The broken symmetry state with off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), which is characterized by the vacuum expectation value of the operator of creation of the conserved quantum number Q, has the time-dependent order parameter. However, the breaking of the time translation symmetry is observable only if the charge Q is not strictly conserved and may decay. This dichotomy is resolved in systems with quasi-ODLRO. These systems have two well separated relaxation times: the relaxation time τ Q of the charge Q and the energy relaxation time τ E . If τ Q ≫ τ E , the perturbed system relaxes first to the state with the ODLRO, which persists for a long time and finally relaxes to the full equilibrium static state. In the limit τQ → ∞, but not in the strict limit case when the charge Q is conserved, the intermediate ODLRO state can be considered as the ground state of the system at fixed Q with the observable spontaneously broken time translation symmetry. Examples of systems with quasi-ODLRO are provided by superfluid phase of liquid 4He, Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons (phase coherent spin precession) and precessing vortices.
The confluence of quantum mechanics and complexity, which leads to the emergence of rich, exotic states of matter, motivates the extension of our concepts of quantum ordering. The twin concepts of spontaneously broken symmetry, described in terms of a Landau order parameter, and of off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), are fundamental to our understanding of phases of matter. In electronic matter it has long been assumed that Landau order parameters involve an even number of electron fields, with integer spin and even charge, that are bosons. On the other hand, in low-dimensional magnetism, operators are known to fractionalize so that the excitations carry spin-1/2. Motivated by experiment, mean-field theory and computational results, we extend the concept of ODLRO into the time domain, proposing that in a broken symmetry state, quantum operators can fractionalize into half-integer order parameters. Using numerical renormalization group studies we show how such fractionalized order can be induced in quantum impurity models. We then conjecture that such order develops spontaneously in lattice quantum systems, due to positive feedback, leading to a new family of phases, manifested by a coincidence of broken symmetry and fractionalized excitations that can be detected by experiment.
Dissipative time crystals can appear in spin systems, when the
Z2 symmetry of the Hamiltonian is broken by the environment, and the square of total spin operator
S2 is conserved. In this paper, we relax the latter condition and show that time-translation-symmetry-breaking collective oscillations persist, in the thermodynamic limit, even in the absence of spin symmetry. We engineer an ad hoc Lindbladian using power-law-decaying spin operators and show that time-translation-symmetry breaking appears when the decay exponent obeys $0<\ensuremath{\eta}\ensuremath{\le}1$. This model shows a surprisingly rich phase diagram, including the time-crystal phase as well as first-order, second-order, and continuous transitions of the fixed points. We study the phase diagram and the magnetization dynamics in the mean-field approximation. We prove that this approximation is quantitatively accurate, when $0<\ensuremath{\eta}<1$ and the thermodynamic limit is taken, because the system does not develop sizable quantum fluctuations, if the Gaussian approximation is considered.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking originats in quantum mechanical measurement of the relevant observable defining the physical situation, order parameter is the average of this observable. A modification is made on the random-phase postulate validating the ensemble description. Off-diagonal long-range order, macroscopic wavefunction and interference effects in many-particle systems present when there is a so-called nucleation of quantum state, which is proposed to be the origin of spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking, for which nonconservation of particle number N is not essential. The approach based on nonvanishing expectation of the field operator, $$, is only a coherent-state approximation in thermodynamic limit. When $N \to \infty$, this approach is equivalent, but $$ is not the macroscopic wavefunction.
Characterizing the scaling with the total particle number (
N) of the largest eigenvalue of the one-body density matrix (${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{0}$) provides information on the occurrence of the off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO) according to the Penrose-Onsager criterion. Setting ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{0}\ensuremath{\sim}{N}^{{\mathcal{C}}_{0}}$, then
C0=1 corresponds in ODLRO. The intermediate case,
0<C0<1, corresponds in translational invariant systems to the power-law decaying of (nonconnected) correlation functions and it can be seen as identifying quasi-long-range order. The goal of the present paper is to characterize the ODLRO properties encoded in
C0 (and in the corresponding quantities ${\mathcal{C}}_{k\ensuremath{\ne}0}$ for excited natural orbitals) exhibited by homogeneous interacting bosonic systems at finite temperature for different dimensions in presence of short-range repulsive potentials. We show that ${\mathcal{C}}_{k\ensuremath{\ne}0}=0$ in the thermodynamic limit. In one dimension it is
C0=0 for nonvanishing temperature, while in three dimensions it is
C0=1 (
C0=0) for temperatures smaller (larger) than the Bose-Einstein critical temperature. We then focus our attention to
D=2, studying the
XY and the Villain models, and the weakly interacting Bose gas. The universal value of
C0 near the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless temperature
TBKT is
7/8. The dependence of
C0 on temperatures between
T=0 (at which
C0=1) and
TBKT is studied in the different models. An estimate for the (nonperturbative) parameter $\ensuremath{\xi}$ entering the equation of state of the two-dimensional Bose gases is obtained using low-temperature expansions and compared with the Monte Carlo result. We finally discuss a ``double jump'' behavior for
C0, and correspondingly of the anomalous dimension $\ensuremath{\eta}$, right below
TBKT in the limit of vanishing interactions.
We consider a quantum many-body system on a lattice which exhibits a spontaneous symmetry breaking in its infinite volume ground states, but in which the corresponding order operator does not commute with the Hamiltonian. Typical examples are the Heisenberg antiferromagnet with a Néel order, and the Hubbard model with a (superconducting) off-diagonal long range order. In the corresponding finite system, the symmetry breaking is usually “obscured ” by “quantum fluctuation ” and one gets a symmetric ground state with a long range order. In such a situation, Horsch and von der Linden proved that the finite system has a low-lying eigenstate whose excitation energy is not more than of order N −1, where N denotes the number of the sites in the lattice. Here we study the situation where the broken symmetry is a continuous one. For a particular set of states (which are orthogonal to the ground state and with each other), we prove bounds for their energy expectation values. The bounds establish that there exist ever increasing numbers of low-lying eigenstates whose excitation energies are bounded by a constant times N −1. A crucial feature of the particular low-lying
For a strongly interacting boson system, it has been proposed that the concept of off-diagonal long-range ordering (ODLRO) is equivalent to Bose-Einstein condensation for a free boson system. Therefore, the existence of ODLRO in the ground state implies superfluidity. The author checks the validity of this proposition from another point of view. He rigorously shows that, for a hard-core lattice-boson system with a short-ranged interaction ODLRO is suppressed when a charged excitation gap develops and, hence, the boson system becomes a Mott-insulator. Finally, by using his theorem, he shows some interesting properties of the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model, which can be taken as a hard-core lattice-boson system.