One of the fundamental questions about high-temperature cuprate superconductors is the size of the Fermi surface underlying the superconducting state. By analyzing the single-particle spectral function for the Fermi-Hubbard model as a function of repulsion $U$ and chemical potential $\mu$, we find that the Fermi surface in the normal state undergoes a transition from a large Fermi surface matching the Luttinger volume as expected in a Fermi liquid, to a Fermi surface that encloses fewer electrons that we dub the “Luttinger breaking” phase, as the Mott insulator is approached. This transition into a non-Fermi-liquid phase that violates the Luttinger count occurs at a critical density in the absence of any other broken symmetry. We obtain the Fermi-surface contour from the spectral weight $A_{\mathbf{k}}(\omega =0)$ and from an analysis of the singularities of the Green's function $\mathrm{Re}{G}_{\mathbf{k}}(E=0)$, calculated using determinantal quantum Monte Carlo and analytic continuation methods. We discuss our numerical results in connection with experiments on Hall measurements, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

• Received 3 June 2020
• Revised 30 October 2021
• Accepted 2 November 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.235122