Orbital Magnetic Field Driven Metal-Insulator Transition in Spinless Extended Falicov-Kimball Model on A Triangular Lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates how an orbital magnetic field influences the ground state and phase transitions in a spinless extended Falicov-Kimball model on a triangular lattice, revealing a magnetic-field-induced metal-insulator transition.

Contribution

It demonstrates that magnetic fields can induce phase transitions and segregated phases in the model, offering a new method to control electronic phases without large on-site interactions.

Findings

Magnetic field causes a metal-insulator transition.

Ground state configurations depend strongly on magnetic field.

Magnetic field can produce segregated phases without large interactions.

Abstract

Ground state properties of spinless, extended Falicov-Kimball model (FKM) on a finite size triangular lattice with orbital magnetic field normal to the lattice are studied using numerical diagonalization and Monte-Carlo simulation methods. We show that the ground state configurations of localized electrons strongly depend on the magnetic field. Magnetic field induces a metal to insulator transition accompanied by segregated phase to an ordered regular phase except at density $n_f = 1/2$ of localized electrons. It is proposed that magnetic field can be used as a new tool to produce segregated phase which was otherwise accessible only either with correlated hopping or with large on-site interactions.