Superconductivity in the two-dimensional Hubbard model.

Quasiparticle bands of the two-dimensional Hubbard model are calculated using the Roth two-pole approximation to the one-particle Green's function. Excellent agreement is obtained with recent Monte Carlo calculations, including an anomalous volume of the Fermi surface near half-filling, which can possibly be explained in terms of a breakdown of Fermi liquid theory. The calculated bands are very flat around the (\ensuremath{\pi},0) points of the Brillouin zone in agreement with photoemission measurements of cuprate superconductors. With doping there is a shift in spectral weight from the upper band to the lower band. The Roth method is extended to deal with superconductivity within a four-pole approximation allowing electron-hole mixing. It is shown that triplet p-wave pairing never occurs. A self-consistent solution with singlet ${\mathit{d}}_{{\mathit{x}}^{2}\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathit{y}}^{2}}$-wave pairing is found and optimal doping occurs when the van Hove singularity, corresponding to the flat band part, lies at the Fermi level. Nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic correlations play an important role in flattening the bands near the Fermi level and in favoring superconductivity. However, the mechanism for superconductivity is a local one, in contrast to spin-fluctuation exchange models. For reasonable values of the hopping parameter the transition temperature ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{c}}$ is in the range 10\char21{}100 K. The optimum doping ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\delta}}}_{\mathit{c}}$ lies between 0.14 and 0.25, depending on the ratio U/t. The gap equation has a BCS-like form and 2${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\mathrm{max}}$/${\mathit{kT}}_{\mathit{c}}$\ensuremath{\simeq}4.