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We present a detailed theoretical investigation of the linear and non-linear optical response in a model system for a disordered d-wave superconductor, showing that for both quantities the gap symmetry considerably changes the paradigm of the optical response based on the conventional s-wave case. For what concerns the linear response our findings agree with previous work showing that in strongly-disordered d-wave superconductors a large fraction of uncondensed spectral weight survives below Tc, making the optical absorption around the gap-frequency scale almost unchanged with respect to the normal state. Our numerical results are in excellent quantitative agreement with experiments in overdoped cuprates. In the non-linear regime we focus on the third-harmonic generation (THG), finding that, as already established for the s-wave case, in general a large THG is triggered by disorder-activated paramagnetic processes. However, in the d-wave case the BCS response is monotonously increasing in frequency, loosing any signature of THG enhancement when the THz pump frequency $\omega$ matches the gap maximum $\Delta$, a hallmark of previous experiments in conventional s-wave superconductors. Our findings, along with the mild polarization dependence of the response, provides an explanation for recent THG measurements in cuprates, setting the framework for the theoretical understanding of non-linear effects in unconventional cuprates., Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures

In a recent manuscript Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 197001 (2021) Puviani et al. claim that the Higgs mode gives an enhancement of the Raman response in the symmetric $A_{1g}$ Raman channel of cuprates. Here we report a series of technical mistakes in their derivation that completely invalidate this conclusion. In particular, the Raman response function contains two renormalized vertices, with a clearly overcounting of diagrams and uncontrolled results for the Higgs-mode contribution., Comment: Slightly shorter version, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

In a layered and strongly anisotropic superconductor the hybrid modes provided by the propagation of electromagnetic waves in the matter identify two well separate energy scales connected to the large in-plane plasma frequency and to the soft out-of-plane Josephson plasmon. Despite the wide interest in their detection and manipulation by means of different experimental protocols, a unified description of plasma waves valid at arbitrary energy and momentum is still lacking. Here we provide a complete description of generalized plasma waves in a layered superconductors by taking advantage of their connection to the gauge-invariant superconducting phase. We show that the anisotropy of the superfluid response leads to two intertwined hybrid light-matter modes with mixed longitudinal and transverse character, while a purely longitudinal plasmon is only recovered for wavevectors larger than the crossover scale set in by the plasma-frequencies anisotropy. Interestingly, below such scale both modes appears with equal weight in the physical density response. Our results open a promising perspective for plasmonic applications made possible by the next-generation spectroscopic techniques able to combine sub-micron momentum resolution with THz energy resolution., Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures

We investigate the physics of an adiabatic transition from a BCS superconductor to a Fermi liquid for an exponentially slow decreasing pairing interaction. In particular, we show that the metal keeps memory of the parent BCS state so it is possible to reverse the dynamics and go back to the original state similarly to a spin/photon echo experiment. Moreover, we study the evolution of the order parameter phase phi in transforming the BCS superconductor to a conventional metal. Since the global phase is the conjugate variable of the density we explicitly show how to use the dynamics of phi together with gauge invariance to build up the non-interacting chemical potential away from particle-hole symmetry. We further analyze the role of phi in restoring the gauge invariant current response when the non-interacting Fermi liquid is approached starting from a BCS superconductor in the presence of an external vector field., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures

Recent experiments with strong THz fields in both conventional and unconventional superconductors have clearly evidenced a marked third-harmonic generation below the superconducting temperature $T_c$. Its interpretation challenged substantial theoretical work aimed at establishing the relative efficiency of quasiparticle excitations and collective modes in triggering such a resonant response. Here we compute the non-linear current by implementing a time-dependent Bogoljubov de-Gennes approach, with the twofold aim to account non-perturbatively for the effect of local disorder, and to include the contribution of all collective modes, i.e. superconducting amplitude (Higgs) and phase fluctuations, and charge fluctuations. We show that, in agreement with previous work, already at small disorder the quasiparticle response is dominated by paramagnetic effects. We further demonstrate that paramagnetic processes mediate also the response of all collective modes, with a substantial contribution of charge/phase fluctuations. These processes, which have been overlooked so far, turn out to dominate the third-order current at strong disorder. In addition, we show that disorder strongly influences the polarization dependence of the non-linear response, with a marked difference between the clean and the disordered case. Our results are particularly relevant for recent experiments in cuprates, whose band structure is in a first approximation reproduced by our lattice model.

