Dynamical electronic nematicity from Mott physics

Very large anisotropies in transport quantities have been observed in the presence of very small in-plane structural anisotropy in many strongly correlated electron materials. By studying the two-dimensional Hubbard model with dynamical-mean-field theory for clusters, we show that such large anisotropies can be induced without static stripe order if the interaction is large enough to yield a Mott transition. Anisotropy decreases at large frequency. The maximum effect on conductivity anisotropy occurs in the underdoped regime, as observed in high-temperature superconductors.