Ground states of certain materials can support exotic excitations with a charge equal to a fraction of the fundamental electron charge. The condensation of these fractionalized particles has been predicted to drive unusual quantum phase transitions. Through numerical and theoretical analysis of a physical model of interacting lattice bosons, we establish the existence of such an exotic critical point, called XY*. We measure a highly nonclassical critical exponent η = 1.493 and construct a universal scaling function of winding number distributions that directly demonstrates the distinct topological sectors of an emergent Z(2) gauge field. The universal quantities used to establish this exotic transition can be used to detect other fractionalized quantum critical points in future model and material systems.
Ground states of certain materials can support exotic excitations with a charge equal to a fraction of the fundamental electron charge. The condensation of these fractionalized particles has been predicted to drive unusual quantum phase transitions. Through numerical and theoretical analysis of a physical model of interacting lattice bosons, we establish the existence of such an exotic critical point, called XY*. We measure a highly nonclassical critical exponent η = 1.493 and construct a universal scaling function of winding number distributions that directly demonstrates the distinct topological sectors of an emergent Z(2) gauge field. The universal quantities used to establish this exotic transition can be used to detect other fractionalized quantum critical points in future model and material systems.
Anyons in a topologically ordered phase can carry fractional quantum numbers with respect to the symmetry group of the considered system, one example being the fractional charge of the quasiparticles and quasiholes in the fractional quantum Hall effect. When such symmetry-fractionalized anyons condense, the resulting phase must spontaneously break the symmetry and display a local order parameter. In this paper, we study the phase diagram and anyon condensation transitions of a \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 topological order perturbed by Ising interactions in the Toric Code. The interplay between the global (``onsite’’) Ising ( \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 ) symmetry and the lattice space group symmetries results in a non-trivial symmetry fractionalization class for the anyons, and is shown to lead to two characteristically different confined, symmetry-broken phases. To understand the anyon condensation transitions, we use the recently introduced critical torus energy spectrum technique to identify a line of emergent 2+1D XY* transitions ending at a fine-tuned (Ising ^2 2 )* critical point. We provide numerical evidence for the occurrence of two symmetry breaking patterns predicted by the specific symmetry fractionalization class of the condensed anyons in the explored phase diagram. In combination with large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations we measure unusually large critical exponents \eta η for the scaling of the correlation function at the continuous anyon condensation transitions, and we further identify lines of (weakly) first order transitions in the phase diagram. As an important additional result, we discuss the phase diagram of a resulting 2+1D Ashkin-Teller model, where we demonstrate that torus spectroscopy is capable of identifying emergent XY/O(2) critical behaviour, thereby solving some longstanding open questions in the domain of the 3D Ashkin-Teller models. To establish the generality of our results, we propose a field theoretical description capturing the transition from a \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 topological order to either \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 symmetry broken phase, which is in excellent agreement with the numerical results.
XY* transitions represent one of the simplest examples of unconventional quantum criticality, in which fractionally charged excitations condense into a superfluid and display novel features that combine quantum criticality and fractionalization.Nevertheless, their experimental realization is challenging.Here we propose to study the XY* transition in quantum Hall bilayers at filling ðν 1 ; ν 2 Þ ¼ ð 1 3 ; 2 3 Þ where the exciton condensate (EC) phase plays the role of the superfluid.Supported by exact diagonalization calculation, we argue that there is a continuous transition between an EC phase at small bilayer separation to a pair of decoupled fractional quantum Hall states at large separation.The transition is driven by condensation of a fractional exciton, a bound state of a Laughlin quasiparticle and quasihole, and is in the XY* universality class.The fractionalization is manifested by unusual properties including a large anomalous exponent and fractional universal conductivity, which can be conveniently measured through interlayer tunneling and counterflow transport, respectively.We also show that the edge is likely to realize the newly predicted extraordinary log boundary criticality.Our work highlights the promise of quantum Hall bilayers as an ideal platform for exploring exotic bulk and boundary critical behaviors that are amenable to immediate experimental exploration in dual-gated bilayer systems.The XY* critical theory can be generalized to a bilayer system with an arbitrary Abelian state in one layer and its particle-hole partner in the other layer.Therefore, we anticipate many distinct XY* transitions corresponding to the different Laughlin states and Jain sequences in the single-layer case.
