Domain walls, spiral states, and phase separation in the extended Hubbard model: A Hartree-Fock analysis

Abstract

We study, within the Hartree-Fock approximation, the relative stability of different classes of states for the single-band Hubbard model on a square lattice in the presence of a nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsion V and away from half-filling. We consider (i) homogeneous metallic states (including spiral phases), (ii) states that exhibit phase separation into hole-rich and antiferromagnetic regions, and (iii) insulating (longitudinally polarized) spin-density-wave states with domain walls that trap holes. For V=0, the spiral states have the lowest energy for hole concentration \ensuremath{\delta}>${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\delta}}}_{\mathit{s}}$. At ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\delta}}}_{\mathit{s}}$\ensuremath{\sim}0.25--0.3, there is a transition to domain walls for small to intermediate U/t. At larger U/t the transition is to a phase-separated state, with ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\delta}}}_{\mathit{s}}$ decreasing slowly with increasing U/t. We find that even a small V destabilizes the domain walls relative to the spiral states; e.g., for V/t\ensuremath{\sim}0.2, the domain-wall states are unstable for all U/t and all \ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\ge}0.05. The effect of V on the phase-separated state is much less drastic; its region of stability relative to the spiral states also shrinks to smaller \ensuremath{\delta}, but rather slowly. The last results are in agreement with the findings from a Schwinger-boson treatment of the t-J model.