In a superconductor the third-harmonic generation (THG) of a strong THz pulse is enhanced below Tc by the resonant excitation of lattice-modulated charge fluctuations (LCF), which modulate the response according to the polarization of the field. Here we compute the THG within a multiband model for the prototype NbN superconductor. We show that the non-resonant contribution coming from the instantaneous electronic response and the finite width of the pulse significantly suppress the polarization dependence of the signal, challenging its observation in real systems., Comment: Final version, as published

The Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in two-dimensional superconductors is usually expected to be protected against disorder. However, its typical signatures in real system, like e.g. the superfluid-density jump, are often at odd with this expectation. Here we show that the disorder-induced granularity of the superconducting state modifies the nucleation mechanism for vortex-antivortex pairs. This leads to a considerable smearing of the universal superfluid-density jump as compared to the paradigmatic clean case, in agreement with experimental observations., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

The low energy optical conductivity of conventional superconductors is usually well described by Mattis-Bardeen (MB) theory which predicts the onset of absorption above an energy corresponding to twice the superconducing (SC) gap parameter Delta. Recent experiments on strongly disordered superconductors have challenged the application of the MB formulas due to the occurrence of additional spectral weight at low energies below 2Delta. Here we identify three crucial items which have to be included in the analysis of optical-conductivity data for these systems: (a) the correct identification of the optical threshold in the Mattis-Bardeen theory, and its relation with the gap value extracted from the measured density of states, (b) the gauge-invariant evaluation of the current-current response function, needed to account for the optical absorption by SC collective modes, and (c) the inclusion into the MB formula of the energy dependence of the density of states present already above Tc. By computing the optical conductvity in the disordered attractive Hubbard model we analyze the relevance of all these items, and we provide a compelling scheme for the analysis and interpretation of the optical data in real materials., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures

The recent observation of a transmitted Thz pulse oscillating at three times the frequency of the incident light paves the way to a new protocol to access resonant excitations in a superconductor. Here we show that this non-linear optical process is dominated by light-induced excitation of Cooper pairs, in analogy with a standard Raman experiment. The collective amplitude (Higgs) fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter give in general a smaller contribution, unless one designs the experiment by combining properly the light polarization with the lattice symmetry., Comment: Slightly revised introduction, to appear on Phys. Rev. B. as Rapid Communication

We investigate the disorder dependence of the static density, amplitude and current correlations within the attractive Hubbard model supplemented with on-site disorder. It is found that strong disorder favors a decoupling of density and amplitude correlations due to the formation of superconducting islands. This emergent granularity also induces an enhancement of the density correlations on the SC islands whereas amplitude fluctuations are most pronounced in the 'insulating' regions. While density and amplitude correlations are short-ranged at strong disorder we show that current correlations have a long-range tail due to the formation of percolative current paths in agreement with the constant behavior expected from the analysis of one-dimensional models., Comment: 17 pages, 19 figures; revised discussion and conclusions section; accepted for Physical Review B

Despite the formal analogy with the Higgs particle, the amplitude fluctuations of the order parameter in weakly-coupled superconductors do not identify a real mode with a Lorentz-invariant dynamics. Indeed, its resonance occurs at $2\Delta_0$, which coincides with the threshold $2E_{gap}$ for quasiparticle excitations, that spoil any relativistic dynamics. Here we investigate the fate of the Higgs mode in the unconventional case where $2E_{gap}$ becomes larger than $2\Delta_0$, as due to strong coupling or strong disorder. We show that also in this situation the amplitude fluctuations never identify a real mode at $2\Delta_0$, since such "bosonic" limit is always reached via a strong mixing with the phase fluctuations, which dominate the low-energy part of the spectrum. Our results have direct implications for the interpretation of the sub-gap optical absorption in disordered superconductors., Comment: Final version, expanded discussion on the optics. Supplemental Material included

According to the Goldstone theorem the breaking of a continuous U(1) symmetry comes along with the existence of low-energy collective modes. In the context of superconductivity these excitations are related to the phase of the superconducting (SC) order parameter and for clean systems are optically inactive. Here we show that for strongly disordered superconductors phase modes acquire a dipole moment and appear as a subgap spectral feature in the optical conductivity. This finding is obtained with both a gauge-invariant random-phase approximation scheme based on a fermionic Bogoliubov-de Gennes state as well as with a prototypical bosonic model for disordered superconductors. In the strongly disordered regime, where the system displays an effective granularity of the SC properties, the optically active dipoles are linked to the isolated SC islands, offering a new perspective for realizing microwave optical devices.

