Electronic correlations in uranium hydride UH5 under pressure

Abstract

We report results of calculations based on density functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory for the electronic structure of uranium hydride UH5 under pressure, a compound of the uranium-based hydride family some members of which have been predicted to be superconducting. The effective electronic mass enhancement m*/m ∼ 1.4 indicates that the Coulomb correlations have a moderate strength. However, the topology of the Fermi surface changes strongly at the influence of the correlation effects: one hourglass-like pocket running along the Γ–A direction splits into two elliptical pockets centered at the A point. This result shows the possibility of an unconventional pairing mechanism for uranium hydrides in addition to the electron–phonon pairing that was studied in previous investigations.