Ground state instability and attractive interactions in the extended hubbard model

The extended Hubbard model for high temperature superconductors is studied for infinite systems in the strong coupling limit. The attractive interaction between added holes that has been noted for nearly degenerate copper and oxygen energy levels arises because the ground state is near an instability. Adding holes nucleates small regions of this unstable, infinitely compressible phase. Three distinct bound states of two holes occur in the strong coupling limit when double occupation is forbidden. In this limit, the attractive interaction results in phase separation rather than pairing when many holes are present. Perturbative calculations suggest that a pairing state is stable in a narrow parameter range as t increases.