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arXiv:1902.01858 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Solving the quantum dimer and six-vertex models one electric field line at a time

Jonah Herzog-Arbeitman, S. F. Mantilla, Inti Sodemann

Published Jun 6, 2019• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The nature and the very existence of the resonant plaquette valence bond state that separates the classical columnar phase and the Rokhsar-Kivelson point in the quantum dimer model remains unsettled. Here we take a different line of attack on this model, and on the closely related six-vertex model, by exploiting the global conservation law of the number of electric field lines. This allows us to study a single fluctuating electric field line which we show maps exactly onto a one-dimensional spin chain. In the case of the six-vertex model, the electric field line maps onto the celebrated spin 1/2 XXZ model which can be solved exactly. In the quantum dimer model, the electric field line is mapped onto a two-leg spin 1/2 ladder, which we study using numerical exact diagonalization. Our findings are consistent with the existence of three distinct phases including a Luttinger liquid phase, the one-dimensional precursor to the two-dimensional plaquette valence bond solid. The uncanny resemblance of our quasi-one-dimensional electric field line problem to the full two-dimensional problem suggests that much of the behavior of the latter might be understood by thinking of it as a closely packed array of field lines which themselves are undergoing nontrivial phase transitions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.99.245108

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The nature and the very existence of the resonant plaquette valence bond state that separates the classical columnar phase and the Rokhsar-Kivelson point in the quantum dimer model remains unsettled. Here we take a different line of attack on this model, and on the closely related six-vertex model, by exploiting the global conservation law of the number of electric field lines. This allows us to study a single fluctuating electric field line which we show maps exactly onto a one-dimensional spin chain. In the case of the six-vertex model, the electric field line maps onto the celebrated spin 1/2 XXZ model which can be solved exactly. In the quantum dimer model, the electric field line is mapped onto a two-leg spin 1/2 ladder, which we study using numerical exact diagonalization. Our findings are consistent with the existence of three distinct phases including a Luttinger liquid phase, the one-dimensional precursor to the two-dimensional plaquette valence bond solid. The uncanny resemblance of our quasi-one-dimensional electric field line problem to the full two-dimensional problem suggests that much of the behavior of the latter might be understood by thinking of it as a closely packed array of field lines which themselves are undergoing nontrivial phase transitions.
We study Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) dimer and spin ice models realizing U(1)U(1)U(1)-lattice gauge theories in a wide class of quasi-one-dimensional settings, which define a setup for the study of few quantum strings (closed electric field lines) interacting with themselves and each other. We discover a large collection of mappings of these models onto three quantum chains: the spin-1/2 XXZ chain, a spin-1 chain, and a kinetically constrained fermion chain whose configurations are best described in terms of tilings of a rectangular strip. We show that the twist of boundary conditions in the chains maps onto the transverse momentum of the electric field string, and their Drude weight to the inverse of the string mass per unit length. We numerically determine the phase diagrams for these spin chains, employing DMRG simulations and find global similarities but also many interesting new features in comparison to the full 2D problems. For example, the spin-1 chain we obtain features a continuous family of degenerate ground states at its RK point analogous to a Bloch sphere, but without an underlying microscopic global SU(2)SU(2)SU(2) symmetry. We also argue for the existence of a (stable) Landau-forbidden gapless critical point away from the RK point in one of the models we study using bosonization and numerics. This is surprising given that the full 2D problem is generically gapped away from the RK point. The same model also displays extensively many local conserved quantities which fragment the Hilbert space, arising as a consequence of destructive resonances between the electric field lines. Our findings highlight spin-chain mappings as a potent technique for the exploration of unusual dynamics, exotic criticality, and low-energy physics in lattice gauge theories.
