Chapter 4

Mott Transition and

Hubbard Model

Our principal subject is the study of electron correlation effects. But

what are correlation effects? The definition works by exclusion: any
purely electronic phenomenon which cannot be explained within the
independent-electron (HartreeFock) approximation, will be regarded
as a correlation effect. Since we are primarily interested in crystalline
materials, for us, independent-electron theory means just the band the-
ory of solids.
Arguably, the greatest triumph of band theory was that, in the years
following its inception, it successfully classified a huge number of crys-
talline solids as metals or insulators. Not much later, it was also realized
that the most spectacular failure of band theory is in exactly the same
field: it predicts that certain insulators should be metals [294].

4.1 Metals and Insulators: Breakdown of the

Independent-Electron Description
We call a material insulating if its static electrical conductivity a p
proaches zero as the temperature is lowered

lim
T+O a(T)= 0. (44

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