Search arXivSearch

arXiv · 2311.07053

Symmetry, topology, duality, chirality, and criticality in a spin-1/2 XXZ ladder with a four-spin interaction

Abstract

We study the ground-state phase diagram of a spin-1/2 XXZ model with a chirality-chirality interaction (CCI) on a two-leg ladder. This model offers a minimal setup to study an interplay between spin and chirality degrees of freedom. The spin-chirality duality transformation allows us to relate the regimes of weak and strong CCIs. By applying the Abelian bosonization and the duality, we obtain a rich phase diagram that contains distinct gapped featureless and ordered phases. In particular, Neel and vector chiral orders appear for easy-axis anisotropy, while two distinct symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases appear for easy-plane anisotropy. The two SPT phases can be viewed as twisted variants of the Haldane phase. We also present an effective description in terms of (spinor) hard-core bosons, which reveals critical behavior on the self-dual line in the easy-axis and easy-plane regimes. We perform numerical simulations to confirm the predicted phase structure and critical properties. We further demonstrate that the two SPT phases and a trivial phase are distinguished by topological indices in the presence of certain symmetries. A similar phase structure is expected in a spin-1/2 XXZ ladder with four-spin ring exchange.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Mateo Fontaine, Koudai Sugimoto, Shunsuke Furukawa. 2024-04-08. Symmetry, topology, duality, chirality, and criticality in a spin-1/2 XXZ ladder with a four-spin interaction. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.109.134413

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Spontaneous Parity Breaking in Quantum Antiferromagnets on the Triangular Lattice

Frustration on the triangular lattice has long been a source of intriguing and often debated phases in many-body systems. Although symmetry analysis has been employed, the role of the seemingly trivial parity symmetry has received little attention. In this work, we show that phases induced by frustration are systematically shaped by an implicit rule-of-thumb associated with spontaneous parity breaking in weak longitudinal field. This principle enables us to anticipate and rationalize the regimes and conditions under which nontrivial phases emerge. For the spin-$S$ antiferromagnetic XXZ model, we demonstrate that a controversial parity-broken phase appears at intermediate values of $S$. In bilayer systems, enhanced frustration leads to additional phases, such as supersolids, whose properties can be classified by their characteristic parity features. Benefiting from our improved tensor network contraction techniques, we confirm these results through large-scale tensor-network calculations. This study offers an alternative viewpoint and a systematic approach for examining the interplay between spin, symmetry, and frustration in many-body systems.

cond-mat.str-el

Directional Criticality and Higher-Order Flatness: Designing Van Hove Singularities in Three Dimensions

Van Hove singularities (VHSs) play a pivotal role in driving correlated electronic phenomena. Traditional classifications focus only on critical points where the band gradient vanishes in all directions. Here we establish a unified classification of VHSs in three-dimensional systems, characterized by the number of vanishing gradient components and Hessian eigenvalues: ordinary ($M$-type), higher-order ($T_1$, $T_2$, $T_3$), noncritical ordinary ($N_0$, $N_1$, $N_2$), and noncritical higher-order ($S_1$, $S_2$) types. Noncritical VHSs exhibit directional quenching: the gradient vanishes in a two-dimensional subspace while remaining finite along the orthogonal direction, yielding finite density-of-states enhancements with distinct energy dependencies. Using an $s$-orbital tight-binding model on the pyrochlore lattice with spin-orbit coupling, we demonstrate that all singularity classes emerge at distinct high-symmetry points through controlled tuning of the hopping ratio. This work establishes directional criticality and higher-order flatness as design principles for tailoring density-of-states enhancements in three-dimensional quantum materials.

cond-mat.str-el

Quantum Rotors on the Fuzzy Sphere and the Cubic CFT

The three-dimensional cubic conformal field theory governs the critical behaviour of Heisenberg magnets with cubic anisotropy. Studying this theory non-perturbatively is challenging, because its most easily accessible observables are numerically very close to those of the more symmetric $O(3)$ model. In this work, we overcome this difficulty using the fuzzy sphere regularisation method. By adding a cubic-invariant two-body interaction to the quantum rotor Hamiltonian used for the $O(3)$ model, we break the continuous rotational symmetry by construction and unambiguously isolate the cubic critical point. Using exact diagonalisation and the density matrix renormalisation group, we calculate the scaling dimensions of several key operators, including the leading scalar singlets, and resolve the splitting of the $O(3)$ rank-two traceless symmetric tensor into the $E_g$ and $T_{2g}$ representations of the cubic group. Our results are consistent with existing Monte Carlo, conformal perturbation theory, and $\varepsilon$ expansion benchmarks, demonstrating the power of the fuzzy sphere in resolving closely spaced universality classes.

cond-mat.str-el