The finite-difference parquet method: Enhanced electron-paramagnon scattering opens a pseudogap

Abstract: We present the finite-difference parquet method that greatly improves the applicability and accuracy of two-particle correlation approaches to interacting electron systems. This method incorporates the nonperturbative local physics from a reference solution and builds all parquet diagrams while circumventing potentially divergent irreducible vertices. Its unbiased treatment of different fluctuations is crucial for reproducing the strong-coupling pseudogap in the underdoped Hubbard model, consistent with diagrammatic Monte Carlo calculations. We reveal a strong-coupling spin-fluctuation mechanism of the pseudogap with decisive vertex corrections that encode the cooperation of direct- and exchange-type scattering between electrons and antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations.