Correlations and renormalization of the electron-phonon coupling in the honeycomb Hubbard ladder and superconductivity in polyacene

G. Karakonstantakis; L. Liu; R. Thomale; S. A. Kivelson

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.88.224512

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Correlations and renormalization of the electron-phonon coupling in the honeycomb Hubbard ladder and superconductivity in polyacene

G. Karakonstantakis, L. Liu, R. Thomale, S. A. Kivelson

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.88.224512 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

We have performed extensive density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies of the Hubbard model on a honeycomb ladder. The band structure (with Hubbard U=0) exhibits an unusual quadratic band touching at half-filling, which is associated with a quantum Lifshitz transition from a band insulator to a metal. For one electron per site, nonzero U drives the system into an insulating state in which there is no pair-binding between added electrons; this implies that superconductivity driven directly by the repulsive electron-electron interactions is unlikely in the regime of small doping, x≪1. However, the divergent density of states as x→0, the large values of the phonon frequencies, and an unusual correlation induced enhancement of the electron-phonon coupling imply that lightly doped polyacenes, which approximately realize this structure, are good candidates for high-temperature electron-phonon driven superconductivity.