Ground state of the strong-coupling Hubbard Hamiltonian: A numerical diagonalization study

We exactly diagonalize the effective Hamiltonian obtained from the Hubbard model in the strong-coupling limit for a two-dimensional 10×10 size square lattice. The effective Hamiltonian operates on a restricted Hilbert space containing only states with singly occupied sites, which makes the diagonalization possible within reasonable computational time for the above lattice. The ground-state energy and wave function are obtained for several values of the coupling ratio tU and the doping fraction x. We find three different phases in the (x,tU) phase diagram. The first is characterized by antiferromagnetic order which extends to the longest possible distance in the 10-site system. The second and third phases are characterized by antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic short-range correlations, respectively. We comment on the possible relevance of the results to the recently discovered high-temperature copper-oxide superconductors. © 1988 The American Physical Society.