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arXiv:1410.2025 · Physical Review B

Quantum phase transition as an interplay of Kitaev and Ising interactions

A. Langari, Amir Mohammadaghaei, Reza Haghshenas

Published Jan 15, 2015• 8 citations
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Abstract

We study the interplay between the Kitaev and Ising interactions on a ladder geometry. We show that the ground state of the Kitaev ladder is a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase, which is protected by a ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ symmetry. The nature of the SPT phase is confirmed by degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum. Nonlocal order parameters that indirectly measure phase factors (inequivalent projective representations of the symmetries) of the ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ symmetry explicitly show the protection of the SPT phase under the ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ symmetry. We derive the effective theory to describe the topological phase transition on the ladder geometry, which is given by a transverse field Ising model with/without next-nearest-neighbor coupling based on the primary Ising configurations. The ladder has three phases, namely, the Kitaev SPT, symmetry-broken ferro/antiferromagnetic order, and classical spin liquid. The nonzero quantum critical point and its corresponding central charge are provided by the effective theory, which are in full agreement with the numerical results, i.e., the divergence of entanglement entropy at the critical point and change of the entanglement spectrum degeneracy. The central charge of the critical points are either $c=1$ or $c=2$, with the magnetization and correlation exponents being 1/4 and 1/2, respectively. The transition from the classical spin-liquid phase of the frustrated Ising ladder to the Kitaev SPT phase is mediated by a floating phase, which shows strong finite entanglement scaling.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.91.024415

