We study the strong-coupling regime of the t-tЈ Hubbard model, filled up to the level of the van Hove singularities, by means of an exact diagonalization approach. We characterize the different phases of the model by the different sectors of the Hilbert space with given quantum numbers. By looking for the ground state of the system, we find essentially the competition between a state with incipient ferromagnetism and other mimicking a d-wave condensate, which has the lowest energy in a large region of the phase space.
͓S0163-1829͑97͒03925-8͔During recent years there have been increasingly accurate measures by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of copper-oxide compounds, giving much insight into the phenomenology of these materials. 1 Near the optimal doping for superconductivity the hole-doped compounds use to show extended van Hove singularities close to the Fermi level, which are located near the high-symmetry points ͑ ,0͒,͑0, ͒. 1,2 On the other hand, in the carrier-free regime the materials show antiferromagnetic correlations, with a dispersion relation which has peaks at the points ͑Ϯ /2,Ϯ /2͒. 3 A most interesting problem is therefore to understand the drastic change that the Fermi surface may suffer by the influence of doping. 4 The framework that has been proposed to address such theoretical issues is that of the t-tЈ-U model 5 ͑or its strongcoupling version, the t-tЈ-J model 6 ͒, as it is generally believed that strong correlation effects have to be responsible for the electronic properties of the cuprates. Next-to-nearestneighbor hopping tЈ has to be introduced for a more accurate description of the dispersion relation in the insulating phase. 7 The distinctive feature of the t-tЈ-U model is that the level of half-filling does not coincide with the level corresponding to the two van Hove singularities. Thus, it should be possible to establish a clearer separation between the effects of the antiferromagnetic correlations and those due to the appearance of the extended saddle points. There have been attempts to propose a purely electronic mechanism of superconductivity in systems with van Hove singularities close to the Fermi level. [8][9][10] What is essential in those models is the existence of some enhanced channel favoring the exchange of singlet pairs. They represent an alternative to the picture earlier proposed in which the pairing interaction is supposed to arise from the short-range antiferromagnetic correlations. 11 In the present paper we study the correlations which may dominate at the van Hove singularities, by performing the exact diagonalization of the t-tЈ Hubbard model in a 4ϫ4 lattice ͑with periodic boundary conditions͒. The Hamiltonian of the model iswhere ϭ↑,↓, the first sum is over nearest neighbors i, j, the second sum over next-to-nearest neighbors, and n i is the electron number operator at site i. A typical contour map of the dispersion relation ͑for tЈϽ0.5) is shown in Fig. 1. We are especially interested in the situation in which the van Hove shell, comprising the four d...