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Dielectric catastrophe at the Mott transition.
C Aebischer1, D Baeriswyl, R M Noack
1Institut de Physique Théorique, Université de Fribourg, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
Physical Review Letters
|February 15, 2001
Summary
Researchers investigated the Mott transition in a Hubbard chain, finding the electric susceptibility diverges near the critical point. The correlation length is linked to polarization fluctuations, indicating an infinite-order transition for all interaction strengths.
Area of Science:
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Quantum Many-Body Systems
Background:
- The Mott transition describes a phase transition in materials where electron-electron interactions cause an insulator.
- Understanding the critical behavior of the Mott transition is crucial for designing novel electronic materials.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the Mott transition in a half-filled Hubbard chain with next-nearest-neighbor hopping (t').
- To analyze the system's response to an external electric field and characterize critical behavior.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method.
- Calculating the electric susceptibility (chi) and correlation length (xi).
Main Results:
- Electric susceptibility (chi) diverges approaching the critical point from the insulating side.
- Correlation length (xi) is proportional to polarization fluctuations, with chi approximately xi^2.
- The transition is confirmed to be infinite order for all t', regardless of spin gap presence.
Conclusions:
- The study reveals universal critical behavior for the Mott transition in the Hubbard chain.
- Hyperscaling relations are shown to hold, providing further insight into the transition's nature.