Quantum critical behavior and thermodynamics of the repulsive one-dimensional Hubbard model in a magnetic field

Abstract

Even though the Hubbard model is one of the most fundamental models of highly correlated electrons, analytical and numerical data describing its thermodynamics at nonzero magnetization are relatively scarce. We present a detailed investigation of the thermodynamic properties for the one-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model in the presence of an arbitrary magnetic field for all values of the filling fraction and temperatures as low as T∼0.005t. Our analysis is based on the system of integral equations derived in the quantum transfer matrix framework. We determine the critical exponents of the quantum phase transitions and also provide analytical derivations for some of the universal functions characterizing the thermodynamics in the vicinities of the quantum critical points. Extensive numerical data for the specific heat, susceptibility, compressibility, and entropy are reported. The experimentally relevant double occupancy presents an interesting doubly nonmonotonic temperature dependence at intermediate values of the interaction strength and also at large repulsion and magnetic fields close to the critical value. The susceptibility in zero magnetic field has a logarithmic singularity at low temperatures for all filling factors similar to the behavior of the same quantity in the spin-1/2 isotropic Heisenberg model. We determine the density profiles for a harmonically trapped system and show that while the total density profile seems to depend mainly on the value of chemical potential at the center of the trap the distribution of phases in the inhomogeneous system changes dramatically as we increase the magnetic field.