Thermopower of the Hubbard model: Effects of multiple orbitals and magnetic fields in the atomic limit

Abstract

We consider strongly-correlated systems described by the multi-orbital Hubbard model in the atomic limit and obtain exact expressions for the chemical potential and thermopower. We show that these expressions reduce to the Heikes formula in the appropriate limits ($k_BT \gg U$) and ($k_BT \ll U$) and obtain the full temperature dependence in between these regimes. We also investigate the effect of a magnetic field introduced through a Zeeman term and observe that the thermopower of the multi-orbital Hubbard model displays spikes as a function of magnetic field at certain special values of the field. This effect might be observable in experiments for materials with a large magnetic coupling.