Contributor info: Prof. David Sénéchal

Louis-Bernard St-Cyr, David Sénéchal

SciPost Phys. Core 8, 043 (2025) · published 5 June 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The Emery model (aka the three-band Hubbard model) offers a simplified description of the copper-oxide planes that form the building blocks of high-temperature superconductors. By contrast with the even simpler one-band Hubbard model, it differentiates between copper and oxygen orbitals and thus between oxygen occupation ($n_p$) and copper occupation ($n_d$). Here we demonstrate, using cluster dynamical mean field theory, how the two occupations are related to the on-site Coulomb repulsion $U$ on the copper orbital and to the energy difference $\epsilon_p$ between oxygen and copper orbitals. Since the occupations ($n_p$ and $n_d$) have been estimated from NMR for a few materials (LCO, YBCO and NCCO), this allows us to estimate the value of $U-\epsilon_p$ for these materials, within this model. We compute the density of states for these and the effect of $(U,\epsilon_p)$ on the $n_d$-$n_p$ curve, superconductivity, and antiferromagnetism.

Sarbajaya Kundu, David Sénéchal

SciPost Phys. Core 7, 033 (2024) · published 3 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We examine the phase diagram of the extended Hubbard model on a square lattice, for both attractive and repulsive nearest-neighbor interactions, using CDMFT+HFD, a combination of Cluster Dynamical Mean Field theory (CDMFT) and a Hartree-Fock mean-field decoupling of the inter-cluster extended interaction. For attractive non-local interactions, this model exhibits a region of phase separation near half-filling, in the vicinity of which we find islands of d-wave superconductivity, decaying rapidly as a function of doping, with disconnected regions of extended s-wave order at smaller (higher) electron densities. On the other hand, when the extended interaction is repulsive, a Mott insulating state at half-filling is destabilized by hole doping, in the strong-coupling limit, in favor of d-wave superconductivity. At the particle-hole invariant chemical potential, we find a first-order phase transition from antiferromagnetism (AF) to d-wave superconductivity as a function of the attractive nearest-neighbor interaction, along with a deviation of the density from the half-filled limit. A repulsive extended interaction instead favors charge-density wave (CDW) order at half-filling.

Théo N. Dionne, Alexandre Foley, Moïse Rousseau, David Sénéchal

SciPost Phys. Codebases 23 (2023) · published 20 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Pyqcm is a Python/C++ library that implements a few quantum cluster methods with an exact diagonalization impurity solver. Quantum cluster methods are used in the study of strongly correlated electrons to provide an approximate solution to Hubbard-like models. The methods covered by this library are Cluster Perturbation Theory (CPT), the Variational Cluster Approach (VCA) and Cellular (or Cluster) Dynamical Mean Field Theory (CDMFT). The impurity solver (the technique used to compute the cluster's interacting Green function) is exact diagonalization from sparse matrices, using the Lanczos algorithm and variants thereof. The core library is written in C++ for performance, but the interface is in Python, for ease of use and inter-operability with the numerical Python ecosystem. The library is distributed under the GPL license.

Théo N. Dionne, Alexandre Foley, Moïse Rousseau, David Sénéchal

SciPost Phys. Codebases 23-r2.2 (2023) · published 20 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · src

Pyqcm is a Python/C++ library that implements a few quantum cluster methods with an exact diagonalization impurity solver. Quantum cluster methods are used in the study of strongly correlated electrons to provide an approximate solution to Hubbard-like models. The methods covered by this library are Cluster Perturbation Theory (CPT), the Variational Cluster Approach (VCA) and Cellular (or Cluster) Dynamical Mean Field Theory (CDMFT). The impurity solver (the technique used to compute the cluster's interacting Green function) is exact diagonalization from sparse matrices, using the Lanczos algorithm and variants thereof. The core library is written in C++ for performance, but the interface is in Python, for ease of use and inter-operability with the numerical Python ecosystem. The library is distributed under the GPL license.

B. Pahlevanzadeh, P. Sahebsara, D. Sénéchal

SciPost Phys. 13, 040 (2022) · published 30 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We study the possibility of charge order at quarter filling and antiferromagnetism at half-filling in a tight-binding model of magic angle twisted bilayer graphene. We build on the model proposed by Kang and Vafek, relevant to a twist angle of $1.30^\circ$, and add on-site and extended density-density interactions. Applying the variational cluster approximation with an exact-diagonalization impurity solver, we find that the system is indeed a correlated (Mott) insulator at fillings $\frac14$, $\frac12$ and $\frac34$. At quarter filling, we check that the most probable charge orders do not arise, for all values of the interaction tested. At half-filling, antiferromagnetism only arises if the local repulsion $U$ is sufficiently large compared to the extended interactions, beyond what is expected from the simplest model of extended interactions.

B. Pahlevanzadeh, P. Sahebsara, David Sénéchal

SciPost Phys. 11, 017 (2021) · published 21 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We apply cluster dynamical mean field theory with an exact-diagonalization impurity solver to a Hubbard model for magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, built on the tight-binding model proposed by Kang and Vafek (2018), which applies to the magic angle $1.30^\circ$. We find that triplet superconductivity with $p+ip$ symmetry is stabilized by CDMFT, as well as a subdominant singlet $d+id$ state. A minimum of the order parameter exists close to quarter-filling and three-quarter filling, as observed in experiments.