Analytical expression for $\pi$-ton vertex contributions to the optical conductivity

TL;DR

This paper derives an analytical expression for $$-ton vertex corrections in strongly correlated electron systems and explores their impact on optical conductivity, revealing characteristic temperature and correlation length dependencies that can aid experimental identification.

Contribution

The paper provides the first analytical derivation of $$-ton vertex contributions and analyzes their effects on optical conductivity near critical temperatures.

Findings

Vertex corrections cause a displaced Drude peak in optical conductivity.

Critical temperature scaling of vertex corrections varies with dimensionality.

Maximum of the displaced Drude peak is inversely proportional to fermion lifetime.

Abstract

Vertex corrections from the transversal particle-hole channel, so-called $\pi$-tons, are generic in models for strongly correlated electron systems and can lead to a displaced Drude peak (DDP). Here, we derive the analytical expression for these $\pi$-tons, and how they affect the optical conductivity as a function of correlation length $\xi$, fermion lifetime $\tau$, temperature $T$, and coupling strength to spin or charge fluctuations $g$. In particular, for $T\rightarrow T_c$, the critical temperature for antiferromagnetic or charge ordering, the dc vertex correction is algebraic $\sigma_{VERT}^{dc}\propto \xi \sim (T-T_c)^{-\nu}$ in one dimension and logarithmic $\sigma_{VERT}^{dc}\propto \ln\xi \sim \nu \ln (T-T_c)$ in two dimensions. Here, $\nu$ is the critical exponent for the correlation length. If we have the exponential scaling $\xi \sim e^{1/T}$ of an ideal two-dimensional system, the DDP becomes more pronounced with increasing $T$ but fades away at low temperatures where only a broadening of the Drude peak remains, as it is observed experimentally, with the dc resistivity exhibiting a linear $T$ dependence at low temperatures. Further, we find the maximum of the DPP to be given by the inverse lifetime: $\omega_{DDP} \sim 1/\tau$. These characteristic dependencies can guide experiments to evidence $\pi$-tons in actual materials.