities…
We study the Mott transition in a frustrated Hubbard model with next-nearest neighbor hopping at half-filling. The interplay between interaction, dimensionality and geometric frustration closes the one-dimensional Mott gap and gives rise to a metallic phase with Fermi surface pockets. We argue that they emerge as a consequence of remnant one-dimensional Umklapp scattering at the momenta with vanishing interchain hopping matrix elements. In this pseudogap phase, enhanced d-wave pairing correlations are driven by antiferromagnetic fluctuations. Within the adopted cluster dynamical mean-field the…
We use a novel Monte Carlo method to study the Mott transition in an anisotropic triangular lattice. The real space approach, retaining extended spatial correlations, allows an accurate treatment of non trivial magnetic fluctuations in this frustrated structure. Choosing the degree of anisotropy to mimic the situation in the quasi-two dimensional organics, $κ-$(BEDT-TTF)$_2$Cu[N(CN)$_2$]-X, we detect a wide pseudogap phase, with anomalous spectral and transport properties, between the `ungapped' metal and the `hard gap' Mott insulator. The magnetic fluctuations also lead to pronounced momentum…
We use a three-pulse ultrafast optical spectroscopy to study the relaxation processes in a frustrated Mott insulator Na$_2$IrO$_3$. By being able to independently produce the out-of-equilibrium bound states (excitons) of doublons and holons with the first pulse and suppress the underlying antiferromagnetic order with the second one, we were able to elucidate the relaxation mechanism of quasiparticles in this system. By observing the difference in the exciton dynamics in the magnetically ordered and disordered phases we found that the mass of this quasiparticle is mostly determined by its inter…
Quantum fluctuations become particularly relevant in highly frustrated quantum magnets and can lead to new states of matter. We provide a simple and robust scenario for inducing magnetic vortex crystals in frustrated Mott insulators. By considering a quantum paramagnet that has a gapped spectrum with six-fold degenerate low energy modes, we study the magnetic field induced condensation of these modes. We use a dilute gas approximation to demonstrate that a plethora of multi-$\mathbf{Q}$ condensates are stabilized for different combinations of exchange interactions. This rich quantum phase diag…
We examine the effects of quantum fluctuations on a classical spin liquid state in the fully-frustrated honeycomb lattice Bose Hubbard model using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Frustration is induced explicitly in the model by modulating the sign of the interaction spatially around each lattice hexagon. A superfluid to Mott insulating quantum phase transition can be induced by varying the relative strength of the classical interaction and quantum hopping. In the cases where the interaction has a regular spatial modulation, hopping promotes a phase transition to a symmetry-broken valence-bon…
Mott Transition from a Spin Liquid to a Fermi Liquid in the Spin-Frustrated Organic Conductor kappa-(ET)2Cu2(CN)3
用$^1$ H NMR和电阻率测量研究了三角晶格自旋液体模型体系$κ$ -（ET）$_2$ Cu $_2$（CN）$_3$的压温相图.在压力下，自旋液相在莫特转变为金属或超导相之前是持久的。在Mott转变时，自旋涨落被迅速抑制，自旋-晶格弛豫速率和电阻率随温度的变化具有费米液体特征。相图中Mott边界的特征曲率反映了自旋阻挫对Mott相变的重要影响。
The search for quantum spin liquids in frustrated quantum magnets recently has enjoyed a surge of interest, with various candidate materials under intense scrutiny. However, an experimental confirmation of a gapped topological spin liquid remains an open question. Here, we show that circularly-polarized light can provide a novel knob to drive frustrated Mott insulators into a chiral spin liquid (CSL), realizing an elusive quantum spin liquid with topological order. We find that the dynamics of a driven Kagome Mott insulator is well-captured by an effective Floquet spin model, with heating stro…
Finite-${\mathbf Q}$ magnetic instabilities are rather common in frustrated magnets. When the magnetic susceptibility is maximized at multiple-${\mathbf Q}$ vectors related through lattice symmetry operations, exotic magnetic orderings such as vortex and skyrmion crystals may follow. Here we show that a periodic array of nonmagnetic impurities, which can be realized through charge density wave ordering, leads to a rich phase diagram featuring a plethora of chiral magnetic phases, especially when there is a simple relation between the reciprocal vectors of the impurity superlattice and the magn…
