Multiple Slater determinants and strong spin-fluctuations as key ingredients of the electronic structure of electron- and hole-doped Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO4)$_6$O

TL;DR

This study uses advanced many-body calculations to reveal that LK-99 is a Mott insulator with complex magnetic solutions, emphasizing the importance of strong correlations and multiple electronic configurations in its doped states.

Contribution

It provides the first self-consistent many-body analysis of LK-99, showing its insulating nature and the emergence of multiple magnetic solutions upon doping, highlighting strong correlation effects.

Findings

LK-99 is a Mott insulator with a large bandgap.

Doping leads to significant changes in electronic structure.

Multiple magnetic solutions coexist depending on doping and spin alignment.

Abstract

LK-99, with chemical formula Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO4)$_6$O, was recently reported to be a room-temperature superconductor. While this claim has met with little support in a flurry of ensuing work, a variety of calculations (mostly based on density-functional theory) have demonstrated that the system possesses some unusual characteristics in the electronic structure, in particular flat bands. We have established previously that within DFT, the system is insulating with many characteristics resembling the classic cuprates, provided the structure is not constrained to the $P$3(143) symmetry nominally assigned to it. Here we describe the basic electronic structure of LK-99 within self-consistent many-body perturbative approach, quasiparticle self-consistent GW (QSGW) approximation and their diagrammatic extensions. QSGW predicts that pristine LK-99 is indeed a Mott/charge transfer insulator, with a bandgap gap in excess of 3eV, whether or not constrained to the $P$3(143) symmetry. The highest valence bands occur as a pair, and look similar to DFT bands. The lowest conduction band is an almost dispersionless state of largely Cu $d$ character. When Pb$_9$Cu(PO$_4$)$_6$O} is hole-doped, the valence bands modify only slightly, and a hole pocket appears. However, two solutions emerge: a high-moment solution with the Cu local moment aligned parallel to neighbors, and a low-moment solution with Cu aligned antiparallel to its environment. In the electron-doped case the conduction band structure changes significantly: states of mostly Pb character merge with the formerly dispersionless Cu $d$ state, and high-spin and low spin solutions once again appear. Thus we conclude that with suitable doping, the ground state of the system is not adequately described by a band picture, and that strong correlations are likely.