Dynamics of magnetic collective modes in square- and triangular-lattice Mott insulators at finite temperature

Abstract

We study the equilibrium dynamics of magnetic moments in the Mott insulating phase of the Hubbard model on the square and triangular lattice. We rewrite the Hubbard interaction in terms of an auxiliary vector field and use a recently developed Langevin scheme to study its dynamics. A thermal noise, derivable approximately from the Keldysh formalism, allows us to study the effect of finite temperature. At strong coupling, $U\ensuremath{\gg}t$, where $U$ is the local repulsion and $t$ the nearest-neighbor hopping, our results reproduce the well known dynamics of the nearest-neighbor Heisenberg model with exchange $J\ensuremath{\sim}\mathcal{O}({t}^{2}/U)$. These include crossover from weakly damped dispersive modes at temperature $T\ensuremath{\ll}J$ to strong damping at $T\ensuremath{\sim}\mathcal{O}(J)$, and diffusive dynamics at $T\ensuremath{\gg}J$. The crossover temperatures are naturally proportional to $J$. To highlight the progressive deviation from Heisenberg physics as $U/t$ reduces we compute an effective exchange scale ${J}_{\mathrm{eff}}(U)$ from the low-temperature spin-wave velocity. We discover two features in the dynamical behavior with decreasing $U/t$: (i) the low-temperature dispersion deviates from the Heisenberg result, as expected, due to longer range and multispin interactions, and (ii) the crossovers between weak damping, strong damping, and diffusion take place at noticeably lower values of $T/{J}_{\mathrm{eff}}$. We relate this to enhanced mode coupling, in particular to thermal amplitude fluctuations, at weaker $U/t$. A comparison of the square and triangular lattice reveals the additional effect of geometric frustration on damping.