p-wave superconductivity induced by nearest-neighbor attraction in the square-lattice extended Hubbard model

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that nearest-neighbor attraction in the extended Hubbard model can induce and enhance p-wave superconductivity, providing insights into unconventional pairing mechanisms relevant for high-temperature superconductors.

Contribution

It reveals that NN electron attraction V promotes p-wave pairing in the 2D Hubbard model, a novel mechanism for realizing p-wave superconductivity in cuprates.

Findings

NN attraction V drives p-wave superconductivity at doping 0.125.

d-wave pairing remains unaffected by V in strongly correlated regime.

p-wave correlations expand with increased doping, suppressing d-wave.

Abstract

The two-dimensional (2D) Hubbard model is widely believed to contain the key ingredients of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprate materials. Here, we report a constrained path quantum Monte Carlo (CPQMC) study of the square-lattice extended Hubbard model with on-site Coulomb repulsion U and nearest-neighbor (NN) electron attraction V. Upon doping $\delta$= 0.125, we find that the NN electron attraction V can notably drive an exotic spin-triplet (p-wave) superconducting (SC) phase, and enhance the p-wave SC correlations with the increase of V. But in the intermediate coupling regime, the $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave (d-wave) does not significantly increase with the increase of V, indicating that the d-wave is not affected by V in strongly correlated system. Besides the pairing phase, a spin density wave (SDW) only exists near the half-filling in the particle-hole channel, and doping disrupts the formation of SDW order. Especially, the NN electron attraction V has no significant effect on SDW, reflecting the consistent relationship between d-wave SC and spin correlation. Moreover, as doping increases, the dominant region of p-wave also expands, further suppressing the presence of d-wave, which may help explain the disappearance of d-wave SC in overdoped cuprate superconductors. We also find the d-wave exhibits a singular nonzero (near point ($2{\pi}/3, {\pi}$)) condensation structure in momentum space, resulting in a different staggered behavior in the x and y direction with distance in real space. On the contrary, the p-wave condensed at zero momentum, and the p-wave correlation exhibits exponential decay in real space. Our work suggests the p-wave SC region can be induced and further broadened by the NN electron attraction V, offering a feasible mechanism to realize p-wave superconductivity in realistic cuprate materials.