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arXiv:0712.1102 · Physical Review B

Quantum dimer model on the triangular lattice: Semiclassical and variational approaches to vison dispersion and condensation

Grégoire Misguich, Frédéric Mila

Published Apr 9, 2008• 40 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

After reviewing the concept of vison excitations in ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ dimer liquids, we study the liquid-crystal transition of the quantum dimer model on the triangular lattice by means of a semiclassical spin-wave approximation to the dispersion of visons in the context of a ``soft-dimer'' version of the model. This approach captures some important qualitative features of the transition: continuous nature of the transition, linear dispersion at the critical point, and $\sqrt{12}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\sqrt{12}$ symmetry-breaking pattern. In a second part, we present a variational calculation of the vison dispersion relation at the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point, which reproduces the qualitative shape of the dispersion relation and the order of magnitude of the gap. This approach provides a simple but reliable approximation of the vison wave functions at the RK point.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.77.134421

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After reviewing the concept of vison excitations in Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ dimer liquids, we study the liquid-crystal transition of the quantum dimer model on the triangular lattice by means of a semiclassical spin-wave approximation to the dispersion of visons in the context of a ``soft-dimer'' version of the model. This approach captures some important qualitative features of the transition: continuous nature of the transition, linear dispersion at the critical point, and 12\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi12\sqrt{12}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\sqrt{12}12​\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi12​ symmetry-breaking pattern. In a second part, we present a variational calculation of the vison dispersion relation at the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point, which reproduces the qualitative shape of the dispersion relation and the order of magnitude of the gap. This approach provides a simple but reliable approximation of the vison wave functions at the RK point.
We show that the liquid-to-crystal quantum phase transition in the Rokhsar-Kivelson dimer model on the two-dimensional triangular lattice occurs as a condensation of vortexlike excitations called ``visons.'' This conclusion is drawn from numerical studies of the vison spectrum in the liquid phase by using the Green's function Monte Carlo method. We find that visons remain the lowest excitation throughout the liquid phase and that their gap decreases continuously to zero at the phase transition. The nature of the crystal phase and the second order of the phase transition are in agreement with an earlier prediction of Moessner and Sondhi [Phys. Rev. B 63, 224401 (2001)].
We study vison excitations in a quantum dimer model interpolating between the Rokhsar-Kivelson models on the square and triangular lattices. In the square-lattice case, the model is known to be critical and characterized by U (1) topological quantum numbers. Introducing diagonal dimers brings the model to a Z 2 resonating-valence-bond phase. We study variationally the emergence of vison excitations at low concentration of diagonal dimers, close to the critical point. We find that, in this regime, vison excitations are large in size and their structure resembles vortices in type-II superconductors.
We consider a family of generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) Hamiltonians, which are reverse-engineered to have an arbitrary edge-weighted superposition of dimer coverings as their exact ground state at the RK point. We focus on a quantum dimer model on the triangular lattice, with doubly periodic edge weights. For simplicity we consider a 2×12\times12×1 periodic model in which all weights are set to one except for a tunable horizontal edge weight labeled ααα. We analytically show that the model exhibits a continuous quantum phase transition at α=3α=3α=3, changing from a topological Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ quantum spin liquid (α<3α<3α<3) to a columnar ordered state (α>3α>3α>3). The dimer-dimer correlator decays exponentially on both sides of the transition with the correlation length ξ∝1/∣α−3∣ξ\propto1/|α-3|ξ∝1/∣α−3∣ and as a power-law at criticality. The vison correlator exhibits an exponential decay in the spin liquid phase, but becomes a constant in the ordered phase, which we explain in terms of loop statistics of the double-dimer model. Using finite-size scaling of the vison correlator, we extract critical exponents consistent with the 2D Ising universality class. Additionally, we analytically show that the topological Rényi entropy of order ∞\infty∞ (topological min-entropy) changes from log⁡2\log2log2 for the quantum spin liquid phase α<3α<3α<3, to 000 for the ordered phase α>3α>3α>3, thereby analytically confirming the topological nature of the phase transition.
We determine the dynamical dimer correlation functions of quantum dimer models at the Rokhsar–Kivelson point on the bipartite square and cubic lattices and the non-bipartite triangular lattice. On the basis of an algorithmic idea by Henley, we simulate a stochastic process of classical dimer configurations in continuous time and perform a stochastic analytical continuation to obtain the dynamical correlations in momentum space and the frequency domain. This approach allows us to observe directly the dispersion relations and the evolution of the spectral intensity within the Brillouin zone beyond the single-mode approximation. On the square lattice, we confirm analytical predictions related to soft modes close to the wavevectors (π,π) and (π,0) and further reveal the existence of shadow bands close to the wavevector (0,0). On the cubic lattice the spectrum is also gapless but here only a single soft mode at (π,π,π) is found, as predicted by the single-mode approximation. The soft mode has a quadratic dispersion at very long wavelength, but crosses over to a linear behavior very rapidly. We believe this to be the remnant of the linearly dispersing 'photon' of the Coulomb phase. Finally the triangular lattice is in a fully gapped liquid phase where the bottom of the dimer spectrum exhibits a rich structure. At the M point the gap is minimal and the spectral response is dominated by a sharp quasiparticle peak. On the other hand, at the X point the spectral function is much broader. We sketch a possible explanation based on the crossing of the coherent dimer excitations into the two-vison continuum.
Quantum loop and dimer models are archetypal examples of correlated systems with local constraints. Obtaining generic solutions for these models is difficult due to the lack of controlled methods to solve them in the thermodynamic limit. Nevertheless, these solutions are of immediate relevance to both statistical and quantum field theories, as well as the rapidly growing experiments in Rydberg atom arrays and quantum moir\'e materials, where the interplay between correlation and local constraints gives rise to a plethora of novel phenomena. In a recent work [X. Ran et al., arXiv:2205.04472], it was found through sweeping cluster quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations and field theory analysis that the triangular lattice quantum loop model (QLM) hosts a rich ground-state phase diagram with lattice nematic, vison plaquette (VP) crystals, and the Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ quantum spin liquid (QSL) close to the Rokhsar-Kivelson point. Here, we focus on the continuous quantum critical point separating the VP and QSL phases and demonstrate via both static and dynamic probes in QMC simulations that this transition is of the (2+12+12+1)D cubic* universality. In this transition, the fractionalized visons in QSL condense to give rise to the crystalline VP phase, while leaving their trace in the anomalously large anomalous dimension exponent and pronounced continua in the dimer and vison spectra compared with those at the conventional cubic or O(3) quantum critical points.
We construct a generalized quantum dimer model on two-dimensional nonbipartite lattices, including the triangular lattice, the star lattice, and the kagome lattice. At the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point, we obtain its exact ground states that are shown to be a fully gapped quantum spin liquid with the double-semion topological order. The ground-state wave function of such a model at the RK point is a superposition of dimer configurations with a nonlocal sign structure determined by counting the number of loops in the transition graph. We explicitly demonstrate the double-semion topological order in the ground states by showing the semionic statistics of monomer excitations. We also discuss possible implications of such double-semion resonating valence bond states to candidate quantum spin-liquid systems discovered experimentally and numerically in the past few years.