Mass-imbalance induced metal-insulator transition in a three-component Hubbard model

The effects of mass imbalance in a three-component Hubbard model are studied by the dynamical mean-field theory combined with exact diagonalization. The model describes a fermion-fermion mixture of two different particle species with a mass imbalance. One species is two-component fermion particles, and the other is single-component ones. The local interaction between particle species is considered isotropically. It is found that the mass imbalance can drive the mixture from insulator to metal. The insulator-metal transition is a species-selective-like transition of lighter mass particles and occurs only at commensurate particle densities and moderate local interactions. For weak and strong local interactions the mass imbalance does not change the ground state of the mixture.