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arXiv:1111.3949 · Physical Review B

Quantum phase transitions in the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model

Martin Hohenadler, Zi Yang Meng, Thomas C. Lang, Stefan Weßel, A. Muramatsu, Fakher F. Assaad

Published Mar 29, 2012• 159 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the two-dimensional Kane-Mele-Hubbard model at half filling by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We present a refined phase boundary for the quantum spin liquid. The topological insulator at finite Hubbard interaction strength is adiabatically connected to the groundstate of the Kane-Mele model. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling, magnetic order at large Hubbard $U$ is restricted to the transverse direction. The transition from the topological band insulator to the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator is in the universality class of the three-dimensional XY model. The numerical data suggest that the spin liquid to topological insulator and spin liquid to Mott insulator transitions are both continuous.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.85.115132

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We study the two-dimensional Kane-Mele-Hubbard model at half filling by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We present a refined phase boundary for the quantum spin liquid. The topological insulator at finite Hubbard interaction strength is adiabatically connected to the groundstate of the Kane-Mele model. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling, magnetic order at large Hubbard UUU is restricted to the transverse direction. The transition from the topological band insulator to the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator is in the universality class of the three-dimensional XY model. The numerical data suggest that the spin liquid to topological insulator and spin liquid to Mott insulator transitions are both continuous.
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The phase diagram of the strongly correlated Hubbard model with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling on the honeycomb lattice is explored here. We obtain the low-energy effective model describing the spin degree of freedom. The resulting model is then studied by the Schwinger boson and Schwinger fermion approaches. The Schwinger boson method elucidates the boundary between the spin liquid phase and the magnetically ordered phases, Neel order, and incommensurate Neel order. Increasing the strength of the spin-orbit coupling is shown to narrow the width of the spin liquid region. The Schwinger fermion approach sheds further light on the nature of the spin liquid phase. We obtained three different candidates for the spin liquid phase within the mean-field approximation, namely, the gapless spin liquid, topological Mott insulator (fractionalized topological insulator), and chiral spin liquid phases. However, we argue that the gauge fluctuations and the instanton effect may suppress the first two spin liquids, while the chiral spin liquid is stable against gauge fluctuations due to its nontrivial topology.
Topological insulators present a bulk gap, but allow for dissipationless spin transport along the edges. These exotic states are characterized by the Z2 topological invariant and are protected by time-reversal symmetry. The Kane–Mele model is one model to realize this topological class in two dimensions, also called the quantum spin Hall state. In this brief review article, we provide a pedagogical introduction to the influence of correlation effects in the quantum spin Hall states, with special focus on the half-filled Kane–Mele–Hubbard model, solved by means of unbiased determinant quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations. We explain the idea of identifying the topological insulator via π-flux insertion, the Z2 invariant and the associated behavior of the zero-frequency Green's function, as well as the spin Chern number in parameter-driven topological phase transitions. The examples considered are two descendants of the Kane–Mele–Hubbard model, the generalized and dimerized Kane–Mele–Hubbard model. From the Z2 index, spin Chern numbers and the Green's function behavior, one can observe that correlation effects induce shifts of the topological phase boundaries. Although the implementation of these topological quantities has been successfully employed in QMC simulations to describe the topological phase transition, we also point out their limitations as well as suggest possible future directions in using numerical methods to characterize topological properties of strongly correlated condensed matter systems.
We investigate the magnetic and conduction properties of Kane-Mele Hubbard model in quasi one-dimensional honeycomb ribbon systems at half-filling by varying the strength of both spin-orbit interaction and on-site Coulomb correlation term. We use the numerical many-body configuration interaction (CI) method to investigate the dispersions of charge and spin gaps along with the momentum resolved spin-density profile over the full Brillouin zone. While the spin sector retains its topological nature at all values of spin-orbit coupling and Hubbard term, we report a new signature of the topological phase transition in the charge sector. This phase transition from a topological band insulating phase to a antiferromagnetically ordered Mott insulating phase is characterized by a shift of the many-body charge gap minima from Brillouin zone boundary to Dirac point. Our results provide a better understanding of the shifting of the gap-closing point in the momentum space which was reported in an earlier mean-field study of the same model and suggests an alternative numerical route to detect topological phase transition in strongly-correlated systems in terms of their momentum space behaviors.
The interplay of topology and correlations defines a new playground to study boundary criticality in quantum systems. We employ large scale auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study a two-dimensional Kane-Mele-Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice with zig-zag edges and the Hubbard U-term tuned to the three-dimensional XY bulk critical point. Upon varying the Hubbard-U term on the edge we observe a boundary phase transition from an ordinary phase with a helical Luttinger liquid edge decoupled from the critical bulk to an extraordinary-log phase characterized by a logarithmically diverging spin stiffness. We find that the spectral functions exhibit distinct features in the two phases giving potential experimental signatures.