Since their discovery, it has been suggested that pairing in pnictides can be mediated by spin fluctuations between hole and electron bands. In this view, multiband superconductivity would substantially differ from other systems like MgB2, where pairing is predominantly intraband. Indeed, interband-dominated pairing leads to the coexistence of bonding and antibonding superconducting channels. Here we show that this has profound consequences on the nature of the low-energy superconducting collective modes. In particular, the so-called Leggett mode for phase fluctuations is absent in the usual two-band description of pnictides. On the other hand, when also the repulsion between the hole bands is taken into account, a more general three-band description should be used, and a Leggett mode is then allowed. Such a model, that has been proposed for strongly hole-doped 122 compounds, can also admit a low-temperature s+is phase which breaks the time reversal symmetry. We show that the (quantum and thermal) transition from the ordinary superconductor to the s+is state is accompanied by the vanishing of the mass of Leggett-like phase fluctuations, regardless the specific values of the interaction parameters. This general result can be obtained by means of a generalized construction of the effective action for the collective degrees of freedom that allows us also to deal with the non-trivial case of dominant interband pairing., Comment: New references added, final version as published

We investigate theoretically and experimentally the statistical properties of the inhomogeneous order-parameter distribution (OPD) at the verge of the superconductor-insulator transition (SIT). We find within two prototype fermionic and bosonic models for disordered superconductors that one can identify a universal rescaling of the OPD. By performing scanning-tunneling microscopy experiments in three samples of NbN with increasing disorder we show that such a rescaling describes also with an excellent accuracy the experimental data. These results can provide a breakthrough in our understanding of the SIT., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, revised version submitted to PRB

We calculate the Hall transport in a multiband systems with a dominant interband interaction between carriers having electron and hole character. We show that this situation gives rise to an unconventional scenario, beyond the Boltzmann theory, where the quasiparticle currents dressed by vertex corrections acquire the character of the majority carriers. This leads to a larger (positive or negative) Hall coefficient than what expected on the basis of the carrier balance, with a marked temperature dependence. Our results explain the puzzling measurements in pnictides and they provide a more general framework for transport properties in multiband materials., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Motivated by recent experimental data on thin film superconductors and oxide interfaces we propose a random-resistor network apt to describe the occurrence of a metal-superconductor transition in a two-dimensional electron system with disorder on the mesoscopic scale. We explore the interplay between the statistical distribution of local critical temperatures and the occurrence of a lower-dimensional (e.g., fractal-like) structure of a superconducting cluster embedded in the two-dimensional network. The thermal evolution of the resistivity is determined by an exact calculation and, for comparison, a mean-field approach called effective medium theory (EMT). Our calculations reveal the relevance of the distribution of critical temperatures for clusters with low connectivity. In addition, we show that the presence of spatial correlations requires a modification of standard EMT to give qualitative agreement with the exact results., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

One of the most relevant manifestations of the Beresinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition occurs in quasi-two-dimensional superconducting systems. The experimental advances made in the last decade in the investigation of superconducting phenomena in low-dimensional correlated electronic systems raised new questions on the nature of the BKT transitions in real materials. A general issue concerns the possible limitations of theoretical predictions based on the XY model, that was studied as a paradigmatic example in the original formulation. Here we review the work we have done in revisiting the nature of the BKT transition within the general framework provided by the mapping into the sine-Gordon model. While this mapping was already known since long, we recently emphasized the advantages on such an approach to account for new variables in the BKT physics. One such variable is the energy needed to create the core of the vortex, that is fixed within the XY model, while it attains substantially different values in real materials. This has interesting observable consequences, especially in the case when additional relevant perturbations are present, as a coupling between stacked two-dimensional superconducting layers or a finite magnetic field., Comment: Chapter contribution for the forthcoming book,"Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition", Edited by Jorge V. Jos\'e, and to be published by World Scientific (2012)

We analyze the behavior of the superconducting-fluctuations contribution to diamagnetism and conductivity in a model system having current-current interactions. We show that in proximity to a Mott-insulating phase one recovers an overall suppression of the fluctuating contribution to the conductivity with respect to diamagnetism, in close analogy with recent experiments on the underdoped phase of cuprate superconductors., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