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We study the interplay between the Kitaev and Ising interactions on a ladder geometry. We show that the ground state of the Kitaev ladder is a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase, which is protected by a Z2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fiZ2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fiZ2​ symmetry. The nature of the SPT phase is confirmed by degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum. Nonlocal order parameters that indirectly measure phase factors (inequivalent projective representations of the symmetries) of the Z2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fiZ2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fiZ2​ symmetry explicitly show the protection of the SPT phase under the Z2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fiZ2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fiZ2​ symmetry. We derive the effective theory to describe the topological phase transition on the ladder geometry, which is given by a transverse field Ising model with/without next-nearest-neighbor coupling based on the primary Ising configurations. The ladder has three phases, namely, the Kitaev SPT, symmetry-broken ferro/antiferromagnetic order, and classical spin liquid. The nonzero quantum critical point and its corresponding central charge are provided by the effective theory, which are in full agreement with the numerical results, i.e., the divergence of entanglement entropy at the critical point and change of the entanglement spectrum degeneracy. The central charge of the critical points are either c=1c=1c=1 or c=2c=2c=2, with the magnetization and correlation exponents being 1/4 and 1/2, respectively. The transition from the classical spin-liquid phase of the frustrated Ising ladder to the Kitaev SPT phase is mediated by a floating phase, which shows strong finite entanglement scaling.
We study a three-leg spin-1/2 ladder with geometrically frustrated interleg interactions. We call this model an anisotropic triangular-strip (ATS) model. We numerically and field-theoretically show that its ground state belongs to a gapless symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase. The numerical approach is based on density-matrix renormalization group analyses of the entanglement entropy and the entanglement spectrum. Whereas the entanglement entropy exhibits a critical behavior, the entanglement spectrum is nontrivially degenerate. These entanglement properties imply that the ground state is a gapless topological phase. We investigate the ATS model using a quantum field theory to support the numerical findings. When the frustrated interchain interaction is deemed a perturbation acting on the three spin chains, the frustrated interchain interaction almost isolates the second chain from the other two chains. However, at the same time, the second chain mediates a ferromagnetic interaction between the first and third chains. Therefore, the ground state of the ATS model is a gapless Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid weakly coupled to a spin-1 Haldane chain with irrelevant interactions. Last but not least, we show that the gapless SPT phase of the ATS model is a symmetry-protected critical phase. We point out that the symmetry protection of criticality is essential in characterization of the gapless SPT phase.
We investigate the ground-state phase diagram of a frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg ladder in the transverse magnetic field with an anisotropic inter-rung exchange coupling ααα. This bond-anisotropic parameter continuously interpolates among the Ising-like limit α=0α=0α=0, the isotropic point α=1α=1α=1, and the XY-dominated regime α≫1α\gg 1α≫1. Using density-matrix renormalization group calculations within a matrix-product-state framework, we analyze bipartite entanglement, magnetization, and spin correlations to characterize the emergent quantum phases. We identify six distinct ground-state phases, including rung-singlet, Haldane-like, Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid, canted Ising-ordered, XY-polarized, and ordered ferromagnetic states. While magnetization and local correlations provide a first insight into phase classifications, the finite-size scaling of the entanglement measures offers a more sensitive and unified diagnostics of both gapped and gapless regimes. In the gapless regime, we extract the central charge c≃1c \simeq 1c≃1, confirming Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior, while at the transition between the canted Ising and ferromagnetic phases, we observe c≃1/2c \simeq 1/2c≃1/2, consistent with the Ising universality. Finally, we find that both the Haldane-like behavior and the extended critical Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid regime are strongly confined to the vicinity of the isotropic point α=1α= 1α=1.
We investigate the phase diagram of a bilayer Kitaev honeycomb model with Ising interlayer interactions, deriving effective models via perturbation theory and performing Majorana mean-field theory calculations. We show that a diverse array of magnetic and topological phase transitions occur, depending on the direction of the interlayer Ising interaction and the relative sign of Kitaev interactions. When two layers have the same sign of the Kitaev interaction, a first-order transition from a Kitaev spin liquid to a magnetically ordered state takes place. The magnetic order points along the Ising axis and it is (anti)ferromagnetic for (anti)ferromagnetic Kitaev interactions. However, when two layers have opposite signs of the Kitaev interaction, we observe a notable weakening of magnetic ordering tendencies and the Kitaev spin liquid survives up to a remarkably larger interlayer exchange. Our mean-field analysis suggests the emergence of an intermediate gapped Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ spin-liquid state, which eventually becomes unstable upon vison condensation. The confined phase is described by a highly frustrated ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ compass model. We furthermore use perturbation theory to study the model with the Ising axis pointing along the $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{z}$ axis or lying in the xyxyxy plane. In both cases, our analysis reveals the formation of one-dimensional Ising chains, which remain decoupled in perturbation theory, resulting in a subextensive ground-state degeneracy. Our results highlight the interplay between topological order and magnetic ordering tendencies in bilayer quantum spin liquids.
Abstract Quantum phase transitions out of a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase in (1 + 1) dimensions into an adjacent, topologically distinct SPT phase protected by the same symmetry or a trivial gapped phase, are typically described by a conformal field theory (CFT). At the same time, the low-lying entanglement spectrum of a gapped phase close to such a quantum critical point is known (Cho et al arXiv:1603.04016), very generally, to be universal and described by (gapless) boundary conformal field theory. Using this connection we show that symmetry properties of the boundary conditions in boundary CFT can be used to characterize the symmetry-protected degeneracies of the entanglement spectrum, a hallmark of non-trivial symmetry-protected topological phases. Specifically, we show that the relevant boundary CFT is the orbifold of the quantum critical point with respect to the symmetry group defining the SPT, and that the boundary states of this orbifold carry a quantum anomaly that determines the topological class of the SPT. We illustrate this connection using various characteristic examples such as the time-reversal breaking ‘Kitaev chain’ superconductor (symmetry class D), the Haldane phase, and the Z 8 classification of interacting topological superconductors in symmetry class BDI in (1 + 1) dimensions.
Symmetry-protected trivial (SPt) phases of matter are the product-state analog of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases. This means, SPt phases can be adiabatically connected to a product state by some path that preserves the protecting symmetry. Moreover, SPt and SPT phases can be adiabatically connected to each other when interaction terms that break the symmetries protecting the SPT order are added in the Hamiltonian. It is also known that spin-1 SPT phases in quantum spin chains can emerge as effective intermediate phases of spin-2 Hamiltonians. In this paper we show that a similar scenario is also valid for SPt phases. More precisely, we show that for a given spin-2 quantum chain, effective intermediate spin-1 SPt phases emerge in some regions of the phase diagram, these also being adiabatically connected to nontrivial intermediate SPT phases. We characterize the phase diagram of our model by studying quantities such as the entanglement entropy, symmetry-related order parameters, and 1-site fidelities. Our numerical analysis uses matrix product states and the infinite time evolving block decimation method to approximate ground states of the system in the thermodynamic limit. Moreover, we provide a field theory description of the possible quantum phase transitions between the SPt phases. Together with the numerical results, such a description shows that the transitions may be described by conformal field theories with central charge c=1c=1c=1. Our results are in agreement with, and further generalize, those of Y. Fuji, F. Pollmann, and M. Oshikawa [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 177204 (2015)].
The phase diagram of the quantum compass ladder model is investigated through numerical density matrix renormalization group based on infinite matrix product state algorithm and analytic effective perturbation theory. For this model we obtain two symmetry-protected topological phases, protected by a Z2 × Z2 symmetry, and a topologically-trivial Z2-symmetry-breaking phase. The symmetry-protected topological phases--labeled by symmetry fractionalization--belong to different topological classes, where the complex-conjugate symmetry uniquely distinguishes them. An important result of this classification is that, as revealed by the nature of the Z2-symmetry-breaking phase, the associated quantum phase transitions are accompanied by an explicit symmetry breaking, and thus a local-order parameter conclusively identifies the phase diagram of the underlying model. This is in stark contrast to previous studies which require a non-local string order parameter to distinguish the corresponding quantum phase transitions. We numerically examine our results and show that the local-order parameter is related to the magnetization exponent 0.12 ± 0.01.