We study the fully gapped chiral Mott insulator (CMI) of frustrated Bose-Hubbard models on ladders and two-dimensional lattices by perturbative strong-coupling analysis and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). First we show the existence of a low-lying exciton state on all geometries carrying the correct quantum numbers responsible for the condensation of excitons and formation of the CMI in the intermediate interaction regime. Then we perform systematic DMRG simulations on several two-leg ladder systems with $π$-flux and carefully characterize the two quantum phase transitions. We dis…
The crystal structure of Ba4NbRu3O12 is based on triangular planes of elongated Ru3O12 trimers oriented perpendicular to the plane. We report that it is semiconducting, that its Weiss temperature and effective magnetic moment are -155 K and 2.59 μB/f.u. respectively, and that magnetic susceptibility and specific heat data indicate that it exhibits magnetic ordering near 4 K. The presence of a high density of low energy states is evidenced by a substantial Sommerfeld-like T-linear term (gamma = 31(2) mJ/mole-K^2) in the specific heat. Electronic structure calculations reveal that the electronic…
We study the orbitally frustrated singlet-triplet models that emerge in the context of spin-orbit coupled Mott insulators with $t_{2g}^4$ electronic configuration. In these compounds, low-energy magnetic degrees of freedom can be cast in terms of three-flavor "triplon" operators describing the transitions between spin-orbit entangled $J=0$ ionic ground state and excited $J=1$ levels. In contrast to a conventional, flavor-isotropic O(3) singlet-triplet models, spin-orbit entangled triplon interactions are flavor-and-bond selective and thus highly frustrated. In a honeycomb lattice, we find clos…
Density order is usually a consequence of the competition between long-range and short-range interactions. Here we report a density ordered superfluid emergent from a homogeneous Mott insulator due to the competition between frustrations and local interactions. This transition is found in a Bose-Hubbard model on a frustrated triangle lattice with an extra pairing term. Further, we find a quantum phase transition between two different density ordered superfluids, which is beyond the Landau-Ginzburg paradigm. Across this transition, a U(1) symmetry is emergent, while the symmetry in each density…
The SU(4)-symmetric spin-orbital model on the honeycomb lattice was recently studied in connection to correlated insulators such as the $e_{g}$ Mott insulator Ba$_{3}$CuSb$_{2}$O$_{9}$ and the insulating phase of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene at quarter filling. Here we provide a unified discussion of these systems by investigating an extended model that includes the effects of Hund's coupling and anisotropic, orbital-dependent exchange interactions. Using a combination of mean-field theory, linear flavor-wave theory, and variational Monte Carlo, we show that this model harbors a quantu…
Magnetopological mechanics in Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators
International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院量子材料国际中心）；Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter（量子物质协同创新中心）
We study the superfluid and insulating phases of interacting bosons on the triangular lattice with an inverted dispersion, corresponding to frustrated hopping between sites. The resulting single-particle dispersion has multiple minima at nonzero wavevectors in momentum space, in contrast to the unique zero-wavevector minimum of the unfrustrated problem. As a consequence, the superfluid phase is unstable against developing additonal chiral order that breaks time reversal (T) and parity (P) symmetries by forming a condensate at nonzero wavevector. We demonstrate that the loss of superfluidity ca…
Time reversal protected three dimensional (3D) topological paramagnets are magnetic analogs of the celebrated 3D topological insulators. Such paramagnets have a bulk gap, no exotic bulk excitations, but non-trivial surface states protected by symmetry. We propose that frustrated spin-1 quantum magnets are a natural setting for realising such states in 3D. We describe a physical picture of the ground state wavefunction for such a spin-1 topological paramagnet in terms of loops of fluctuating Haldane chains with non-trivial linking phases. We illustrate some aspects of such loop gases with simpl…
单能带哈伯德模型的顺磁相的莫特-哈伯德金属-绝缘体转变长期以来一直被用来描述像V $_2$ O $_3$这样的真实材料中的类似特征。在这里，我们表明，这种转变是隐藏在一个相当强大的反铁磁绝缘体，即使在存在比较强的磁挫折。这一结果提出了一个问题的相关性的莫特-哈伯德金属-绝缘体转变的通用相图的单带哈伯德模型。
The variational cluster approximation is used to study the frustrated Hubbard model at half filling defined on the two-dimensional square lattice with anisotropic next-nearest-neighbor hopping parameters. We calculate the ground-state phase diagrams of the model in a wide parameter space for a variety of lattice geometries, including square, crossed-square, and triangular lattices. We examine the Mott metal-insulator transition and show that, in the Mott insulating phase, magnetic phases with Néel, collinear, and spiral orders appear in relevant parameter regions, and in an intermediate region…
V2O3 famously features all four combinations of paramagnetic vs antiferromagnetic, and metallic vs insulating states of matter in response to %-level doping, pressure in the GPa range, and temperature below 300 K. Using time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy combined with density functional theory calculations of magnetic interactions, we have mapped and analyzed the inelastic magnetic neutron scattering cross section over a wide range of energy and momentum transfer in the chromium stabilized antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic insulating phases (AFI & PI). Our results reveal an important magneti…
Motivated by experiments on Josephson junction arrays in a magnetic field and ultracold interacting atoms in an optical lattice in the presence of synthetic orbital magnetic fields, we study the "fully frustrated" Bose-Hubbard model and quantum XY model with half a flux quantum per lattice plaquette. Using Monte Carlo simulations and the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method, we show that the phase diagram of such kinetically frustrated bosons displays three phases on a two-leg ladder: a weakly interacting chiral superfluid phase with staggered loop currents which spontaneously br…
Mott transition and ferrimagnetism are studied in the Hubbard model on the anisotropic kagomé lattice using the variational cluster approximation and the phase diagram at zero temperature and half-filling is analyzed. The ferrimagnetic phase rapidly grows as the geometric frustration is relaxed, and the Mott insulator phase disappears in moderately frustrated region, showing that the ferrimagnetic fluctuations stemming from the relaxation of the geometric frustration is enhanced by the electron correlations. In metallic phase, heavy fermion behavior is observed and mass enhancement factor is c…
The question of the existence of a spin liquid state in the half-filled Hubbard model on the honeycomb (aka graphene) lattice is revisited. The Variational Cluster Approximation (VCA), the Cluster Dynamical Mean Field Theory (CDMFT) and the Cluster Dynamical Impurity Approximation (CDIA) are applied to various cluster systems. Assuming that the spin liquid phase coincides with the Mott insulating phase in this non-frustrated system, we find that the Mott transition is pre-empted by a magnetic transition occuring at a lower value of the interaction $U$, and therefore the spin liquid phase does …
Kane-Lubensky phonons in Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators
International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院量子材料科学中心）；Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter（量子物质协同创新中心）；Beijing Key Laboratory of Quantum Devices（北京量子器件重点实验室）
Optical conductivity measurements are combined with density functional theory calculations in order to understand the electrodynamic response of the frustrated Mott insulators Herbertsmithite $\mathrm{ZnCu_{3}(OH)_{6}Cl_{2}}$ and the closely-related kagome-lattice compound $\mathrm{Y_{3}Cu_{9}(OH)_{19}Cl_{8}}$. We identify these materials as charge-transfer rather than Mott-Hubbard insulators, similar to the high-$T_c$ cuprate parent compounds. The band edge is at 3.3 and 3.6 eV, respectively, establishing the insulating nature of these compounds. Inside the gap, we observe dipole-forbidden lo…
We demonstrate multiferroic behavior in trimerized Mott insulators through interplay between spins and electric dipole moments resulting from electronic charge fluctuations in frustrated units. The model consists of stacked triangular layers of trimers with small intertrimer exchange interactions $J'$ and $J"$. Ferroelectric states coexist with ferro- or antiferromagnetic orderings depending on the value of the magnetic field $H$ and the sign of the interlayer exchange $J"$. The electric polarization undergoes abrupt changes as a function of $H$.
