Mott transition in three-orbital Hubbard model with orbital splitting

Abstract

We study the Mott transition in the three-orbital Hubbard model. To investigate how the orbital level splitting and the Ising-type Hund's coupling affect the Mott transition in the case of two electrons per site, we use the dynamical mean-field theory combined with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The calculation of the double occupancy reveals that the critical interaction strength separating a metallic phase and two kinds of insulating phases shows a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of the level splitting. We find that this behavior is characteristic for $1/3$ filling, in comparison with the preceding results for different fillings and for two-orbital models. Strong competition between the two insulators results in an intriguing first-order transition to an insulating phase having intermediate characters between Mott and band insulators. It is also found that the two insulators show different behaviors in the phase boundary with the metallic phase in the interaction-temperature plane, which is reflected in a difference in the quasiparticle behavior around the transition. We also discuss the orbital selective Mott transition for larger Hund's coupling, which is compared with previous study at zero temperature.