Hubbard model
The Hubbard model is a foundational theoretical framework in condensed matter physics that describes the behavior of strongly interacting electrons on a lattice, capturing essential phenomena such as metal-insulator transitions driven by electron correlations.[1] Introduced independently in 1963 by John Hubbard, Martin Gutzwiller, and Junjiro Kanamori, it extends the tight-binding model by incorporating an on-site Coulomb repulsion term U that penalizes double occupancy of lattice sites, alongside a hopping term -t allowing electrons to move between nearest-neighbor sites.[2] The model's Hamiltonian takes the formH = -t \sum_{\langle i,j \rangle, \sigma} (c_{i\sigma}^\dagger c_{j\sigma} + \text{h.c.}) + U \sum_i n_{i\uparrow} n_{i\downarrow},
where c_{i\sigma}^\dagger (c_{i\sigma}) creates (annihilates) an electron at site i with spin \sigma, and n_{i\sigma} = c_{i\sigma}^\dagger c_{i\sigma} is the number operator.[3] This minimal model has profound significance for understanding correlated electron materials, including Mott insulators, high-temperature superconductors, and itinerant ferromagnets, as the ratio U/t determines whether the system behaves as a metal or an insulator.[1] Exactly solvable in one dimension via the Bethe ansatz method, as demonstrated by Elliott H. Lieb and F. Y. Wu in 1968, the model reveals a rich phase diagram with charge and spin gaps but no Mott transition in 1D.[4] In higher dimensions, however, it remains analytically intractable, necessitating numerical approaches like dynamical mean-field theory and quantum Monte Carlo simulations to explore its ground states and excitations.[5] Beyond theory, the Hubbard model has been experimentally realized using ultracold atoms in optical lattices, enabling direct observation of its phases such as the superfluid-to-Mott insulator transition in bosonic variants and fermionic analogs of antiferromagnetism.[1] Its extensions, including the t-J model (derived in the strong-coupling limit U >> t), underpin studies of cuprate superconductors and other doped Mott insulators.[6] Over decades, the model has influenced diverse fields, from materials science to quantum computing, serving as a benchmark for testing many-body algorithms and approximation schemes.[5]