Scaling theory for Mott–Hubbard transitions: I. T = 0 phase diagram of the 1/2-filled Hubbard model

Abstract

We present a T = 0 K renormalization group (RG) phase diagram for the electronic Hubbard model in two dimensions on the square lattice at half filling. The RG procedure treats quantum fluctuations in the single particle occupation number nonperturbatively via the unitarily decoupling of one electronic state at every RG step. The resulting phase diagram thus possesses the quantum fluctuation energy scale (ω) as one of its axes. A relation is derived between ω and the effective temperature scale upto which gapless, as well as emergent gapped phases can be obtained. We find that the normal and insulating phases of the half-filled Hubbard model correspond, for any on-site repulsion, to a marginal Fermi liquid normal phase and a topologically-ordered gapped Mott insulating liquid respectively. The marginal Fermi liquid is found to arise from singular forward scattering in directions normal to the nested Fermi surface, while singular backscattering events lead to Mott liquid state. The transition between these two phases involves passage through a pseudogapped phase bookended by Fermi surface topology-changing Lifshitz transitions. The pseudogap phase is observed to arise from the electronic differentiation encoded within the nested Fermi surface, and involves the gradual gapping of the Fermi surface from antinodes to nodes via charge and spin excitations that are mutually entangled. We obtain effective Hamiltonians for various phases, as well as wavefunctions for the low-energy many-body eigenstates of the Mott liquid. Benchmarking of the ground-state energy per particle and the double-occupancy fraction for the Mott liquid against existing numerical results yields excellent agreement. Presence of a Néel ordering symmetry-breaking perturbation in the RG leads to an antiferromagnetic spin-ordered charge insulating Mott state. Our results thus offer novel insights on a variety of aspects of the Mott–Hubbard problem, and can be extended to the doped system.