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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Emergence of resonating valence-bond correlations in stretched graphene

S. Azadi1,*, A. Principi1, T. D. Kühne2,3,4, and M. S. Bahramy1

  • *Contact author: sam.azadi@manchester.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. B 114, L111110 – Published 24 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/96cl-xq62

Abstract

Electronic correlations in graphene are generally considered weak due to the large bandwidth of its π electrons. Here we show that tensile expansion of the honeycomb lattice provides a direct route to enhancing correlation effects. Using variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo, we compare a conventional Jastrow-Slater determinant wave function with a resonating-valence-bond (RVB) Jastrow-antisymmetrized geminal product ansatz for a series of stretched graphene lattices. We find that the energy gain of the RVB state relative to the single-determinant description increases with bond expansion up to a critical strain δcr, and decreases beyond it, revealing a nonmonotonic evolution of electronic correlations. A quantitative analysis places δcr≈14–19% across the system sizes studied, extrapolating to 13.7±0.8% in the thermodynamic limit. Analysis of the optimized many-body pairing amplitude further reveals that this crossover is accompanied by a sharp, specific enhancement of π-orbital character in the nearest-neighbor pairing between adjacent carbon atoms, providing direct microscopic evidence for the emergence of RVB-like bonding. This behavior indicates a transition from a weakly correlated Dirac semimetal to a regime with enhanced nondynamic correlation and short-range singlet pairing. Our results provide direct many-body evidence that lattice expansion drives graphene into a regime where RVB-like correlations become energetically favorable, offering a simple route to tuning correlation effects in Dirac materials.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, L111110– Published 24 August, 2026
  • Received 30 April 2026
  • Revised 7 July 2026
  • Accepted 10 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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