Momentum-space anisotropy and pseudogaps: A comparative cluster dynamical mean-field analysis of the doping-driven metal-insulator transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model

Cluster dynamical mean-field calculations based on 2-, 4-, 8-, and 16-site clusters are used to analyze the doping-driven metal-insulator transition in the two-dimensional Hubbard model. Comparison of results obtained on different clusters enables a determination of those aspects of the physics that are common to all clusters and permits identification of artifacts associated with particular cluster geometries. A modest particle-hole asymmetry in the underlying band structure is shown to lead to qualitatively different behavior on the hole-doped side than on the electron-doped side. For particle-hole asymmetry of the sign and magnitude appropriate to high- T_c cuprates, the approach to the insulator from the hole-doping side is found to proceed in two stages from a high-doping region where the properties are those of a Fermi liquid with moderately renormalized parameters and very weak momentum dependence. As doping is reduced the system first enters an intermediate doping regime where the Fermi-liquid renormalizations are larger and the electron self-energy varies significantly around the Fermi surface and then passes to a small doping regime characterized by a gap on some parts of the Fermi surface but gapless behavior in other parts. On the electron-doped side the partially gapped regime does not occur, and the momentum dependence of the electron self-energy is less pronounced. Implications for the high- T_c cuprates and for the use of cluster dynamical mean-field methods in wider classes of problems are discussed.