THE INFLUENCE OF NONLOCAL COULOMB INTERACTION ON GROUND-STATE PROPERTIES OF THE FALICOV–KIMBALL MODEL IN ONE AND TWO DIMENSIONS

Abstract

A combination of small-cluster exact diagonalizations and a well-controlled approximative method is used to study the ground states of the Falicov–Kimball model extended by nonlocal Coulomb interaction (U non ). It is shown that the ground-state phase diagram as well as the picture of valence and metal–insulator transitions found for the conventional Falicov–Kimball model are strongly changed when the nonlocal Coulomb interaction is added. This is illustrated for three selected values of the on-site Coulomb interaction (U) that represent typical behaviors of the model for small, intermediate and strong interactions. A number of remarkable results are found: (i) the phase separation takes place for a wide range of U non in all three interaction limits; (ii) in the weak and intermediate coupling limit, the model exhibits the nonlocal Coulomb interaction–induced insulator–metal transition; (iii) depending on the value of U non , the model is able to describe both the continuous and the discontinuous changes of the f-electron occupation number; (iv) new types of inhomogeneous charge ordering (including various types of axial and diagonal stripes) are observed for nonzero U non .