Electronic and magnetic features of twisted spin-density-wave states in the two-dimensional Hubbard model.

Abstract

Using a path-integral formalism and decomposing the Hubbard interaction into charge and spin order parameters, we develop a 1/S loop expansion of the two-dimensional Hubbard model. At the saddle-point level, we present a detailed study of the energetics of twisted antiferromagnetic order. Doping the antiferromagnetic state leads to a rich mean-field phase diagram at zero temperature, which includes spiral phases, a column phase, and ferromagnetism. The on-site magnetization, the density of states, the plasma frequency, and the quasiparticle weights are evaluated for the twisted spin-density-wave (SDW) states as a function of doping and U/t. Doping-induced frustration remarkably leads to a closure of the Mott-Hubbard band gap for any U/t. At one-loop order, we delineate the collective spin and charge fluctuations of the mean-field SDW state. The action for the two transverse spin modes at half-filling maps to a nonlinear \ensuremath{\sigma} model, which tends to disorder upon doping. Twisted magnetic ground states exhibit a third Goldstone mode due to the complete breaking of rotational invariance. For the commensurate SDW, the charge fluctuations couple only to longitudinal spin fluctuations, whereas, for the incommensurate metallic SDW states, the charge modes are coupled nontrivially to the massless spin waves. This suggests a metallic state quite unlike traditional Fermi liquids.