Magnetic and Metal–Insulator Transitions through Bandwidth Control in Two-Dimensional Hubbard Models with Nearest and Next-Nearest Neighbor Transfers

Abstract

Numerical studies on Mott transitions caused by the control of the ratio between bandwidth and electron-electron interaction ($U$) are reported. By using the recently proposed path-integral renormalization group(PIRG) algorithm, physical properties near the transitions in the ground state of two-dimensional half-filled models with the nearest and the next-nearest neighbor transfers ($-t$ and $t'$, respectively) are studied as a prototype of geometrically frustrated system. The nature of the bandwidth-control transitions shows sharp contrast with that of the filling-control transitions: First, the metal-insulator and magnetic transitions are separated each other and the metal-insulator (MI) transition occurs at smaller $U$, although the both transition interactions $U$ increase with increasing $t'$. Both transitions do not contradict the first-order transitions for smaller $t'/t$ while the MI transitions become continuous type accompanied by emergence of {\it unusual metallic phase} near the transition for large $t'/t$. A nonmagnetic insulator phase is stabilized between MI and AF transitions. The region of the nonmagnetic insulator becomes wider with increasing $t'/t$. The phase diagram naturally connects two qualitatively different limits, namely the Hartree-Fock results at small $t'/t$ and speculations in the strong coupling Heisenberg limit.