Dynamically Generated Gap from Holography: Mottness from a Black Hole

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how a Pauli interaction in holographic models can dynamically generate a Mott-like gap in fermionic spectral functions without symmetry breaking, revealing new insights into strongly correlated systems.

Contribution

It introduces the effect of a dipole interaction on fermion correlators in holography, showing gap formation as a novel mechanism for Mott insulators.

Findings

Spectral weight transfer between bands with varying interaction strength

Emergence of a hard gap beyond a critical interaction value

Gap formation occurs without symmetry breaking

Abstract

In the fermionic sector of top-down approaches to holographic systems, one generically finds that the fermions are coupled to gravity and gauge fields in a variety of ways, beyond minimal coupling. In this paper, we take one such interaction -- a Pauli, or dipole, interaction -- and study its effects on fermion correlators. We find that this interaction modifies the fermion spectral density in a remarkable way. As we change the strength of the interaction, we find that spectral weight is transferred between bands, and beyond a critical value, a hard gap emerges in the fermion density of states. A possible interpretation of this bulk interaction then is that it drives the dynamical formation of a (Mott) gap, in the absence of continuous symmetry breaking.