Frozen spin ratio and the detection of Hund correlations

Abstract

We propose a way to identify strongly Hund-correlated materials by unveiling a key signature of Hund correlations at the two-particle level. The defining feature is the sign of the response of the frozen spin ratio (the long-time local spin-spin correlation function divided by the instantaneous value) under variation of electron density. The underlying physical reason is that the sign is closely related to the strength of charge fluctuations between the dominant atomic multiplets and higher-spin ones in a neighboring charge subspace. It is the predominance of these fluctuations that promotes Hund metallicity. The temperature dependence of the frozen spin ratio can further reveal a non-Fermi-liquid behavior and thus the Hund metal states. We analyze both degenerate and nondegenerate multiorbital Hubbard models and corroborate our argument by taking doped La2CuO4 and LaFeAsO as representative material examples, respectively, of Mott and Hund metals. Our proposal should be applicable to systems with non-half-filled integer electron fillings and their doped cases provided the doping drove the electron density toward the half filling.