Diverse universality classes of the topological deconfinement transitions of three-dimensional noncompact lattice Abelian-Higgs models

Abstract

We study the topological phase transitions occurring in three-dimensional (3D) multicomponent lattice Abelian-Higgs (LAH) models, in which an $N$-component scalar field is minimally coupled with a noncompact Abelian gauge field, with a global SU($N$) symmetry. Their phase diagram presents a high-temperature Coulomb (C) phase, and two low-temperature molecular (M) and Higgs (H) phases, both characterized by the spontaneous breaking of the SU($N$) symmetry. The molecular-Higgs (MH) and Coulomb-Higgs (CH) transitions are topological transitions, separating a phase with gapless gauge modes and confined charges from a phase with gapped gauge modes and deconfined charged excitations. These transitions are not described by effective Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson theories, due to the active role of the gauge modes. We show that the MH and CH transitions belong to different charged universality classes. The CH transitions are associated with the $N$-dependent charged fixed point of the renormalization-group (RG) flow of the 3D Abelian-Higgs field theory (AHFT). On the other hand, the universality class of the MH transitions is independent of $N$ and coincides with that controlling the continuous transitions of the one-component ($N=1$) LAH model. In particular, we verify that the gauge critical behavior always corresponds to that observed in the 3D inverted XY model, and that the correlations of an extended charged gauge-invariant operator (in the Lorenz gauge, this operator corresponds to the scalar field, thus it is local, justifing the use of the RG framework) have an $N$-independent critical universal behavior. This scenario is supported by numerical results for $N=1,\,2,\,25$. The MH critical behavior does not apparently have an interpretation in terms of the RG flow of the AHFT, as determined perturbatively close to four dimensions or with standard large-$N$ methods.