Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1908.08440 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Topological phases in two-legged Heisenberg ladders with alternating interactions

Greta Ghelli, Giuseppe Magnifico, C. Degli Esposti Boschi, Elisa Ercolessi

Published Feb 14, 2020• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We analyze the possible existence of topological phases in two-legged spin ladders, considering a staggered interaction in both chains. When the staggered interaction in one chain is shifted by one site with respect to the other chain, the model can be mapped, in the continuum limit, into a nonlinear sigma model $\mathrm{NL}\ensuremath{\sigma}\mathrm{M}$ plus a topological term which is nonvanishing when the number of legs is two. This implies the existence of a critical point which distinguishes two phases. We perform a numerical analysis of energy levels, parity, and string nonlocal order parameters, correlation functions between $x,y,z$ components of spins at the edges of an open ladder, the degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum, and the entanglement entropy to characterize these two different phases. We identify one phase with a Mott insulator and the other one with a Haldane insulator.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.101.085124

Related papers

Ground-state phase diagram of the dimerized spin-1/2 two-leg ladder*

Cong Fu, Hui Zhao, Yuguang Chen +1 more

Dimerized spin-1/2 ladders exhibit a variety of phase structures, which depend on the intra-chain and inter-chain spin exchange energies as well as on the dimerization pattern of the ladder. Using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm, we study critical properties of the bond-alternating two-leg Heisenberg spin ladder with diagonal interaction J ×. Two types of spin systems, staggered dimerized antiferromagnetic ladder and columnar dimerized ferro-antiferromagnetic couplings ladder, are investigated. To clarify the phase transition behaviors, we simultaneously analyze the string order parameter (SOP), the twisted order parameter (TOP), as well as a measurement of the quantum information analysis. Based on measuring this different observables, we establish the phase diagram accurately and give the fitting functions of the phase boundaries. In addition, the phase transition of cross-coupled spin ladder (in the absence of intrinsic dimerization) is also discussed.

Chinese Physics B•Mar 5, 2021•2 citations

Phase diagram of an interacting staggered Su-Schrieffer-Heeger two-chain ladder close to a quantum critical point

A. A. Nersesyan

We study the ground-state phase diagram of an interacting staggered Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) ladder in the vicinity of the Gaussian quantum critical point. The corresponding effective field theory, which nonperturbatively treats correlation effects in the ladder, is a double-frequency sine-Gordon (DSG) model. It involves two perturbations at the Gaussian fixed point: the deviation from criticality, and umklapp scattering processes. While massive phases with broken symmetries are identified by means of local order parameters, a topological distinction between thermodynamically equivalent phases becomes feasible only when nonlocal fermionic fields, parity, and the string order parameter are included in consideration. We prove that a noninteracting fermionic staggered SSH ladder is exactly equivalent to an O(2)-symmetric model of two decoupled Kitaev-Majorana chains, or two one-dimensional $p$-wave superconductors. Close to the Gaussian fixed point, the SSH ladder maps to an Ashkin-Teller-like system when interactions are included. Thus, the topological order in the SSH ladder is related to broken-symmetry phases of the associated quantum spin-chain degrees of freedom. The obtained phase diagram includes a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid state that, due to umklapp processes, can become unstable against either spontaneous dimerization or the onset of a charge-density wave (CDW). In these gapped phases, elementary bulk excitations are quantum kinks carrying the charge ${Q}_{F}=1/2$. For sufficiently strong, long-range interactions, the phase diagram of the model exhibits a bifurcation of the Gaussian critical point into two outgoing Ising criticalities. The latter sandwich a mixed phase in which dimerization coexists with a site-diagonal CDW. In this phase, elementary bulk excitations are represented by two types of topological solitons carrying different fermionic charges, which continuously interpolate between 0 and 1. This phase has also mixed topological properties with coexisting parity and string order parameters.

arXiv:2005.10380•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jul 6, 2020•21 citations

Topological phase transition in the two-leg Hubbard model: Emergence of the Haldane phase via diagonal hopping and strong interactions

João Pedro Gama D'Elia, Thereza Paiva

We investigate the two-leg Hubbard model with diagonal hopping to explore the interplay between geometrical frustration and strong electron-electron interactions. Using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method, we demonstrate the emergence of a topological Haldane phase, which results explicitly from the complementary effects of diagonal hopping-induced frustration and strong on-site Coulomb repulsion. The topological phase transition from a trivial insulator to the nontrivial Haldane phase is characterized by significant changes in magnetic properties, edge correlations, and the appearance of a nonzero string order parameter. Furthermore, we confirm the topological nature of this phase through a detailed analysis of the spin gap and entanglement spectrum, demonstrating clear signatures of symmetry-protected topological order.

arXiv:2504.02157•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jul 16, 2025•1 citation

