Classical Antiferromagnetism in Kinetically Frustrated Electronic Models

We study the infinite U Hubbard model with one hole doped away half-filling, in triangular and square lattices with frustrated hoppings that invalidate Nagaoka's theorem, by means of the density matrix renormalization group. We find that these kinetically frustrated models have antiferromagnetic ground states with classical local magnetization in the thermodynamic limit. We identify the mechanism of this kinetic antiferromagnetism with the release of the kinetic energy frustration as the hole moves in the established antiferromagnetic background. This release can occurs in two different ways: by a non-trivial spin-Berry phase acquired by the hole or by the effective vanishing of the hopping amplitude along the frustrating loops.Comment: 12 pages and 4 figures, with Supplementary Material. To be published in Phys. Rev. Let

A test of the bosonic spinon theory for the triangular antiferromagnet spectrum

We compute the dynamical structure factor of the spin-1/2 triangular Heisenberg model using the mean field Schwinger boson theory. We find that a reconstructed dispersion, resulting from a non trivial redistribution of the spectral weight, agrees quite well with the spin excitation spectrum recently found with series expansions. In particular, we recover the strong renormalization with respect to linear spin wave theory along with the appearance of roton-like minima. Furthermore, near the roton-like minima the contribution of the two spinon continuum to the static structure factor is about 40 % of the total weight. By computing the density-density dynamical structure factor, we identify an unphysical weak signal of the spin excitation spectrum with the relaxation of the local constraint of the Schwinger bosons at the mean field level. Based on the accurate description obtained for the static and dynamic ground state properties, we argue that the bosonic spinon theory should be considered seriously as a valid alternative to interpret the physics of the triangular Heisenberg model.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, extended version including: a table with ground state energy and magnetization; and the density-density dynamical structure factor. Accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter

Pressure dependence of the melting mechanism at the limit of overheating in Lennard-Jones crystals

We study the pressure dependence of the melting mechanism of a surface free Lennard-Jones crystal by constant pressure Monte Carlo simulation. The difference between the overheating temperature($T_{OH}$) and the thermodynamical melting point($T_M$) increase for increasing pressure. When particles move into the repulsive part of the potential the properties at $T_{OH}$ change. There is a crossover pressure where the volume jump becomes pressure-independent. The overheating limit is pre-announced by thermal excitation of big clusters of defects. The temperature zone where the system is dominated by these big clusters of defects increases with increasing pressure. Beyond the crossover pressure we find that excitation of defects and clusters of them start at the same temperature scale related with $T_{OH}$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Heisenberg model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction: A Schwinger boson study

We present a Schwinger-boson approach to the Heisenberg model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. We write the anisotropic interactions in terms of Schwinger bosons keeping the correct symmetries present in the spin representation, which allows us to perform a conserving mean-field approximation. Unlike previous studies of this model by linear spin-wave theory, our approach takes into account magnon-magnon interactions and includes the effects of three-boson terms characteristic of noncollinear phases. The results reproduce the linear spin-wave predictions in the semiclassical large-S limit, and show a small renormalization in the strong quantum limit S=1/2. For the sake of definiteness, we specialize the calculations for the pattern of Moriya vectors corresponding to the orthorhombic phase in La_2CuO_4, and give a fairly detailed account of the behavior of ground-state energy, anisotropy gap, and net ferromagnetic moment. In the last part of this work we generalize our approach to describe the geometry of the intermediate phase in La_{2-x}Nd_xCuO_4, and discuss the effects of including nondegenerate 2p_z oxygen orbitals in the calculations.Comment: 9 text pages, Latex, 10 figures included as eps files, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Schwinger-boson approach to quantum spin systems: Gaussian fluctuactions in the "natural" gauge

We compute the Gaussian-fluctuation corrections to the saddle-point Schwinger-boson results using collective coordinate methods. Concrete application to investigate the frustrated J1-J2 antiferromagnet on the square lattice shows that, unlike the saddle-point predictions, there is a quantum nonmagnetic phase for 0.53 < J2/J1 < 0.64. This result is obtained by considering the corrections to the spin stiffness on large lattices and extrapolating to the thermodynamic limit, which avoids the infinite-lattice infrared divergencies associated to Bose condensation. The very good agreement of our results with exact numerical values on finite clusters lends support to the calculational scheme employed.Comment: 4 pages, Latex, 3 figures included as eps files,minor correction

κ−(BEDT−TTF)2X\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2X organic crystals: superconducting versus antiferromagnetic instabilities in an anisotropic triangular lattice Hubbard model

A Hubbard model at half-filling on an anisotropic triangular lattice has been proposed as the minimal model to describe conducting layers of $\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2X$ organic materials. The model interpolates between the square lattice and decoupled chains. The $\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2X$ materials present many similarities with cuprates, such as the presence of unconventional metallic properties and the close proximity of superconducting and antiferromagnetic phases. As in the cuprates, spin fluctuations are expected to play a crucial role in the onset of superconductivity. We perform a weak-coupling renormalization-group analysis to show that a superconducting instability occurs. Frustration in the antiferromagnetic couplings, which arises from the underlying geometrical arrangement of the lattice, breaks the perfect nesting of the square lattice at half-filling. The spin-wave instability is suppressed and a superconducting instability predominates. For the isotropic triangular lattice, there are again signs of long-range magnetic order, in agreement with studies at strong-coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 5 eps figs, to appear in Can. J. Phys. (proceedings of the Highly Frustrated Magnetism (HFM-2000) conference, Waterloo, Canada, June 2000

Incommmensurability and unconventional superconductor to insulator transition in the hubbard model with bond-charge interaction

[120402.EG Titolo (scorretto) da WebOfScience e PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS.

Hole-Pairs in a Spin Liquid: Influence of Electrostatic Hole-Hole Repulsion

The stability of hole bound states in the t-J model including short-range Coulomb interactions is analyzed using computational techniques on ladders with up to $2 \times 30$ sites. For a nearest-neighbors (NN) hole-hole repulsion, the two-holes bound state is surprisingly robust and breaks only when the repulsion is several times the exchange $J$. At $\sim 10$ hole doping the pairs break only for a NN-repulsion as large as $V \sim 4J$. Pair-pair correlations remain robust in the regime of hole binding. The results support electronic hole-pairing mechanisms on ladders based on holes moving in spin-liquid backgrounds. Implications in two dimensions are also presented. The need for better estimations of the range and strength of the Coulomb interaction in copper-oxides is remarked.Comment: Revised version with new figures. 4 pages, 5 figure

Spectral Function in Mott Insulating Surfaces

We show theoretically the fingerprints of short-range spiral magnetic correlations in the photoemission spectra of the Mott insulating ground states realized in the triangular silicon surfaces K/Si(111)-B and SiC(0001). The calculated spectra present low energy features of magnetic origin with a reduced dispersion ~10-40 meV compared with the center-of-mass spectra bandwidth ~0.2-0:3 eV. Remarkably, we find that the quasiparticle signal survives only around the magnetic Goldstone modes. Our findings would position these silicon surfaces as new candidates to investigate non-conventional quasiparticle excitations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. To be published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte