We investigate the self-dual three-state quantum chain with nearest-neighbor interactions and S_3 S 3 , time-reversal, and parity symmetries. We find a rich phase diagram including gapped phases with order-disorder coexistence, integrable critical points with U(1) U ( 1 ) symmetry, and ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic critical regions described by three-state Potts and free-boson conformal field theories respectively. We also find an unusual critical phase which appears to be described by combining two conformal field theories with distinct “Fermi velocities”. The order-disorder coexistence phase has an emergent fractional supersymmetry, and we find lattice analogs of its generators.
We analyze in depth an
S3-invariant nearest-neighbor quantum chain in the region of a
U(1)-invariant self-dual multicritical point. We find four distinct proximate gapped phases. One has three-state Potts order, corresponding to topological order in a parafermionic formulation. Another has ``representation'' symmetry-protected topological (RSPT) order, while its dual exhibits an unusual ``not-
A'' order, where the spins prefer to align in two of the three directions. Within each of the four phases, we find a frustration-free point with exact ground state(s). The exact ground states in the not-
A phase are product states, each an equal-amplitude sum over all states where one of the three spin states on each site is absent. Their dual, the RSPT ground state, is a matrix product state similar to that of Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki. A field-theory analysis shows that all transition lines are in the universality class of the critical three-state Potts model. They provide a lattice realization of a flow from a free-boson field theory to the Potts conformal field theory.
We introduce and analyze a quantum spin or Majorana chain with a tricritical Ising point separating a critical phase from a gapped phase with order-disorder coexistence. We show that supersymmetry is not only an emergent property of the scaling limit but also manifests itself on the lattice. Namely, we find explicit lattice expressions for the supersymmetry generators and currents. Writing the Hamiltonian in terms of these generators allows us to find the ground states exactly at a frustration-free coupling. These confirm the coexistence between two (topologically) ordered ground states and a disordered one in the gapped phase. Deforming the model by including explicit chiral symmetry breaking, we find the phases persist up to an unusual chiral phase transition where the supersymmetry becomes exact even on the lattice.
In this work, we numerically study critical phases in translation-invariant
ZN parafermion chains with both nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping terms. The model can be mapped to a
ZN spin model with nearest-neighbor couplings via a generalized Jordan-Wigner transformation and translational invariance ensures that the spin model is always self-dual. We first study the low-energy spectrum of chains with only nearest-neighbor coupling, which are mapped onto standard self-dual
ZN clock models. For $3\ensuremath{\le}N\ensuremath{\le}6$, we match the numerical results to the known conformal field theory(CFT) identification. We then analyze in detail the phase diagram of a
N=3 chain with both nearest and next-nearest-neighbor hopping and six critical phases with central charges being
4/5, 1, or 2 are found. We find continuous phase transitions between
c=1 and 2 phases, while the phase transition between
c=4/5 and 1 is conjectured to be of Kosterlitz-Thouless type.
Electric-magnetic self-duality of the
Z2 gauge theory, realized microscopically as a half-lattice-translation exchanging electric charge and magnetic flux, has been an influential example of a duality symmetry with an exact lattice realization. We construct the first non-Abelian generalization of this construction: a lattice model of the
S3 quantum double
D(S3) on a tensor product Hilbert space in which the
Z2em anyon-permutation symmetry, exchanging the non-Abelian chargeon
C and fluxon
F, is realized via lattice translation. Consequently we find that the zigzag boundary termination of the model realizes, without fine-tuning, a gapless critical edge state described by the tetracritical Ising CFT. The bulk admits three independent
Z2em-preserving bosonic perturbations, driving
D(S3) into distinct gapped phases. We analyze these transitions by three independent methods: category-theoretic anyon condensation, microscopic lattice Hamiltonians, and Chern-Simons-Higgs theory, which all agree, yielding a unified picture. These examples motivate a minimal-condensation principle: proliferating a bosonic anyon generically drives condensation of a minimal condensable algebra containing it, with symmetry-related condensates appearing as degenerate vacua that spontaneously break the anyon-permutation symmetry. Our model construction extends to an infinite family of self-dual dihedral quantum doubles
D(D2n). Notably, each model is sign-problem-free, opening the door to large-scale numerical exploration of the phases of non-Abelian Chern-Simons-Higgs theories.
An anyon-chain-like lattice model with symmetry described by the Ising fusion category is studied. Combining numerical and analytical studies, we uncover a rich phase diagram that contains three phases: a symmetric critical phase and two categorical symmetry breaking phases. The symmetric phase lies in the same universality class as the usual critical Ising model. The first symmetry-breaking phase, dubbed the \emph{categorical ferromagnetic} phase, has the Ising fusion category fully broken and exhibits a threefold ground-state degeneracy, as expected from the generalized Landau paradigm. The other symmetry-breaking phase is analogous to a conventional antiferromagnet: it breaks lattice translation and part of the Ising fusion category, and therefore is termed the \emph{categorical antiferromagnetic} phase. Unlike ordinary antiferromagnetic states associated with finite invertible symmetry breaking, this phase itself is critical, being described by a fourfold degenerate Ising conformal field theory. We argue more generally that antiferromagnetic states associated with broken non-invertible symmetries have a large low-energy manifold that grows exponentially in system size, due to the greater-than-one quantum dimension of domain walls. We also numerically study the transitions between the three phases. The transition between the symmetric and categorical ferromagnetic phase is described by the
c=7/10 tricritical Ising CFT, while the transition between the symmetric and categorical antiferromagnetic phases is less understood. Our numerical data suggest that the latter transition is continuous and described by a conformal field theory with central charge
c=3/2.
Generalized symmetries often appear in the form of emergent symmetries in low energy effective descriptions of quantum many-body systems. Non-invertible symmetries are a particularly exotic class of generalized symmetries, in that they are implemented by transformations that do not form a group. Such symmetries appear in large families of gapless states of quantum matter and constrain their low-energy dynamics. To provide a UV-complete description of such symmetries, it is useful to construct lattice models that respect these symmetries exactly. In this paper, we discuss two families of one-dimensional lattice Hamiltonians with finite on-site Hilbert spaces: one with (invertible) S_3 S 3 symmetry and the other with non-invertible \mathsf{Rep}(S_3) 𝖱 𝖾 𝗉 ( S 3 ) symmetry. Our models are largely analytically tractable and demonstrate all possible spontaneous symmetry breaking patterns of these symmetries. Moreover, we use numerical techniques to study the nature of continuous phase transitions between the different symmetry-breaking gapped phases associated with both symmetries. Both models have self-dual lines, where the models are enriched by so-called intrinsically non-invertible symmetries generated by Kramers-Wannier-like duality transformations. We provide explicit lattice operators that generate these non-invertible self-duality symmetries. We show that the enhanced symmetry at the self-dual lines is described by a 2+1d symmetry-topological-order (SymTO) of type JK_4\boxtimes \overline{JK}_4 J K 4 ⊠ J K ¯ 4 . The condensable algebras of the SymTO determine the allowed gapped and gapless states of the self-dual S_3 S 3 -symmetric and \mathsf{Rep}(S_3) 𝖱 𝖾 𝗉 ( S 3 ) -symmetric models.