We study the tunneling density of states (TDOS) in one-dimensional Mott insulators at energies below the charge gap. By employing nonlinear Luttinger liquid theory and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations, we predict that in the presence of a magnetic impurity at the boundary, characteristic Fermi-edge singularity features can appear at subgap energies in the TDOS near the boundary. In contrast to the Kondo effect in a metal, these resonances are strongly asymmetric and of power-law form. The power-law exponent is universal and determined by the spinon-Kondo effect.
Two-channel Kondo lattice serves as a model for a growing family of heavy-fermion compounds. We employ the dynamical large-N technique and go beyond the independent bath approximation to study this model both numerically and analytically using renormalization group ideas. We show that the Kondo effect induces dynamic magnetic correlations that lead to an emergent spinon dispersion. Furthermore, we develop a quantitative framework that interpolates between infinite dimension where the channel-symmetry broken results of mean-field theory are confirmed, and one-dimension where the channel symmetr…
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…
The Kondo effect, an eminent manifestation of many-body physics in condensed matter, is traditionally explained as exchange scattering of conduction electrons on a spinful impurity in a metal. The resulting screening of the impurity's local moment by the electron Fermi sea is characterized by a Kondo temperature $T_K$, below which the system enters a non-perturbative strongly-coupled regime. In recent years, this effect has found its realizations beyond the bulk-metal paradigm in many other itinerant-electron systems, such as quantum dots in semiconductor heterostructures and in nanomaterials,…
Motivated by the recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements on one-dimensional Mott insulators, SrCuO${}_{2}$ and Na${}_{0.96}$V${}_{2}$O${}_{5}$, we examine the single-particle spectral weight of the one-dimensional (1D) Hubbard model at half-filling. We are particularly interested in the temperature dependence of the spinon and holon excitations. For this reason, we have performed the dynamical density matrix renormalization group and determinantal quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations for the single-particle spectral weight of the 1D Hubbard model. In the QMC dat…
We study one dimensional {\it extended} Kondo lattice model, described by the $t-J$ Hamiltonian for conduction electrons away from half filling and the Heisenberg Hamiltonian for localized spins at half filling. Following Shankar,\cite{Shankar} we find an effective field theory for this model, where doped holes are represented by massless Dirac fermions (holons) and spin excitations are fractionalized into relativistic bosons (spinons). These holons and spinons interact via U(1) gauge fluctuations. Effects of Berry phase to the localized spins disappear due to the presence of Kondo couplings, …
1T-TaS$_2$ is a cluster Mott insulator on the triangular lattice with 13 Ta atoms forming a star of David cluster as the unit cell. We derive a two dimensional XXZ spin-1/2 model with four-spin ring exchange term to describe the effective low energy physics of a monolayer 1T-TaS$_2$, where the effective spin-1/2 degrees of freedom arises from the Kramers degenerate spin-orbital states on each star of David. A large scale density matrix renormalization group simulation is further performed on this effective model and we find a gapless spin liquid phase with spinon Fermi surface at moderate to l…
Resorting to a recently developed theoretical device called dimensional regularization for quantum criticality with a Fermi surface, we examine a metal-insulator quantum phase transition from a Landau's Fermi-liquid state to a U(1) spin-liquid phase with a spinon Fermi surface in two dimensions. Unfortunately, we fail to approach the spin-liquid Mott quantum critical point from the U(1) spin-liquid state within the dimensional regularization technique. Self-interactions between charge fluctuations called holons are not screened, which shows a run-away renormalization group flow, interpreted as…
Motivated by recent experiments on the quantum-spin-liquid candidate material LiZn2Mo3O8, we study a single-band extended Hubbard model on an anisotropic Kagome lattice with the 1/6 electron filling. Due to the partial filling of the lattice, the inter-site repulsive interaction is necessary to generate Mott insulators, where electrons are localized in clusters, rather than at lattice sites. It is shown that these cluster Mott insulators are generally U(1) quantum spin liquids with spinon Fermi surfaces. The nature of charge excitations in cluster Mott insulators can be quite different from co…
Motivated by recent experiments on the quantum-spin-liquid candidate material LiZn2Mo3O8, we study a single-band extended Hubbard model on an anisotropic Kagome lattice with the 1/6 electron filling. Due to the partial filling of the lattice, the inter-site repulsive interaction is necessary to generate Mott insulators, where electrons are localized in clusters, rather than at lattice sites. We provide examples of such cluster Mott insulators and study the phase transitions between metallic states and cluster Mott insulators on an anisotropic Kagome lattice. It is shown that these cluster Mott…
Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are highly entangled, disordered magnetic states that arise in frustrated Mott insulators and host exotic fractional excitations such as spinons and chargons. Despite being charge insulators some QSLs are predicted to exhibit gapless itinerant spinons that yield metallic behavior in the spin channel. We have deposited isolated magnetic atoms onto single-layer (SL) 1T-TaSe$_2$, a gapless QSL candidate, to experimentally probe how itinerant spinons couple to impurity spin centers. Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy we observe the emergence of new, impurity-induced …
We show within the slave boson technique, that the Anderson lattice model exhibits a Kondo breakdown quantum critical point (KB-QCP) where the hybridization goes to zero at zero temper- ature. At this fixed point, the f-electrons experience as well a selective Mott transition separating a local-moment phase from a Kondo-screened phase. The presence of a multi-scale QCP in the An- derson lattice in the absence of magnetism is discussed in the context of heavy fermion compounds. This study is the first evidence for a selective Mott transition in the Anderson lattice.