As a prototype of a disordered superconductor we consider the attractive Hubbard model with on-site disorder. We solve the Bogoljubov-de-Gennes equations on two-dimensional finite clusters at zero temperature and evaluate the electromagnetic response to a vector potential. We find that the standard decoupling between transverse and longitudinal response does not apply in the presence of disorder. Moreover the superfluid density is strongly reduced by the relaxation of the phase of the order parameter already at mean-field level when disorder is large. We also find that the anharmonicity of the phase fluctuations is strongly enhanced by disorder. Beyond mean-field, this provides an enhancement of quantum fluctuations inducing a zero-temperature transition to a non-superconducting phase of disordered preformed pairs. Finally, the connection of our findings with the glassy physics for extreme dirty superconductors is discussed., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

We investigate the effects of mesoscopic inhomogeneities on the metal-superconductor transition occurring in several two-dimensional electron systems. Specifically, as a model of systems with mesoscopic inhomogeneities, we consider a random-resistor network, which we solve both with an exact numerical approach and by the effective medium theory. We find that the width of the transition in these two-dimensional superconductors is mainly ruled by disorder rather than by fluctuations. We also find that "tail" features in resistivity curves of interfaces between LaAlO3 or LaTiO3 and SrTiO3 can arise from a bimodal distribution of mesoscopic local Tc's and/or substantial space correlations between the mesoscopic domains., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures

The Hubbard-Holstein model is a simple model including both electron-phonon interaction and electron-electron correlations. We review a body of theoretical work investigating the effects of strong correlations on the electron-phonon interaction. We focus on the regime, relevant to high-T_c superconductors, in which the electron correlations are dominant. We find that the electron-phonon interaction can still have important signatures, even if many anomalies appear, and the overall effect is far from conventional. In particular in the paramagnetic phase the effects of phonons are much reduced in the low-energy properties, while the high-energy physics can be strongly affected by phonons. Moreover, the electron-phonon interaction can still give rise to important effects, like phase separation and charge-ordering, and it assumes a predominance of forward scattering even if the bare interaction is assumed to be local (momentum independent). Antiferromagnetic correlations reduce the screening effects due to electron-electron interactions and revive the electron-phonon effects., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures

The textbook knowledge of solid state physics is that the electronic specific heat shows a linear temperature dependence with the leading corrections being a cubic term due to phonons and a cubic-logarithmic term due to the interaction of electrons with bosons. We have shown that this longstanding conception needs to be supplemented since the generic behavior of the low-temperature electronic specific heat includes a kink if the electrons are sufficiently strongly correlated, Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, ICM 2009 conference proceedings (to appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Series)

In this paper we provide a comprehesive analysis of different properties of pnictides both in the normal and superconducting state, with a particular focus on the optimally-doped Ba$_{1-x}$K$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ system. We show that, by using the band dispersions experimentally measured by ARPES, a four-band Eliashberg model in the intermediate-coupling regime can account for both the measured hierarchy of the gaps and for several spectroscopic and thermodynamic signatures of low-energy renormalization. These include the kinks in the band dispersion and the effective masses determined via specific-heat and superfluid-density measurements. We also show that, although an intermediate-coupling Eliashberg approach is needed to account for the magnitude of the gaps, the temperature behavior of the thermodynamic quantities does not show in this regime a significant deviation with respect to weak-coupling BCS calculations. This can explain the apparent success of two-band BCS fits of experimental data reported often in the literature., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, final version

We investigate the approach to the universal regime of the dilute unitary Fermi gas as the density is reduced to zero in a lattice model. To this end we study the chemical potential, superfluid order parameter and internal energy of the attractive Hubbard model in three different lattices with densities of states (DOS) which share the same low-energy behavior of fermions in three-dimensional free space: a cubic lattice, a "Bethe lattice" with a semicircular DOS, and a "lattice gas" with parabolic dispersion and a sharp energy cut-off that ensures the normalization of the DOS. The model is solved using Dynamical Mean-Field Theory, that treats directly the thermodynamic limit and arbitrarily low densities, eliminating finite-size effects. At densities of the order of one fermion per site the lattice and its specific form dominate the results. The evolution to the low-density limit is smooth and it does not allow to define an unambiguous low-density regime. Such finite-density effects are significantly reduced using the lattice gas, and they are maximal for the three-dimensional cubic lattice. Even though dynamical mean-field theory is bound to reduce to the more standard static mean field in the limit of zero density due to the local nature of the self-energy and of the vertex functions, it compares well with accurate Monte Carlo simulations down to the lowest densities accessible to the latter., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

