Small bipolarons in the 2-dimensional Holstein-Hubbard model. II. Quantum bipolarons

Abstract

We study the effective mass of the bipolarons and essentially the possibility to get both light and strongly bound bipolarons in the Holstein-Hubbard model and some variations in the vicinity of the adiabatic limit. Several approaches to investigate the quantum mobility of polarons and bipolarons are proposed for this model. It is found that the bipolaron mass generally remains very large except in the vicinity of the triple point of the phase diagram, where the bipolarons have several degenerate configurations at the adiabatic limit (single site (S0), two sites (S1) and quadrisinglet (QS)), while the polarons are much lighter. This degeneracy reduces the bipolaron mass significantly. The triple point of the phase diagram is washed out by the lattice quantum fluctuations which thus suppress the light bipolarons. We show that some model variations, for example a phonon dispersion may increase the stability of the (QS) bipolaron against the quantum lattice fluctuations. The triple point of the phase diagram may be stable to quantum lattice fluctuations and a very sharp mass reduction may occur, leading to bipolaron masses of the order of 100 bare electronic mass for realistic parameters. Thus such very light bipolarons could condense as a superconducting state at relatively high temperature when their interactions are not too large, that is, their density is small enough. This effect might be relevant for understanding the origin of the high Tc superconductivity of doped cuprates far enough from half filling.