Electron correlations in solid state physics

Abstract

Exactly solvable models of electron correlations in solid state physics are presented. These models include the spinless Falicov- Kimball model, the t-t{prime}-J model, and the Hubbard model. The spinless Falicov-Kimball model is analyzed in one-dimension. Perturbation theory and numerical techniques are employed to determine the phase diagram at zero temperature. A fractal structure is found where the ground-state changes (discontinuously) at each rational electron filling. The t-t{prime}-J model (strongly interacting limit of a Hubbard model) is studied on eight-site small clusters in the simple-cubic, body-centered-cubic, face-centered-cubic, and square lattices. Symmetry is used to simplify the problem and determine the exact many-body wavefunctions. Ground states are found that exhibit magnetic order or heavy-fermionic character. Attempts to extrapolate to the thermodynamic limit are also made. The Hubbard model is examined on an eight-site square-lattice cluster in the presence of and in the absence of a magnetic field'' that couples only to orbital motion. A new magnetic phase is discovered for the ordinary Hubbard model at half-filling. In the magnetic field'' case, it is found that the strongly frustrated Heisenberg model may be studied from adiabatic continuation of a tight-binding model (from weak to strong coupling) at one point. The full symmetries of the Hamiltonian are utilized to make the exact diagonalization feasibile. Finally, the presence of hidden'' extra symmetry for finite size clusters with periodic boundary conditions is analyzed for a variety of clusters. Moderately sized systems allow nonrigid transformations that map a lattice onto itself preserving its neighbor structure; similar operations are not present in smaller or larger systems. The additional symmetry requires particular representations of the space group to stick together explaining many puzzling degeneracies found in exact diagonalization studies.