Finite-temperature properties of strongly correlated fermions in the honeycomb lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermodynamic behavior of strongly correlated fermions on a honeycomb lattice at finite temperatures using advanced numerical methods, revealing insights into cooling processes and magnetic correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of thermodynamic properties of fermions in the honeycomb lattice at finite temperatures, including effects of doping and trapping.

Findings

Adiabatic cooling is more effective at finite doping than at half filling.

Cooling can induce a Mott insulator with strong antiferromagnetic correlations.

Finite-temperature properties are characterized by entropy, specific heat, and spin susceptibilities.

Abstract

We study finite-temperature properties of strongly interacting fermions in the honeycomb lattice using numerical linked-cluster expansions and determinantal quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We analyze a number of thermodynamic quantities, including the entropy, the specific heat, uniform and staggered spin susceptibilities, short-range spin correlations, and the double occupancy at and away from half filling. We examine the viability of adiabatic cooling by increasing the interaction strength for homogeneous as well as for trapped systems. For the homogeneous case, this process is found to be more efficient at finite doping than at half filling. That, in turn, leads to an efficient adiabatic cooling in the presence of a trap which, starting with even relatively high entropies, can drive the system to have a Mott insulating phase with substantial antiferromagnetic correlations.