We discuss the crucial role played by finite-size effects and inhomogeneity on the Beresinkii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in two-dimensional superconductors. In particular, we focus on the temperature dependence of the resistivity, that is dominated by superconducting fluctuations above the BKT transition temperature $T_{BKT}$ and by inhomogeneity below it. By means of a renormalization-group approach we establish a direct correspondence between the parameter values used to describe the BKT fluctuation regime and the distance between $T_{BKT}$ and the mean-field Ginzburg-Landau transition temperature. Below $T_{BKT}$ a resistive tail arises due to finite-size effect and inhomogeneity, that reflects also on the temperature dependence of the superfluid density. We apply our results to recent experimental data in superconducting LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ heterostructures, and we extract several informations on the microscopic properties of the system from our BKT fitting parameters. Finally, we compare our approach to recent data analysis presented in the literature, where the physical meaning of the parameter values in the BKT formulas has been often overlooked., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, final version

We derive the effective action for superconducting fluctuations in a four-band model for pnictides, discussing the emergence of a single critical mode out of a dominant interband pairing mechanism. We then apply our model to calculate the paraconductivity in two-dimensional and layered three-dimensional systems, and compare our results with recent resistivity measurements in SmFeAsOF, Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; final version

The trivalent alkali fullerides A$_3$C$_{60}$, where C$_{60}$ are a well established family of molecular superconductors. The electron pairing has s-wave symmetry and is due to standard electron-phonon coupling, in particular by Jahn-Teller intramolecular C$_{60}$ vibrations. A source of renewed interest in these systems are indications of strong electron-electron repulsion, which emerges especially in compounds where the C$_{60}$-C$_{60}$ distance is expanded. In several compounds after an initial increases T$_c$, further expansions leads to a decline of superconductivity and its eventual disappearance in favor of a Mott insulating state We theoretically study a three-orbital Hubbard model including the phonon-mediated interaction using Dynamical Mean-Field Theory, which is particularly suitable due to the local nature of all the interactions. We studied the system as a function of the ratio of intra-molecular repulsion $U$ over the electron bandwidth $W$, the increase of $U/W$ representing the main effect of lattice expansion. The phase diagram is close to that of actual materials, with a dome-shaped superconducting region preceding the Mott transition. Unconventional properties predicted by this model include: (i) a pseudogap in the normal phase; (ii) a gain of kinetic energy and of d.c. conductivity at the onset of superconductivity; (iii) regular spin susceptibility and specific heat despite strong correlations; (iv) the emergence of more than one energy scale governing the renormalized single particle dispersion. These predictions, if confirmed, would establish fullerides, especially the expanded ones, as members of the wider family of strongly correlated superconductors., Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, to be published on Rev. Mod. Phys. (Colloquia)

We study a four-band model for the iron oxypnictides, in which the superconducting properties are assumed to be determined by the interband coupling between hole-like and electron-like Fermi sheets. We show that reasonable parameters can account for the angle-resolved photoemission spectra showing multiple gaps in Ba$_{1-x}$K$_x$Fe$_2$As$_2$, and for the temperature dependence of the superfluid density. At the same time, the zero-temperature value of the superfluid density shows a conventional scaling with the number of carriers., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

We analyze the ground-state properties of strongly-correlated electrons coupled with phonons by means of a generalized Gutzwiller wavefunction which includes phononic degrees of freedom. We study in detail the paramagnetic half-filled Hubbard-Holstein model, where the electron-electron interaction can lead to a Mott transition, and the electron-phonon coupling to a bipolaronic transition. We critically discuss the quality of the proposed wavefunction in describing the various transitions and crossovers that occur as a function of the parameters. Previous variational attempts are recovered as particular choices of the wavefunction, while keeping all the variational freedom allows to access regions of the phase diagram otherwise inaccessible within previous variational approaches., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Published version, minor changes in the discussion of the results

We find that the heat capacity of a strongly correlated metal presents striking changes with respect to Landau Fermi liquid theory. In contrast with normal metals, where the electronic specific heat is linear at low temperature (with a T^3 term as a leading correction), a dynamical mean-field study of the correlated Hubbard model reveals a clear kink in the temperature dependence, marking a rapid change from a low-temperature linear behavior and a second linear regime with a reduced slope. Experiments on LiV2O4 support our findings, implying that correlated materials are more resistive to cooling at low T than expected from the intermediate temperature behavior., Comment: 4 pages

