Phase diagram and optical conductivity of the ionic Hubbard model

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We investigate the ground state phase diagram of the one-dimensional ionic Hubbard model with an alternating potential at half-filling by the bosonization technique as well as by numerical diagonalization of finite systems with the Lanczos and DMRG methods. Our results support the existence of a single "metallic" transition point from a band to a correlated insulator with simultaneous charge and bond-charge order. In addition, we present results for the optical conductivity obtained by the dynamical DMRG method. The insulator-insulator phase transition scenario is discussed in detail including a critical review of existing approaches and results for the ionic Hubbard model.