Topologically ordered phases of matter are quantum liquids with a non-local quantum order. Because of their unique properties due to the non-local quantum entanglement present in these phases, topological phases have been proposed as the basis of a physically fault-tolerant quantum computer. The formation of such topological order is well understood in terms of the mechanism of loop condensation in systems with loop-like degrees of freedom. Certain quantum dimer models posses topologically ordered dimer liquid ground states and can be mapped to loop models. In this dissertation we present a study of the geometric properties of the loop condensates of quantum dimer models and related models using classical Monte Carlo as well as ground state quantum Monte Carlo calculations. Additionally, we present an approach for the robust experimental generation of a topologically ordered phase in a system of neutral atoms trapped in an optical lattice.
Quantum dimer models are known to host topological quantum spin liquid phases, and it has recently become possible to simulate such models with Rydberg atoms trapped in arrays of optical tweezers. Here, we present large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulation results on an extension of the triangular lattice quantum dimer model with terms in the Hamiltonian annihilating and creating single dimers. We find distinct odd and even [Formula: see text] spin liquids, along with several phases with no topological order: a staggered crystal, a nematic phase, and a trivial symmetric phase with no obvious broken symmetry. We also present dynamic spectra of the phases, and note implications for experiments on Rydberg atoms.
Loop condensed phases are scale-invariant quantum liquid phases of matter. These phases include topologically ordered liquid phases such as the toric code as well as critical liquids such as the Rokhsar-Kivelson point of the quantum dimer model on the square lattice. To investigate the extent to which nonlocal geometric observables capture a signature of the nonlocal quantum order present in these phases, we compute geometric properties of such loop condensed states using directed loop Monte Carlo calculations. In particular, we investigate the loop condensed nature of ground state of the square lattice quantum dimer model at the Rokhsar-Kivelson point and compare with other loop condensed states on the square lattice, including those of the toric code and fully packed loop model. The common features of such liquids are a scale invariant distribution of loops and a fractal dimensionality of spanning loops. We find that the fractal dimension of the loop condensate of the square lattice quantum dimer model at the Rokhsar-Kivelson point is
3/2, which provides quantitative confirmation of the effective height model that is commonly used to describe this critical dimer liquid.
Abstract Quantum loop and dimer models are prototypical correlated systems with local constraints, which are not only intimately connected to lattice gauge theories and topological orders but are also widely applicable to the broad research areas of quantum materials and quantum simulation. Employing our sweeping cluster quantum Monte Carlo algorithm, we reveal the complete phase diagram of the triangular-lattice fully packed quantum loop model. Apart from the known lattice nematic (LN) solid and the even
Z2 Z 2 quantum spin liquid (QSL) phases, we discover a hidden vison plaquette (VP) phase, which had been overlooked and misinterpreted as a QSL for more than a decade. Moreover, the VP-to-QSL continuous transition belongs to the (2 + 1)D cubic* universality class, which offers a lattice realization of the (fractionalized) cubic fixed point that had long been considered as irrelevant towards the O(3) symmetry until corrected recently by conformal bootstrap calculations. Our results are therefore of relevance to recent developments in both experiments and theory, and facilitate further investigations of hidden phases and transitions.
The quantum loop and dimer models are archetypal correlated systems with local constraints. With natural foundations in statistical mechanics, they are of direct relevance to various important physical concepts and systems, such as topological order, lattice gauge theories, geometric frustrations, or more recently Rydberg array quantum simulators. However, how the thermal fluctuations interact with constraints has not been explored in the important class of nonbipartite geometries. Here we study, via unbiased quantum Monte Carlo simulations and field theoretical analysis, the finite-temperature phase diagram of the quantum loop model on the triangular lattice. We discover that the recently identified, "hidden" vison plaquette (VP) quantum crystal [X. Ran et al., Hidden orders and phase transitions for the fully packed quantum loop model on the triangular lattice, Commun. Phys. 7, 207 (2024)CMPYEL0868-316610.1038/s42005-024-01680-z] experiences a finite-temperature continuous transition, which smoothly connects to the (2+1)d Cubic* quantum critical point separating the VP and Z_{2} quantum spin liquid phases. This finite-temperature phase transition acquires a unique property of "remnants of fractionalization" at finite temperature, in that, both the cubic order parameter-the plaquette loop resonance-and its constituent-the vison field-exhibit independent criticality signatures. This phase transition is connected to a three-state Potts transition between the lattice nematic phase and the high-temperature disordered phase. We discuss the relevance of our results for current experiments on quantum simulation platforms.
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
2×1 periodic model in which all weights are set to one except for a tunable horizontal edge weight labeled
α. We analytically show that the model exhibits a continuous quantum phase transition at
α=3, changing from a topological
Z2 quantum spin liquid (
α<3) to a columnar ordered state (
α>3). The dimer-dimer correlator decays exponentially on both sides of the transition with the correlation length
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
∞ (topological min-entropy) changes from
log2 for the quantum spin liquid phase
α<3, to
0 for the ordered phase
α>3, thereby analytically confirming the topological nature of the phase transition.