Nonlocal Coulomb interactions and metal-insulator transition in Ti2O3:: A cluster LDA+DMFT approach -: art. no. 086401

We present an ab initio quantum theory of the metal-insulator transition in Ti2O3. The recently developed cluster LDA+DMFT scheme is applied to describe the many-body features of this compound. The conventional single site DMFT cannot reproduce a low temperature insulating phase for any reasonable values of the Coulomb interaction. We show that the nonlocal Coulomb interactions and the strong chemical bonding within the Ti-Ti pair is the origin of the small gap insulating ground state of Ti2O3.