A bilayer system comprising a Kondo insulator coupled to a simple metal (KI-M) is considered. Employing the framework of dynamical mean field theory, the model system is shown to exhibit a surface of quantum critical points (QCPs), that separates a Kondo screened, Fermi liquid phase from a local moment, Mott insulating phase. The quantum critical nature of these Mott transitions is characterized by the vanishing of (a) the coherence scale on the Fermi liquid side, and (b) the Mott gap on the MI side. In contrast to the usual `large to small' Fermi surface (FS) QCPs in heavy fermion systems, th…
We use an exact holon and spinon Landau-liquid functional which describes the holon - spinon interactions at all scattering orders, to study correlation functions of integrable multicomponent many-particle problems showing both linear and non-linear energy bands. We consider specific cases when the dominant non-linear band terms are quadratic and apply our results to the evaluation of the 1D Hubbard model correlation functions beyond conformal-field theory.
We study both the electrical and thermal transport near the heavy-fermion quantum critical point (QCP), identified with the breakdown of the Kondo effect as an orbital selective Mott transition. We show that the contribution to the electrical conductivity comes mainly from conduction electrons while the thermal conductivity is given by both conduction electrons and localized fermions (spinons), scattered with dynamical exponent $z = 3$. This scattering mechanism gives rise to a quasi-linear temperature dependence of the electrical and thermal resistivity. The characteristic feature of the Kond…
The low-energy dynamical optical response of dimerized and undimerized spin liquid states in a one-dimensional charge transfer Mott insulator is theoretically studied. An exact analysis is given for the low-energy asymptotic behavior using conformal field theory for the undimerized state. In the dimerized state, the infrared absorption due to the bound state of two solitons, i.e, the breather mode, is predicted with an accurate estimate for its oscillator strength, offering a way to detect experimentally the excited singlet state. Effects of external magnetic fields are also discussed.
We consider a heterostructure of a metal and a paramagnetic Mott insulator using an adaptation of dynamical mean field theory to describe inhomogeneous systems. The metal can penetrate into the insulator via the Kondo effect. We investigate the scaling properties of the metal-insulator interface close to the critical point of the Mott insulator. At criticality, the quasiparticle weight decays as 1/x^2 with distance x from the metal within our mean field theory. Our numerical results (using the numerical renormalization group as an impurity solver) show that the prefactor of this power law is e…
The charge dynamics of spin-liquid states described by U(1) gauge theory coupling to fermionic spinons is discussed in this paper. We find that the gapless spinons give rise to a power law optical conductivity inside the charge gap. The theory is applied to explain the unusual optical conductivity observed recently in the organic compound $κ-(BEDT-TTF)_2Cu_2(CN)_3$. We also propose an optical experiment to search for the in-gap excitations in the Kagome spin liquid insulator.
