Particle-hole asymmetry and pinball liquid in a triangular-lattice extended Hubbard model within the mean-field approximation

Recently, triangular lattice models have received a lot of attention since they can describe a number of strongly-correlated materials that exhibit superconductivity and various magnetic and charge orders. In this research we present an extensive analysis of the charge-ordering phenomenon of the triangular-lattice extended Hubbard model with repulsive onsite and nearest-neighbor interaction, arbitrary charge concentration, and $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ supercell (3-sublattice assumption). The model is solved in the ground state with the mean-field approximation which allowed to identify $8$ charge-ordered phases and a large variety of phase transitions. An exotic pinball-liquid phase was found and described. Moreover, strong particle-hole asymmetry of the phase diagram is found to play an important role for triangular lattices. The detailed analysis of band structures, unavailable for more advanced methods, such as dynamical mean-field theory, allowed us to interpret the found triangular-lattice phases and provided a great insight into the mechanisms behind the phase transitions that can also be met when correlation effects are taken into account. The complexity of the mean-field phase diagram showed the importance and usefulness of the results for the further research with correlation effects included. Together with atomic-limit approximation it can serve them as both a starting point, and a tool to interpret results.