Hartree-Fock based diagonalization: an efficient method for simulating disordered interacting electrons

TL;DR

This paper introduces an efficient numerical method based on Hartree-Fock diagonalization to study low-energy properties of disordered interacting electrons, demonstrating its effectiveness on the quantum Coulomb glass model.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel computational approach combining Hartree-Fock and configuration interaction techniques for disordered many-particle systems.

Findings

Coulomb interaction increases conductance in strongly disordered systems.

Coulomb interaction reduces conductance in weakly disordered systems.

The method efficiently captures low-energy properties of disordered electron systems.

Abstract

We present an efficient numerical method for simulating the low-energy properties of disordered many-particle systems. The method which is based on the quantum-chemical configuration interaction approach consists in diagonalizing the Hamiltonian in an energetically truncated basis build of the low-energy states of the corresponding Hartree-Fock Hamiltonian. As an example we investigate the quantum Coulomb glass, a model of spinless electrons in a random potential interacting via long-range Coulomb interaction. We find that the Coulomb interaction increases the conductance of strongly disordered systems but reduces the conductance of weakly disordered systems.