  Mott transition plays a key role in strongly correlated physics but its
nature is not yet fully understood. Motivated by recent development of
Schwinger boson approach for the Kondo lattice, we propose in this work a novel
slave fermion algorithm to study the Mott transition. Upon local approximation,
our method yields a phase diagram with a zero-temperature continuous (Mott)
metal-insulator transition at finite Coulomb interaction $U$ for the
half-filled one-band Hubbard model on a square lattice, and the resistivity
exhibits a critical scaling around the quantum Widom line. We argue that the
Mott transition may be associated with a dynamic charge Kondo effect of local
degenerate doublon and holon states, causing sharp resonances on the
doublon/holon and electron spectra. The transition is pushed to $U=0$ once
intersite antiferromagnetic correlations are included, in agreement with exact
numerical calculations. Our approach captures some essential features of the
Mott transition and offers an alternative angle to view this important problem.
It can be extended to study other correlated electron models with more
complicated local interactions.
