Slave-rotor mean-field theories of strongly correlated systems and the Mott transition in finite dimensions

The multiorbital Hubbard model is expressed in terms of quantum phase variables (``slave rotors'') conjugate to the local charge, and of auxiliary fermions, providing an economical representation of the Hilbert space of strongly correlated systems. When the phase variables are treated in a local mean-field manner, similar results to the dynamical mean-field theory are obtained, namely a Brinkman-Rice transition at commensurate fillings together with a ``preformed'' Mott gap in the single-particle density of states. The slave-rotor formalism allows to go beyond the local description and take into account spatial correlations, following an analogy to the superfluid-insulator transition of bosonic systems. We find that the divergence of the effective mass at the metal-insulator transition is suppressed by short range magnetic correlations in finite-dimensional systems. Furthermore, the strict separation of energy scales between the Fermi-liquid coherence scale and the Mott gap, found in the local picture, holds only approximately in finite dimensions, due to the existence of low-energy collective modes related to zero-sound.