In the field of condensed matter, the quest to obtain an experimental realization of a Kondo lattice has generated a tremendous effort of the community, from both standpoints of experiments and theory. The pursuit of obtaining independent magnetic moments, via charge localization through Coulomb interactions, is paramount for applications in nanotechnology. In particular, systems with simultaneous charge and spin degrees of freedom can manifest both Kondo spin quenching and Mott-Hubbard charge localization. A unified experimental framework illuminating the pathway between the two phenomena is …
Mott transition plays a key role in strongly correlated physics but its nature is not yet fully understood. Motivated by recent development of Schwinger boson approach for the Kondo lattice, we propose in this work a novel slave fermion algorithm to study the Mott transition. Upon local approximation, our method yields a phase diagram with a zero-temperature continuous (Mott) metal-insulator transition at finite Coulomb interaction $U$ for the half-filled one-band Hubbard model on a square lattice, and the resistivity exhibits a critical scaling around the quantum Widom line. We argue that the…
We use an exact {\it holon} and {\it spinon} Landau-liquid functional which describes the holon - spinon interactions at all scattering orders, to study correlation functions of integrable multicomponent many-particle problems showing both linear and non-linear energy bands. Motivated by recent photoemission experiments, we consider specific cases when the dominant non-linear band terms are quadratic and apply our results to the evaluation of the half-filling 1D Hubbard model one-particle spectral functions beyond conformal-field theory.
The heavy fermion state with Kondo-hybridization (KH), usually manifested in f-electron systems with lanthanide or actinide elements, was recently discovered in several 3d transition metal compounds without f-electrons. However, KH has not yet been observed in 4d/5d transition metal compounds, since more extended 4d/5d orbitals do not usually form flat bands that supply localized electrons appropriate for Kondo pairing. Here, we report a doping- and temperature-dependent angle-resolved photoemission study on 4d Ca2-xSrxRuO4, which shows the signature of KH. We observed a spectral weight transf…
We characterize paramagnetic Mott insulators by their response to static, non-magnetic impurities. States with spinon deconfinement (or spin-charge separation) are distinguished from those with spinon confinement by distinct impurity susceptibilities and finite-size spectra. We discuss the evolution of physical properties upon doping to a d-wave superconductor, and argue that a number of recent experiments favor spinon confinement in the reference Mott insulating state.
We propose an energy-scale correspondence between the Mott physics and the Kondo lattice physics and construct a tentative phase diagram of their correlated electrons with two characteristic energy scales $ω^*$ and $Ω$ marking the upper boundary of a low-energy regime with well-developed long-range coherence and the lower boundary of localized spectral weight in the energy space, respectively. In between, there exists a crossover region with emergent but damped quasiparticle excitations. We argue that the presence of two separate energy scales is a generic property of correlated electrons on a…
We study a model of correlated electrons coupled by tunnelling to a layer of itinerant metallic electrons, which allows to interpolate from a frustrated limit favorable to spin liquid states to a Kondo-lattice limit favorable to interlayer coherent heavy metallic states. We study the competition of the spinon fermi surface state and the interlayer coherent heavy Kondo metal that appears with increasing tunnelling. Employing a slave rotor mean-field approach, we obtain a phase diagram and describe two regimes where the spin liquid state is destroyed by weak interlayer tunnelling, (i) the Kondo …
We reinvestigate a doped antiferromagnetic Mott insulator based on the slave-fermion approach of the t-J model, where antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and doped holes are described by bosonic spinons and fermionic holons, respectively. Earlier studies have shown that an effective field theory for the doped antiferromagnetic Mott insulator is given by a non-relativistic fermion (holon) U(1) gauge theory for charge dynamics and a relativistic boson (spinon) U(1) gauge theory for spin dynamics, thus allowing an anomalous metallic phase where bosonic spinons are gapped away from an antiferromag…
The variational local moment approach (VLMA) solution of the single impurity Anderson model is presented. It generalizes the local moment approach of Logan et al. by invoking the variational principle to determine the lengths of local moments and orbital occupancies. We show that VLMA is a comprehensive, conserving and thermodynamically consistent approximation and treats both Fermi and non-Fermi liquid regimes as well as local moment phases on equal footing. We tested VLMA on selected problems. We solved the single- and multi-orbital impurity Anderson model in various regions of parameters, w…
We perform a combined experimental-theoretical study of the Fe-oxychalcogenides (FeO$\emph{Ch}$) series La$_{2}$O$_{2}$Fe$_{2}$O\emph{M}$_{2}$ (\emph{M}=S, Se), which is the latest among the Fe-based materials with the potential \ to show unconventional high-T$_{c}$ superconductivity (HTSC). A combination of incoherent Hubbard features in X-ray absorption (XAS) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) spectra, as well as resitivity data, reveal that the parent FeO$\emph{Ch}$ are correlation-driven insulators. To uncover microscopics underlying these findings, we perform local density app…