Based on dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we study the interaction-driven Mott metal-insulator transition (MIT) in the half-filled Hubbard model on the anisotropic two-dimensional triangular lattice, where the degree of frustration is varied between the unfrustrated case and the fully frustrated, isotropic triangular lattice. Upon increasing the DCA cluster size, we analyze the evolution of the MIT phase boundary as a function of frustration in the phase diagram spanned by the interaction strength and temperature, and provide a quantitative description of …
Honeycomb iridates are thought to have strongly spin-anisotropic exchange interactions that could lead to an extraordinary state of matter known as the Kitaev quantum spin liquid. The realization of this state requires almost perfectly frustrated interactions between the magnetic Ir$^{4+}$ ions, but small imbalances in energy make other ordered states more favorable. Indeed, the closeness in energy of these ordered states is itself a signature of the intrinsic frustration in the system. In this work, we illustrate that small magnetic fields can be employed to drive the frustrated quantum magne…
Recently, the frustrated XY model for spins-1/2 on the honeycomb lattice has attracted a lot of attention in relation with the possibility to realize a chiral spin liquid state. This model is relevant to the physics of some quantum magnets. Using the flexibility of ultra-cold atoms setups, we propose an alternative way to realize this model through the Mott regime of the bosonic Kane-Mele-Hubbard model. The phase diagram of this model is derived using the bosonic dynamical mean-field theory. Focussing on the Mott phase, we investigate its magnetic properties as a function of frustration. We do…
Gapless spin liquids have recently been observed in several frustrated Mott insulators, with elementary spin excitations - "spinons" - reminiscent of degenerate Fermi systems. However, their precise role at the Mott point, where charge fluctuations begin to proliferate, remains controversial and ill-understood. Here we present the simplest theoretical framework that treats the dynamics of emergent spin and charge excitations on the same footing, providing a new physical picture of the Mott metal-insulator transition at half filing. We identify a generic orthogonality mechanism leading to stron…
We review recent progress in our theoretical understanding of strongly correlated fermion systems in the presence of disorder. Results were obtained by the application of a powerful nonperturbative approach, the Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (DMFT), to interacting disordered lattice fermions. In particular, we demonstrate that DMFT combined with geometric averaging over disorder can capture Anderson localization and Mott insulating phases on the level of one-particle correlation functions. Results are presented for the ground-state phase diagram of the Anderson-Hubbard model at half filling, bot…
The magnetic properties and Mott transition of the Hubbard model on the square lattice with frustration are studied at half-filling and zero temperature by the variational cluster approximation. When the on-site repulsion $U$ is large, magnetically disordered state is realized in highly frustrated region between the Néel and collinear phases, and no imcommensurate magnetic states are found there. As for the Mott transition, in addition to the Mott gap and double occupancy, which clarify the nature of the transition, the structure of the self-energy in the spectral representation is studied in …
Our magnetic, electrical, and thermal measurements on single-crystals of the novel Mott insulator, Sr2IrO4, reveal a novel giant magneto-electric effect (GME) arising from a frustrated magnetic/ferroelectric state whose signatures are: (1) a strongly enhanced electric permittivity that peaks near a newly observed magnetic anomaly at 100 K, (2) a large (~100%) magneto-dielectric shift that occurs near a metamagnetic transition, and (3) magnetic and electric polarization hysteresis. The GME and electric polarization hinge on a spin-orbit gapping of 5d-bands, rather than the magnitude and spatial…
Single-ion anisotropy-stabilized short-period helimagnetism in frustrated chiral Co$_5$TeO$_8$
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences（瑞士保罗谢勒研究所中子与μ子科学中心）；Institute of Physics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院物理研究所）；Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie（柏林亥姆霍兹材料能源中心）；Institut Laue–Langevin（朗之万研究所）
We report on a new electromagnetic phenomenon that emerges in Mott insulators, i.e., materials that do not conduct electricity because of strong electronic Coulomb repulsion. The phenomenon manifests as antiferromagnetic ordering due to orbital electric currents which are spontaneously generated from the coupling between spin currents and an external homogenous magnetic field. This novel spin-charge current effect provides the mechanism to detect the so far elusive spin currents by means of unpolarized neutron scattering, nuclear magnetic resonance or muon spectroscopy. We illustrate this mech…
Bad-Metal (BM) behavior featuring linear temperature dependence of the resistivity extending to well above the Mott-Ioffe-Regel (MIR) limit is often viewed as one of the key unresolved signatures of strong correlation. Here we associate the BM behavior with the Mott quantum criticality by examining a fully frustrated Hubbard model where all long-range magnetic orders are suppressed, and the Mott problem can be rigorously solved through Dynamical Mean-Field Theory. We show that for the doped Mott insulator regime, the coexistence dome and the associated first-order Mott metal-insulator transiti…
Dynamics of magnetic moments near the Mott metal-insulator transition is investigated by a combined slave-rotor and Dynamical Mean-Field Theory solution of the Hubbard model with additional fully-frustrated random Heisenberg couplings. In the paramagnetic Mott state, the spinon decomposition allows to generate a Sachdev-Ye spin liquid in place of the collection of independent local moments that typically occurs in the absence of magnetic correlations. Cooling down into the spin-liquid phase, the onset of deviations from pure Curie behavior in the spin susceptibility is found to be correlated t…