The plaquette phase of the square-lattice quantum dimer model is studied using a continuous-time reptation quantum Monte Carlo method for lattices of sizes up to $48\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}48$ sites. We determine the location of the phase transition between the columnar and plaquette phases to occur at ${V}_{c}∕J=0.60\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.05$ which is significantly larger than inferred from previous exact diagonalization studies on smaller lattices. Off diagonal correlation functions are obtained. They exhibit long-range order in the plaquette phase but not at the Rokhsar-Kivelson point. We also observe significant finite-size corrections to scaling for the transition between the plaquette phase and the critical resonating valence bond liquid. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding finite-size effects when considering critical properties of the square-lattice quantum dimer model.
A family of models is proposed to describe the motion of holes in a fluctuating quantum dimer background on the square lattice. Following Castelnovo et al. [Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 318, 316 (2005)], a generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson Hamiltonian at finite doping which can be mapped on a doped interacting classical dimer model is constructed. A simple physical extension of this model is also considered. Using numerical computations and simple considerations based on the above exact mapping, we determine the phase diagram of the model showing a number of quantum phases typical of a doped Mott insulator. The two-hole correlation function generically exhibits short-range or long-range algebraic correlations in the solid (columnar) and liquid (critical) phases of the model, respectively. Evidence for an extended region of a doped valence bond solid phase exhibiting holon pairing but no phase separation is given. In contrast, we show that hole deconfinement occurs in the staggered dimer phase.
We consider the simplest generalizations of the valence bond physics of SU(2) singlets to SU(N)\mathrm{SU}(N)SU(N) singlets that comprise objects with NNN sites---these are SU(N)\mathrm{SU}(N)SU(N) singlet plaquettes with N=3N=3N=3 and N=4N=4N=4 in three spatial dimensions. Specifically, we search for a quantum mechanical liquid of such objects---a resonating singlet valence plaquette phase that generalizes the celebrated resonating valence bond phase for SU(2) spins. We extend the Rokhsar-Kivelson construction [Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2376 (1988)] of the quantum dimer model to the simplest SU(4) model for valence plaquette dynamics on a cubic lattice. The phase diagram of the resulting quantum plaquette model is analyzed both analytically and numerically. We find that the ground state is solid everywhere, including at the Rokhsar-Kivelson point where the ground state is an equal amplitude sum. By contrast, the equal amplitude sum of SU(3) singlet triangular plaquettes on the face-centered cubic lattice is liquid and is thus a candidate for describing a resonating single valence plaquette phase, given a suitably defined local Hamiltonian.
We study a general class of easy-axis spin models on a lattice of corner sharing even-sided polygons with all-to-all interactions within a plaquette. The low-energy description corresponds to a quantum dimer model on a dual lattice of even coordination number with a multidimer constraint. At an appropriately constructed frustration-free Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point, the ground-state wavefunction can be exactly mapped onto a classical vertex model on the dual lattice. When the dual lattice is bipartite, the vertex models are bonded and are self-dual under Wegner's duality, with the self-dual point corresponding to the RK point of the original multidimer model. We argue that the self-dual point is a critical point based on known exact solutions to some of the vertex models. When the dual lattice is nonbipartite, the vertex model is arrowed, and we use numerical methods to argue that there is no phase transition as a function of the vertex weights. Motivated by these wavefunction dualities, we construct two other distinct families of frustration-free Hamiltonians whose ground states can be mapped onto these vertex models. Many of these RK Hamiltonians provably host Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ topologically ordered phases.
We study the dimer XXZXXZXXZ spin model on two-leg ladders with isotropic Heisenberg interactions on the rung and anisotropic XXZXXZXXZ interactions along the rail in an external field. Combining both analytical and numerical methods, we set up the ground state phase diagram and investigate the quantum phase transitions and the properties of rich phases, including the full polarized, singlet dimer, Luttinger liquid, triplon solid, and a non-trivial antiferromagnetic phases with gap. The analytical analyses based on solvable effective Hamiltonians are presented for clear view of the phases and transitions. Quantum Monte Carlo and exact diagonalization methods are employed on finite system to verify the exact nature of the phases and transitions. Of all the phases, we pay a special attention to the gapped antiferromagnetic phase, which is disclosed to be a non-trivial one that exhibits the time-reversal symmetry. We also discuss how our findings could be detected in experiment in the light of ultracold atoms technology advances.