Paramagnetic metal-insulator transition in the 2D Hubbard model

Abstract

We study the transition from paramagnetic metal to paramagnetic insulator by finite temperature Quantum Monte-Carlo simulations for the 2D Hubbard model at half-filling. Working at the moderately high temperature T=0.33*t where the spin correlation length has dropped to 1.5 lattice spacings, and scanning the interaction strength U, we observe an unambiguous metal-insulator transition with onset at U_c=4t. In the metallic phase there are no indications of any `correlation narrowing' of the band width, nor for any decrease of spectral weight at the Fermi energy. The Mott-Hubbard gap opens gradually with increasing U and is accompanied by the formation of side bands near the Fermi energy. In the first stages of gap formation the gap opens at (pi,0), reminiscent of the `pseudogap' phenomenology in cuprate superconductors.