On the semimetal-insulator transition and Lifshitz transition in simulations of mono-layer graphene

Abstract

We report on the status of ongoing Hybrid-Monte-Carlo simulations of the tight-binding model of mono-layer graphene. We present results concerning the semimetal-insulator phase transition, whereby two-body interactions are modeled by a partially screened Coulomb potential which takes into account screening by electrons in the lower $\sigma$-orbitals. We obtain evidence that finite-size effects may still be present in the current estimate of the critical coupling strength ${\alpha }_C$, which was previously extracted from simulations on lattice-sizes up to $N_x=N_y=18$. We also present preliminary results concerning the Neck-disrupting Lifshitz transition which occurs at finite Fermion-density in the limit of vanishing two-body interactions. A sign-problem is circumvented by using a spin-dependent chemical potential in our simulations.

Comments: 32nd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 23-28 June, 2014, Columbia University, NY