SO(4) Symmetry of the Hubbard Model and its Experimental Consequences

Abstract

The one band Hubbard model on a bi-partite lattice possess a global SO(4) symmetry group which is a direct product of the spin SU(2) and the pseudospin SU(2) symmetry group. Recently, the group theorectical consequence of this symmetry property has been investigated systematically. It is shown that this symmetry property can be used to reduce the complexity of diagonalizing the Hubbard Hamiltonian, and classify all the eigenstates according to the representation of the SO(4) group. It also leads to an exact one-to-one corespondence of the eigenstates at half-filling to that away from half-filling. Most importantly however, it is shown that this symmetry property leads to a direct experimental prediction for the high Tc superconductivity. If the high Tc superconductivity is correctly described by the Hubbard model, then the SO(4) symmetry dictates the existence of a collective mode that only appears below the superconducting transition temperature. Such a mode can be detected in an electron energy loss experiment as a sharp resonance feature. The location of the peak measure the parameters in the Hubbard model, the intensity is proportional to the superconducting order parameter and the width measures the departure of the Hubbard model from reality.