Thermodynamic Properties of the Extended Hubbard Model from Quantum Monte Carlo

We use determinantal quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the thermal properties of the extended Hubbard model on the square lattice at half-filling. In particular, we consider the effect of a nearest-neighbor repulsion on the thermal metal-to-insulator transition in the Slater-regime of the Hubbard model within the parameter regime accessible to sign-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Upon exploring in detail the temperature dependence of the double occupancy, we probe for signatures of a first-order metal-to-insulator transition, as proposed in M.Schueler, et al.,SciPost Phys. 6, 067 (2019), driven by the suppression of correlation effects by the non-local interactions.