Strictly localised triplet dimers on one- and two-dimensional lattices

Abstract

Electrons may form inter-site pairs (dimers) by a number of mechanisms. For example, long-range (Fröhlich) electron-phonon interactions and strong on-site Hubbard U allow formation of small light bipolarons in some lattices. We identify circumstances under which triplet dimers are strictly localised by interference in certain one- and two-dimensional lattices. We assume a U-V Hamiltonian with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbour hopping integrals t and t′, large positive U and attractive nearest- and next-nearest-neighbour interactions V and V′. In the square ladder and some two-dimensional bilayers, if the dimer Hilbert space is restricted to nearest- and next-nearest-neighbour dimers, triplet dimers become strictly localised for certain values of these parameters. For example, in a square ladder with t′ = t and V′ = V, all triplet bands become flat due to exact cancellation of hopping paths. We identify the localised eigenstates for all flat bands in each lattice. We show that many of the flat bands persist for arbitrary t/t′ so long as other restrictions still apply.