Unconventional superconductivity and charge ordering in an extended ionic Hubbard model on the triangular lattice

Abstract

To address the issues of superconducting and charge properties in hydrated sodium cobalt, we investigate an extended ionic Hubbard model on the triangular lattice, which includes off-site attractions between sites with minor charges. Our quantum Monte Carlo simulations show that close to quarter filling, the off-site attractions induce a significant enhancement of d-wave and extended s-wave pairing correlations. Simultaneously, they render an increase of the charge structure factor at most of wave vectors. A combination with charge correlations in real space indicates the development of short-range finite-q charge density waves on the sites with minor charges. Our findings provide a new perspective on the superconducting mechanism in hydrated sodium cobalt based on the electronic structure which explicitly takes the effect of sodium atoms into account.

Keywords

• Unconventional superconductivity
• Charge ordering
• Ionic Hubbard model
• Triangular lattice
• Quantum Monte Carlo