The energy needed to create a vortex core is the basic ingredient to address the physics of thermal vortex fluctuations in underdoped cuprates. Here we theoretically investigate its role on the occurrence of the Beresinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a bilayer film with inhomogeneity. From the comparison with recent measurements of the penetration depth in two-unit cell thin films of Y$_{1-x}$Ca$_{x}$Ba$_{2}$Cu$_{3}$O$_{7-\d}$ (YBCO) by Hetel et al. [Nat. Phys. 3, 700 (2007)] we can extract the value of the vortex-core energy $\mu$, and show that $\mu$ scales linearly with $T_c$ at low doping., Comment: 4pages, 3 figures. References added, final version

The Beresinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) physics of vortices in two-dimensional superconductors at finite magnetic field is investigated by means of a field-theoretical approach based on the sine-Gordon model. This description leads to a straightforward definition of the field-induced magnetization and shows that the persistence of non-linear effects at low fields above the transition is a typical signature of the fast divergence of the correlation length within the BKT theory., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear on Physical Review Letters

In layered superconductors with small interlayer Josephson coupling vortex-antivortex phase fluctuations characteristic of quasi two-dimensional (2D) Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) behavior are expected to be observable at some energy scale $T_d$. While in the 2D case $T_d$ is uniquely identified by the KT temperature $T_{KT}$ where the universal value of the superfluid density is reached, we show that in a generic anisotropic 3D system $T_d$ is controlled by the vortex-core energy, and can be significantly larger than the 2D scale $T_{KT}$. These results are discussed in relation to recent experiments in cuprate superconductors, which represent a typical experimental realization of layered anisotropic superconductors., Comment: Final version, to appear on Physical Review Letters

We introduce a new type of Gutzwiller variational wavefunction for correlated electrons coupled to phonons, able to treat on equal footing electronic and lattice degrees of freedom. We benchmark the wavefunction in the infinite-$U$ Hubbard-Holstein model away from half-filling on a Bethe lattice, where we can directly compare with exact results by Dynamical Mean-Field Theory. For this model, we find that variational results agree perfectly well with the exact ones. In particular the wavefunction correctly describes the crossover to a heavy polaron gas upon increasing the electron-phonon coupling., Comment: 4 figures

We study effects of the Coulomb repulsion on the electron-phonon interaction (EPI) in a model of cuprates at zero and finite doping. We find that antiferromagnetic correlations strongly enhance EPI effects on the electron Green's function with respect to the paramagnetic correlated system, but the net effect of the Coulomb interaction is a moderate suppression of the EPI. Doping leads to additional suppression, due to reduced antiferromagnetic correlations. In contrast, the Coulomb interaction strongly suppresses EPI effects on phonons, but the suppression weakens with doping., Comment: 4 pages and 5 figures

Studying the antiferromagnetic phase of the Hubbard model by dynamical mean field theory, we observe striking differences with static (Hartree-Fock) mean field: The Slater band is strongly renormalized and spectral weight is transferred to spin-polaron side bands. Already for intermediate values of the interaction $U$ the overall bandwidth is larger than in Hartree-Fock, and the gap is considerably smaller. Such differences survive any renormalization of $U$. Our photoemission experiments for Cr-doped V$_2$O$_3$ show spectra qualitatively well described by dynamical mean field theory., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures - one figure added and further details about quasiparticle dispersion

We investigate by means of Dynamical Mean-Field Theory the crossover from BCS superconductivity to Bose-Einstein (BE) condensation of preformed pairs in the attractive Hubbard model. We follow the evolution of the two energy scales underlying the superconducting phenomenon, the gap $\Delta_0$ and the superfluid stiffness $D_S$, which controls the phase coherence. The BCS-BE crossover is clearly mirrored in a change in the hierarchy of these two scales, the smallest of the two controlling the critical temperature. In the whole intermediate-to-strong coupling region $T_c$ scales with $D_S$, while $T_C$ is proportional to $\Delta_0$ only in the BCS regime. This evolution as a function of the interaction qualitatively resembles what happens in the cuprates when the doping is decreased towards the Mott insulator. This continuous change reflects also in the energetic balance at the superconducting transition. While superconductivity is stabilized by a potential energy gain in the BCS regime, the strong-coupling superconductivity is made stable by a reduction of kinetic energy. Interestingly the intermediate-coupling region, where the maximum $T_c$ is achieved, behaves similarly to the strong-coupling regime. The above finding implies that the attractive Hubbard model can account qualitatively for the anomalous behavior of optical spectra around $T_c$, where an increase of spectral weight is observed in under and optimally doped cuprates, while the overdoped samples have a more standard behavior. This qualitative agreement is lost in the normal phase, specifically at strong-coupling, calling for the inclusion of strong correlation effects in the theoretical description., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures