arXiv:1906.08817 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B
Self-conjugate representation SU(3) chains
Kyle Wamer, Francisco H. Kim, Miklós Lajkó, Frédéric Mila, Ian K. Affleck
Abstract
It was recently argued that SU(3) chains in the $p$-box symmetric irreducible representation (irrep) exhibit a ``Haldane gap'' when $p$ is a multiple of 3 and are otherwise gapless [Nucl. Phys. B 924, 508 (2017)]. We extend this argument to the self-conjugate irreps of SU(3) with $p$ columns of length 2 and $p$ columns of length 1 in the Young tableau ($p=1$ corresponding to the adjoint irrep), arguing that they are always gapped but have spontaneously broken parity symmetry for $p$ odd but not even.