Moiré super-potentials in two-dimensional materials allow unprecedented control of the ratio between kinetic and interaction energy. By this, they pave the way to study a wide variety of strongly correlated physics under a new light. In particular, the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are promising candidate "quantum simulators" of the Hubbard model on a triangular lattice. Indeed, Mott and generalized Wigner crystals have been observed in such devices. Here we theoretically propose to extend this model into the multi-orbital regime by focusing on electron doped systems at filling highe…
We consider quantum phase transitions out of topological Mott insulators in which the ground state of the fractionalized excitations (fermionic spinons) is topologically non-trivial. The spinons in topological Mott insulators are coupled to an emergent compact U(1) gauge field with a so-called "axion" term. We study the confinement transitions from the topological Mott insulator to broken symmetry phases, which may occur via the condensation of dyons. Dyons carry both "electric" and "magnetic" charges, and arise naturally in this system because the monopoles of the emergent U(1) gauge theory a…
We investigate the role of disorder in the Mott-Hubbard transition based on the slave-rotor representation of the Hubbard model, where an electron is decomposed into a fermionic spinon for a spin degree of freedom and a bosonic rotor (chargon) for a charge degree of freedom. In the absence of disorder the Mott-Hubbard insulator is assumed to be the spin liquid Mott insulator in terms of gapless spinons near the Fermi surface and gapped chargons interacting via U(1) gauge fields. We found that the Mott-Hubbard critical point becomes unstable as soon as disorder is turned on. As a result, a diso…
We study the Mott transition from a metal to cluster Mott insulators in the 1/4- and 1/8-filled pyrochlore lattice systems. It is shown that such Mott transitions can arise due to charge localization in clusters or in tetrahedron units, driven by the nearest-neighbor repulsive interaction. The resulting cluster Mott insulator is a quantum spin liquid with a spinon Fermi surface, but at the same time a novel fractionalized charge liquid with charge excitations carrying half the electron charge. There exist two emergent U(1) gauge fields or "photons" that mediate interactions between spinons and…
Generalized Cutler-Mott relation in a two-site charge Kondo simulator
Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology（越南科学技术院物理研究所）；The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics（阿卜杜斯·萨拉姆国际理论物理中心）
An effective Hamiltonian describing fluctuation effects in the magnetic phases of the Hubbard model in terms of spinon excitations is derived. A comparison of spin-rotational Kotliar-Ruckenstein slave boson and Ribeiro-Wen dopon representations is performed. The quantum transition into the half-metallic ferromagnetic state with vanishing of spin-down Fermi surface is treated as the topological Lifshitz transition in the quasimomentum space. The itinerant-localized magnetism transitions and Mott transition in antiferromagnetic state are considered in the topological context. Related metal-insul…
The Mott metal-insulator transition-a drastic manifestations of Coulomb interactions among electrons-is the first-order transition of clear discontinuity, as shown by various experiments and the celebrated dynamical mean-field theory. Recent theoretical works, however, suggest that the transition is continuous if the Mott insulator carries an exotic spin liquid with a spinon Fermi surface. Here, we demonstrate the case of a quasi-continuous Mott transition from a Fermi liquid to a spin liquid in an organic triangular-lattice system k-(ET)2Cu2(CN)3. Transport experiments performed under fine pr…
The strong coupling half-filled Kondo lattice model is an important example of a strongly interacting dense Fermi system for which conventional Fermi gas analysis has thus far failed. We remedy this by deriving an exact transformation that maps the model to a dilute gas of weakly interacting electron and hole quasiparticles that can then be analyzed by conventional dilute Fermi gas methods. The quasiparticle vacuum is a singlet Mott insulator for which the quasiparticle dynamics are simple. Since the transformation is exact, the electron spectral weight sum rules are obeyed exactly. Subtleties…
We investigate the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice with intrinsic spin orbit interactions as a paradigm for two-dimensional topological band insulators in the presence of interactions. Applying a combination of Hartree-Fock theory, slave-rotor techniques, and topological arguments, we show that the topological band insulating phase persists up to quite strong interactions. Then we apply the slave-rotor mean-field theory and find a Mott transition at which the charge degrees of freedom become localized on the lattice sites. The spin degrees of freedom, however, are still described by the…
Using a precise coset Ising-Bose representation, we show how backscattering of electrons off a magnetic impurity destabilizes the two-channel Kondo fixed point and drives the system to a new fixed point, in agreement with previous results. In addition, we verify the scaling proposed by Furusaki and Nagaosa and prove that the other possible critical fixed point, namely the local Fermi liquid class, is not completely universal when backscattering is included because the Wilson ratio is not well-defined in the spinon basis.