The interplay among symmetry, topology and condensed matter systems has deepened our understandings of matter and lead to tremendous recent progresses in finding new topological phases of matter such as topological insulators, superconductors and semi-metals. Most examples of the aforementioned topological materials are free fermion systems, in this thesis, however, we focus on their strongly correlated counterparts where electron-electron interactions play a major role. With interactions, exotic topological phases and quantum critical points with fractionalized quantum degrees of freedom emerge. In the first part of this thesis, we study the problem of resonant tunneling through a quantum dot in a spinful Luttinger liquid. It provides the simplest example of a (0+1)d system with symmetry-protected phase transitions. We show that the problem is equivalent to a two channel SU(3) Kondo problem and can be mapped to a quantum Brownian motion model on a Kagome lattice. Utilizing boundary conformal field theory, we find the universal peak conductance and compute the scaling behavior of the resonance line-shape.\nFor the second part, we present a model of interacting Majorana fermions that describes a superconducting phase with a topological order characterized by the Fibonacci topological field theory. Our theory is based on a SO(7)1=SO(7)1/(G2)1 x (G2)1 coset construction and implemented by a solvable two-dimensional network model. In addition, we predict a closely related ''anti-Fibonacci'' phase, whose topological order is characterized by the tricritical Ising model. Finally, we propose an interferometer that generalizes the Z2 Majorana interferometer and directly probes the Fibonacci non-Abelian statistics.\nFor the third part, we argue that a correlated fluid of electrons and holes can exhibit fractional quantum Hall effects at zero magnetic field. We first show that a Chern insulator can be realized as a free fermion model with p-wave(m=1) excitonic pairing. Its ground state wavefunction is then worked out and generalized to m>1. We give several pieces of evidence that this conjectured wavefunction correctly describes a topological phase, dubbed ''fractional excitonic insulator'', within the same universality class as the corresponding Laughlin state at filling 1/m. We present physical arguments that gapless states with higher angular momentum pairing between energy bands are conducive to forming the fractional excitonic insulator in the presence of repulsive interactions. Without interactions, these gapless states appear at topological phase transitions which separate the trivial insulator from a Chern insulator with higher Chern number. Since the nonvanishing density of states at these higher angular momentum band inversion transitions can give rise to interesting many-body effects, we introduce a series of minimal lattice models realizations in two dimensions. We also study the effect of rotational symmetry broken electron-hole exciton condensation in our lattice models using mean field theory.
Recently topological states of matter have witnessed a new physical phenomenon where both edge modes and gapless bulk coexist at topological quantum criticality. The presence and absence of edge modes on a critical line can lead to an unusual class of topological phase transition between the topological and nontopological critical phases. We explore the existence of this new class of topological phase transitions in a generic model representing the topological insulators and superconductors and we show that such transition occurs at a multicritical point, i.e., at the intersection of two critical lines. To characterize these transitions we reconstruct the theoretical frameworks, which include bound state solution of the Dirac equation, winding number, correlation factors, and scaling theory of the curvature function to work for the criticality. Critical exponents and scaling laws are discussed to distinguish between the multicritical points, which separate the critical phases. Entanglement entropy and its scaling in the real space provide further insights into the unique transition at criticality revealing the interplay between fixed point and critical point at the multicriticalities.
Abstract The experimental discovery of the fractional Hall conductivity in two-dimensional electron gases revealed new types of quantum particles, called anyons, which are beyond bosons and fermions as they possess fractionalized exchange statistics. These anyons are usually studied deep inside an insulating topological phase. It is natural to ask whether such fractionalization can be detected more broadly, say near a phase transition from a conventional to a topological phase. To answer this question, we study a strongly correlated quantum phase transition between a topological state, called a Z2 Z 2 quantum spin liquid, and a conventional superfluid using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that the universal conductivity at the quantum critical point becomes a simple fraction of its value at the conventional insulator-to-superfluid transition. Moreover, a dynamically self-dual optical conductivity emerges at low temperatures above the transition point, indicating the presence of the elusive vison particles. Our study opens the door for the experimental detection of anyons in a broader regime, and has ramifications in the study of quantum materials, programmable quantum simulators, and ultra-cold atomic gases. In the latter case, we discuss the feasibility of measurements in optical lattices using current techniques.
The experimental discovery of the fractional Hall conductivity in two-dimensional electron gases revealed new types of quantum particles, called anyons, which are beyond bosons and fermions as they possess fractionalized exchange statistics. These anyons are usually studied deep inside an insulating topological phase. It is natural to ask whether such fractionalization can be detected more broadly, say near a phase transition from a conventional to a topological phase. To answer this question, we study a strongly correlated quantum phase transition between a topological state, called a [Formula: see text] quantum spin liquid, and a conventional superfluid using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that the universal conductivity at the quantum critical point becomes a simple fraction of its value at the conventional insulator-to-superfluid transition. Moreover, a dynamically self-dual optical conductivity emerges at low temperatures above the transition point, indicating the presence of the elusive vison particles. Our study opens the door for the experimental detection of anyons in a broader regime, and has ramifications in the study of quantum materials, programmable quantum simulators, and ultra-cold atomic gases. In the latter case, we discuss the feasibility of measurements in optical lattices using current techniques.