Spin-orbit coupling effects on orbital-selective correlations in a three-orbital model

Abstract

In ruthenate materials, non-Fermi liquid (NFL) phases have been observed. We used the natural orbitals renormalization group (NORG) method as an impurity solver for dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) to study a three-orbital Kanamori-Hubbard model with crystal field splitting, set at a specific filling of 2/3, which serves as a minimal Hamiltonian for the ruthenates. We find that without spin-orbit coupling (SOC), increasing the electron interactions results in an orbital-selective Mott (OSM) state, where the half-filled $d_{xy}$ orbital becomes a Mott insulator (MI) while the three-quarter-filled $d_{xz/yz}$ orbitals form a singular Fermi liquid (SFL). The OSM state is destroyed by the small SOC, which causes the small hybridization between the $d_{xy}$ and $d_{xz/yz}$ orbitals, resulting in both the orbitals exhibiting an NFL behavior. The $d_{xy}$ orbital is close to an MI and the $d_{xz/yz}$ orbitals are close to an SFL state. They exhibit distinct electronic scattering rates.