Metal-to-nonmetal transitions (Q833992)

The present book ``offers a collection of reviews on nonmetal-to-metal transitions (Mott transitions) in very different physical systems, from solids with a regular periodic structure via disordered fluids and plasmas, finite metal clusters up to exotic nuclear and quark matter. The surprising similarity in the behaviour of these very diverse systems is due to the complex many-body nature of the respective interactions, which drives the transition and entails a non-perturbative treatment. Therefore the Mott transition can be regarded as a prominent test case for methods of non-perturbative many-body physics. The book aims to give an overview of the current state of the theoretical treatment of Mott transitions and new experimental progress and findings in these fields as well'' (preface). Chap. 1 starts with a description of quantum phase transitions in strongly-correlated one-dimensional electron-phonon systems. Model Hamiltonians, such as the Holstein models of spinless fermions, the Holstein-Hubbard model and a Heisenberg spin-chain model with magneto-elastic interaction, are treated using a numerical density-matrix renormalisation group technique. Thereby, particular emphasis is placed on the Luttinger-Peierls metal-insulator, Peierls-insulator Mott-insulator, and spin-Peierls quantum phase transitions. A new inspection of the metal-nonmetal transition in fluid mercury is given in Chap. 2, which has revealed a non-congruent nature for the first time. This might have consequences also for other predicted first-order phase transitions such as the hypothetical plasma phase transitions in warm dense matter, various phase separations in dusty plasmas, or exotic phase transitions in neutron stars. Various aspects of the Mott effect in dense fluids and plasmas have been investigated up to now. But Pauli blocking (that means the fact that an electron state can be occupied only once in quantum systems) as a direct quantum-statistical effect is a novel topic, discussed in Chap. 3 within an advanced chemical model. Pauli shifts of energy eigenvalues are calculated by variational methods, and corrections due to polarization are discussed. It is shown that transitions in warm dense systems to highly conducting states are softer than predicted in earlier works. The metal-insulator transition in dense hydrogen is of primary importance for modeling interiors of Jupiter-like giant planets. A confrontation of advanced chemical models with quantum molecular dynamics simulations within a strict physical picture is performed in Chap. 4. Thus, the so far hypothetical plasma phase transition is discussed both in Chap. 3 and Chap. 4. Metal-insulator transitions can also be induced in small metal clusters by irradiation with intense and short laser pulses. The highly effective energy deposition by resonance absorption, various (tunnel, field, impact) ionization processes and the subsequent Coulomb-driven cluster explosion process are described in Chap. 5. The Mott effect in nuclear matter is reviewed in Chap. 6 within a cluster mean-field approximation. For instance, the formation of a two-nucleon quantum condensate is observed. The properties of the condensate are strongly influenced by bound states immersed in the dense medium, that is by the Mott effect. A quantum field theory for the understanding of phase diagram of exotic quark matter is outlined in Chap. 7. The crossover between Bose-Einstein condensation of diquark bound states and condensation of diquark resonances is discussed in close relation to the usual Mott effect. As a model system, chiral and superconducting phase transitions in two-flavor quark matter within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model are studied. These investigations are also motivated by the analogies with the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven, and with experiments on Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms in traps. Furthermore, qualitative insights into possible effects observable in the upcoming CBM experiment at FAIR Darmstadt as well as from neutron stars with quark matter interiors could be derived along the lines of this approach.