Dualities in spin ladders

Germán Sierra, Miguel A Martin-Delgado

We introduce a set of discrete modular transformations and in order to study the relationships between the different phases of the Heisenberg ladders obtained with all possible exchange coupling constants. For the two-legged ladder we show that the resonating valence bond (RVB) phase is invariant under the transformation, while the Haldane phase is invariant under . These two phases are related by . Moreover, there is a `mixed' phase, that is invariant under , and which under becomes the RVB phase, while under becomes the Haldane phase. For odd ladders there exists only the transformation which, for strong coupling, maps the effective antiferromagnetic spin chain onto the spin chain. Our work is based on a combination of approximate methods such as bosonization, perturbation theory and the nonlinear sigma model, adapted to the different regimes of coupling constants.

arXiv:cond-mat/9706104•Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General•Feb 13, 1998•1 citation

Interacting bosons on a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger ladder: Topological phases and Thouless pumping

Ashirbad Padhan, Suman Mondal, Smitha Vishveshwara +1 more

We study the topological properties of hardcore bosons on a two-leg ladder consisting of two Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains that are coupled via hopping and interaction. We chart out the phase diagram for the system and show that based on the relative hopping dimerization pattern along the legs, distinctly different topological phases and phase transitions can occur. When the dimerization along the legs is uniform, we find that the topological nature vanishes for even the slightest rung hopping. For staggered dimerization, the system exhibits a well-defined topological character and a topological phase transition as a function of rung hopping. While the topological phase shows bond order character, the trivial phase shows the behavior of a rung-Mott insulator. For this case, the topological nature is found to survive even in the presence of finite interleg interactions. Moreover, we find that the critical point of the topological phase transition shifts to a higher or a lower rung hopping strength depending on the attractive or repulsive nature of the interaction. To highlight the marked effects of interactions, we propose a scheme involving a Thouless charge pump that provides insights for the topological phases characterized by a quantized particle transport through a periodic modulation of appropriate system parameters. In our studies, we show an interaction-induced charge pumping following specific pumping protocols in the case of staggered dimerization.

arXiv:2306.09325•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Feb 14, 2024•20 citations

Phase transitions and critical behaviors of XXZ ladders

Chengxiang Ding

Abstract We study the phase transitions and critical behaviors of the two-leg dimerized XXZ ladders by extensive Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis. For the Heisenberg model on the staggered ladder, we verify that the phase transition between the two topological phases belongs to the four-state Potts universality class; for the XY case ( ), the phase diagram is similar to the Heisenberg case, but the critical behavior belongs to a new universality class; for the Ising case ( ), we find three topological phases, in which one of them has both the topological orders and the local magnetic order; the two phase transitions associated with these phases also belong to the Ising universality class. On the columnar ladder, we have not found any phase transition for all the three cases. Furthermore, we find that the magnetic field can also induce phase transitions for both the staggered and columnar models, and the topological phases are in certain magnetic plateaux. For the staggered model, we study the phase transition associated with the plateau of zero magnetization; we find that the critical behavior of the string order parameter belongs to the 2D classical Ising model, and the scaling behavior of the uniform magnetization is different from the Dzhaparidze–Nersesyan–Pokrovsky–Talapov universality class. For the columnar model, we study the phase transition associated with the plateau whose magnetization is half of the saturation value, which has fractional quantized Berry phase; in this case, the conventional string order parameters are not applicable as order parameters, we determine the critical point of this phase transition by the scaling behavior of the uniform magnetization which is also different from the Dzhaparidze–Nersesyan–Pokrovsky–Talapov universality class.

Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment•Jan 1, 2020•3 citations
We analyze the possible existence of topological phases in two-legged spin ladders, considering a staggered interaction in both chains. When the staggered interaction in one chain is shifted by one site with respect to the other chain, the model can be mapped, in the continuum limit, into a nonlinear sigma model NL\ensuremathσM\mathrm{NL}\ensuremath{\sigma}\mathrm{M}NL\ensuremathσM plus a topological term which is nonvanishing when the number of legs is two. This implies the existence of a critical point which distinguishes two phases. We perform a numerical analysis of energy levels, parity, and string nonlocal order parameters, correlation functions between x,y,zx,y,zx,y,z components of spins at the edges of an open ladder, the degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum, and the entanglement entropy to characterize these two different phases. We identify one phase with a Mott insulator and the other one with a Haldane insulator.
Dimerized spin-1/2 ladders exhibit a variety of phase structures, which depend on the intra-chain and inter-chain spin exchange energies as well as on the dimerization pattern of the ladder. Using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm, we study critical properties of the bond-alternating two-leg Heisenberg spin ladder with diagonal interaction J ×. Two types of spin systems, staggered dimerized antiferromagnetic ladder and columnar dimerized ferro-antiferromagnetic couplings ladder, are investigated. To clarify the phase transition behaviors, we simultaneously analyze the string order parameter (SOP), the twisted order parameter (TOP), as well as a measurement of the quantum information analysis. Based on measuring this different observables, we establish the phase diagram accurately and give the fitting functions of the phase boundaries. In addition, the phase transition of cross-coupled spin ladder (in the absence of intrinsic dimerization) is also discussed.
We study the ground-state phase diagram of an interacting staggered Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) ladder in the vicinity of the Gaussian quantum critical point. The corresponding effective field theory, which nonperturbatively treats correlation effects in the ladder, is a double-frequency sine-Gordon (DSG) model. It involves two perturbations at the Gaussian fixed point: the deviation from criticality, and umklapp scattering processes. While massive phases with broken symmetries are identified by means of local order parameters, a topological distinction between thermodynamically equivalent phases becomes feasible only when nonlocal fermionic fields, parity, and the string order parameter are included in consideration. We prove that a noninteracting fermionic staggered SSH ladder is exactly equivalent to an O(2)-symmetric model of two decoupled Kitaev-Majorana chains, or two one-dimensional ppp-wave superconductors. Close to the Gaussian fixed point, the SSH ladder maps to an Ashkin-Teller-like system when interactions are included. Thus, the topological order in the SSH ladder is related to broken-symmetry phases of the associated quantum spin-chain degrees of freedom. The obtained phase diagram includes a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid state that, due to umklapp processes, can become unstable against either spontaneous dimerization or the onset of a charge-density wave (CDW). In these gapped phases, elementary bulk excitations are quantum kinks carrying the charge QF=1/2{Q}_{F}=1/2QF​=1/2. For sufficiently strong, long-range interactions, the phase diagram of the model exhibits a bifurcation of the Gaussian critical point into two outgoing Ising criticalities. The latter sandwich a mixed phase in which dimerization coexists with a site-diagonal CDW. In this phase, elementary bulk excitations are represented by two types of topological solitons carrying different fermionic charges, which continuously interpolate between 0 and 1. This phase has also mixed topological properties with coexisting parity and string order parameters.
We investigate the two-leg Hubbard model with diagonal hopping to explore the interplay between geometrical frustration and strong electron-electron interactions. Using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method, we demonstrate the emergence of a topological Haldane phase, which results explicitly from the complementary effects of diagonal hopping-induced frustration and strong on-site Coulomb repulsion. The topological phase transition from a trivial insulator to the nontrivial Haldane phase is characterized by significant changes in magnetic properties, edge correlations, and the appearance of a nonzero string order parameter. Furthermore, we confirm the topological nature of this phase through a detailed analysis of the spin gap and entanglement spectrum, demonstrating clear signatures of symmetry-protected topological order.
We introduce a set of discrete modular transformations and in order to study the relationships between the different phases of the Heisenberg ladders obtained with all possible exchange coupling constants. For the two-legged ladder we show that the resonating valence bond (RVB) phase is invariant under the transformation, while the Haldane phase is invariant under . These two phases are related by . Moreover, there is a `mixed' phase, that is invariant under , and which under becomes the RVB phase, while under becomes the Haldane phase. For odd ladders there exists only the transformation which, for strong coupling, maps the effective antiferromagnetic spin chain onto the spin chain. Our work is based on a combination of approximate methods such as bosonization, perturbation theory and the nonlinear sigma model, adapted to the different regimes of coupling constants.
We study the topological properties of hardcore bosons on a two-leg ladder consisting of two Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains that are coupled via hopping and interaction. We chart out the phase diagram for the system and show that based on the relative hopping dimerization pattern along the legs, distinctly different topological phases and phase transitions can occur. When the dimerization along the legs is uniform, we find that the topological nature vanishes for even the slightest rung hopping. For staggered dimerization, the system exhibits a well-defined topological character and a topological phase transition as a function of rung hopping. While the topological phase shows bond order character, the trivial phase shows the behavior of a rung-Mott insulator. For this case, the topological nature is found to survive even in the presence of finite interleg interactions. Moreover, we find that the critical point of the topological phase transition shifts to a higher or a lower rung hopping strength depending on the attractive or repulsive nature of the interaction. To highlight the marked effects of interactions, we propose a scheme involving a Thouless charge pump that provides insights for the topological phases characterized by a quantized particle transport through a periodic modulation of appropriate system parameters. In our studies, we show an interaction-induced charge pumping following specific pumping protocols in the case of staggered dimerization.
Abstract We study the phase transitions and critical behaviors of the two-leg dimerized XXZ ladders by extensive Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis. For the Heisenberg model on the staggered ladder, we verify that the phase transition between the two topological phases belongs to the four-state Potts universality class; for the XY case ( ), the phase diagram is similar to the Heisenberg case, but the critical behavior belongs to a new universality class; for the Ising case ( ), we find three topological phases, in which one of them has both the topological orders and the local magnetic order; the two phase transitions associated with these phases also belong to the Ising universality class. On the columnar ladder, we have not found any phase transition for all the three cases. Furthermore, we find that the magnetic field can also induce phase transitions for both the staggered and columnar models, and the topological phases are in certain magnetic plateaux. For the staggered model, we study the phase transition associated with the plateau of zero magnetization; we find that the critical behavior of the string order parameter belongs to the 2D classical Ising model, and the scaling behavior of the uniform magnetization is different from the Dzhaparidze–Nersesyan–Pokrovsky–Talapov universality class. For the columnar model, we study the phase transition associated with the plateau whose magnetization is half of the saturation value, which has fractional quantized Berry phase; in this case, the conventional string order parameters are not applicable as order parameters, we determine the critical point of this phase transition by the scaling behavior of the uniform magnetization which is also different from the Dzhaparidze–Nersesyan–Pokrovsky–Talapov universality class.