We derive, by means of an extended Gutzwiller wavefunction and within the Gutzwiller approximation, the phase diagram of the Kondo lattice model. We find that generically, namely in the absence of nesting, the model displays an $f$-electron Mott localization accompanied by a discontinuous change of the conduction electron Fermi surface as well as by magnetism. When the non interacting Fermi surface is close to nesting, the Mott localization disentangles from the onset of magnetism. First the paramagnetic heavy fermion metal turns continuously into an itinerant magnet - the Fermi surface evolve…
Photoemission Signatures of Photoinduced Carriers and Excitons in One-Dimensional Mott Insulators
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University（东北大学物质材料研究机构）；RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)（理化学研究所新兴物质科学中心）；Trans-Scale Quantum Science Institute, University of Tokyo（东京大学跨尺度量子科学研究所）
We give a brief review of the Mott-Kondo scenario and its consequence in the recently-discovered infinite-layer nickelate superconductors. We argue that the parent state is a self-doped Mott insulator and propose an effective $t$-$J$-$K$ model to account for its low-energy properties. At small doping, the model describes a low carrier density Kondo system with incoherent Kondo scattering at finite temperatures, in good agreement with experimental observation of the logarithmic temperature dependence of electric resistivity. Upon increasing Sr doping, the model predicts a breakdown of the Kondo…
We investigate the continuous quantum phase transition from an antiferromagnetic metal to a heavy fermion liquid based on the Kondo lattice model in two dimensions. We propose that antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and conduction electrons fractionalize into neutral bosonic spinons and charged spinless fermions at the quantum critical point. This deconfined quantum criticality leads us to establish a critical field theory in terms of the fractionalized fields interacting via emergent U(1) gauge fields. The critical field theory not only predicts non-Fermi liquid physics near the quantum crit…
We present an Ising-like intermediate phase for one-dimensional Kondo insulator systems. Resulting from a spinon splitting, its low-energy excitations are critical Ising modes, whereas the triplet sector has a spectral gap. It should occur as long as the RKKY oscillation amplitude dominates over any direct exchange between localized spins. The chiral fixed point, however, becomes unstable in the far Infra-Red limit due to prevalent fluctuations among localized spins which induce gapless triplet excitations in the spectrum. Based on previous numerical results, we obtain a paramagnetic disordere…
Two-dimensional triangular-lattice antiferromagnets are predicted under some conditions to exhibit a quantum spin liquid ground state whose low-energy behavior is described by a spinon Fermi surface. Directly imaging the resulting spinons, however, is difficult due to their fractional, chargeless nature. Here we use scanning tunneling spectroscopy to image spinon density modulations arising from a spinon Fermi surface instability in single-layer 1T-TaSe$_2$, a two-dimensional Mott insulator. We first demonstrate the existence of localized spins arranged on a triangular lattice in single-layer …
We study the low-energy properties of three-dimensional (3D) topological Mott insulators which can be viewed as strong topological insulators of spinons interacting with a three-dimensional gauge field. The low-energy behavior of such systems is dominated by the two-dimensional (2D) gapless surface spinons coupled to the bulk gauge field. We find that a dimensional crossover from 3D to 2D in the gauge field fluctuations may occur as the systems thickness and/or temperature is varied. In the thin sample limit, the gauge field fluctuations effectively become 2D and the problem becomes analogous …
The half-filled ground state of the Hubbard model in one dimension is studied by Kondo-lattice theory. Because of the Kondo effect, any insulating ground state with a complete gap open is unstable in the presence of an infinitesimal perturbation. This fact casts doubt on the claim by E. H. Lieb and F. Y. Wu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 20, 1445 (1968) that the half-filled ground state is the Mott insulator. Though the claim is based on a rigorous result given by the Bethe-ansatz solution, the rigorous result is simply a necessary condition for the ground state being an insulator.
Motivated by the recent progress on the spin-orbit-coupled triangular lattice spin liquid candidate YbMgGaO4, we carry out a systematic projective symmetry group analysis and mean-field study of candidate U(1) spin liquid ground states. Due to the spin-orbital entanglement of the Yb moments, the space group symmetry operation transforms both the position and the orientation of the local moments, and hence brings different features for the projective realization of the lattice symmetries from the cases with spin-only moments. Among the eight U(1) spin liquids that we find with the fermionic par…
Mott-Derived Local Moments and Kondo Hybridization in a d-electron Kagome lattice
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University（清华大学物理系低维量子物理国家重点实验室）；National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University（南京大学固体微结构物理全国重点实验室及物理学院）；Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院化学物理研究所）
