A slave-boson mean-field theory for general multi-band Hubbard models

Abstract: We introduce a new slave-boson mean-field theory which allows the investigation of general multi-band Hubbard models. Unlike earlier attempts of such a generalisation, in our approach the quantum-mechanical problem is exactly reformulated in an extended Hilbert space of Fermions and Bosons before a mean-field approximation is applied. Systems with superconducting order parameters are naturally included in our formalism. Our ground-state energy functional agrees with the corresponding quantity derived within the Gutzwiller theory.