Superconductivity in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

Quasiparticle bands of the two-dimensional Hubbard model are calculated using the Roth two-pole approximation to the one-particle Green’s function. Excellent agreement is obtained with recent Monte Carlo calculations, including an anomalous volume of the Fermi surface near half-filling, which can possibly be explained in terms of a breakdown of Fermi liquid theory. The calculated bands are very flat around the (π,0) points of the Brillouin zone in agreement with photoemission measurements of cuprate superconductors. With doping there is a shift in spectral weight from the upper band to the lower band. The Roth method is extended to deal with superconductivity within a four-pole approximation allowing electron-hole mixing. It is shown that triplet p-wave pairing never occurs. A self-consistent solution with singlet ${\mathit{d}}_{{\mathit{x}}^2\mathrm{-}{\mathit{y}}^2}$-wave pairing is found and optimal doping occurs when the van Hove singularity, corresponding to the flat band part, lies at the Fermi level. Nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic correlations play an important role in flattening the bands near the Fermi level and in favoring superconductivity. However, the mechanism for superconductivity is a local one, in contrast to spin-fluctuation exchange models. For reasonable values of the hopping parameter the transition temperature ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{c}}$ is in the range 10–100 K. The optimum doping ${\mathrm{\delta }}_{\mathit{c}}$ lies between 0.14 and 0.25, depending on the ratio U/t. The gap equation has a BCS-like form and 2${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\max }$/${\mathit{kT}}_{\mathit{c}}$≃4.