Excitation Spectrum of the Holstein Model

We adapt a variational procedure to calculate ground state properties of the Holstein model in the adiabatic limit. At strong coupling, this adaption leads to rapid convergence of results. The intermediate coupling regime is further handled with an adaptive algorithm. We also use semi-classically derived results for the adiabatic end-point, along with weak coupling perturbation theory. These establish weak and strong coupling (or large and small polaron, respectively) regimes...

Employing a largely unbiased variational exact diagonalization technique, we analyze the consequences of longer-ranged electron hopping and electron-phonon interaction on polaron formation in one dimension. Having at our disposal the accurate ground state energy and wavefunction, we calculate and discuss various physical quantities, such as the renormalized band structure, effective mass, wave-function renormalization factor, phonon dressing and Drude weight, characterizing t...

Employing the Lanczos algorithm in combination with a kernel polynomial moment expansion (KPM) and the maximum entropy method (MEM), we show a way of calculating charge and spin excitations in the Holstein t-J model, including the full quantum nature of phonons. To analyze polaron band formation we evaluate the hole spectral function for a wide range of electron-phonon coupling strengths. For the first time, we present results for the optical conductivity of the 2D Holstein t...

We develop a hierarchical equations of motion (HEOM) approach to compute real-time single-particle correlation functions and thermodynamic properties of the Holstein model at finite temperature. We exploit the conservation of the total momentum of the system to formulate the momentum-space HEOM whose dynamical variables explicitly keep track of momentum exchanges between the electron and phonons. Our symmetry-adapted HEOM enable us to overcome the numerical instabilities inhe...

The single-electron energy and static charge-lattice deformation correlations have been calculated for the first excited state of a two-site Holstein model within perturbative expansions using different standard phonon bases obtained through Lang-Firsov (LF) transformation, LF with squeezed phonon states, modified LF, modified LF transformation with squeezed phonon states, and also within weak-coupling perturbation approach. Comparisons of the convergence of the perturbative ...

We generalize the Momentum Average approximations MA$^{(0)}$ and MA$^{(1)}$ to study the effects of coupling to multiple optical phonons on the properties of a Holstein polaron. As for a single phonon mode, these approximations are numerically very efficient. They become exact for very weak or very strong couplings, and are highly accurate in the intermediate regimes, {\em e.g.} the spectral weights obey exactly the first six, respectively eight, sum rules. Our results show t...

We solve the disordered Holstein model via the DMRG method to investigate the combined roles of electron-phonon coupling and disorder on the localization of a single charge or exciton. The parameter regimes chosen, namely the adiabatic regime, $\hbar\omega/4t_0 = \omega' < 1$, and the `large' polaron regime, $\lambda < 1$, are applicable to most conjugated polymers. We show that as a consequence of the polaron effective mass diverging in the adiabatic limit (defined as $\omeg...

The polaron, an electron dressed with HCB excitations, remains light even in the strong coupling limit as its effective mass remains of the order of the free electron mass. This result is in a sharp contrast to the Holstein model where the electron effective mass increases exponentially with the electron-phonon coupling. HCB degrees of freedom mediate the attractive potential between two electrons that form a bound singlet bipolaron state at any non-zero coupling strength. In...

The formation of a polaron quasiparticle from a bare electron is studied in the framework of the Holstein model of electron-phonon coupling. Using Schr\"{o}dinger's formalism, we calculate the time evolution of the distribution of the electron and phonon density, lattice deformation, and the electron-phonon (el-ph) correlation functions in real space. The quantum dynamical nature of the phonons is preserved. The polaron formation time is related to the dephasing time of the c...

An analytic study is presented of the E-e Jahn-Teller (JT) polaron. The Hamiltonian is mapped onto a new Hilbert space, which is isomorphic to an eigenspace of the angular momentum operator J, belonging to a fixed eigenvalue j of J. In this representation, the Hamiltonian decomposes into a Holstein term and a residual JT interaction. While the ground state of the JT polaron is shown to belong to j=1/2, the Holstein polaron is obtained for the "unphysical" value j=0. This is t...