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arXiv:2004.04415 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Open spin chain realization of a topological defect in a one-dimensional Ising model: Boundary and bulk symmetry

Yoshiki Fukusumi, Shumpei Iino

Published Sep 9, 2021• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the realizations of topological defects in a one-dimensional quantum Ising model with an open boundary condition at criticality. Applying the construction discussed in M. Hauru, G. Evenbly, W. W. Ho, D. Gaiotto, and G. Vidal, Phys. Rev. B 94, 115125 (2016), we prove that the Ising model on an open chain with multiple topological defects can be transformed to the same model with boundary magnetic fields and noninteracting boundary degrees of freedom. This results in the appearance of a linear combination of Cardy states, which can be interpreted as an edge state of the spin or fermion chain. We show that this edge state with the large boundary entropy can be protected under bulk perturbation, whereas it is fragile to a boundary perturbation. Our formulation suggests the existence of nontrivial edge physics under the existence of topological defects and opens many interesting questions for future analysis related to boundary and bulk physics.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.104.125418

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We study the realizations of topological defects in a one-dimensional quantum Ising model with an open boundary condition at criticality. Applying the construction discussed in M. Hauru, G. Evenbly, W. W. Ho, D. Gaiotto, and G. Vidal, Phys. Rev. B 94, 115125 (2016), we prove that the Ising model on an open chain with multiple topological defects can be transformed to the same model with boundary magnetic fields and noninteracting boundary degrees of freedom. This results in the appearance of a linear combination of Cardy states, which can be interpreted as an edge state of the spin or fermion chain. We show that this edge state with the large boundary entropy can be protected under bulk perturbation, whereas it is fragile to a boundary perturbation. Our formulation suggests the existence of nontrivial edge physics under the existence of topological defects and opens many interesting questions for future analysis related to boundary and bulk physics.
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The bulk electric polarization works as a nonlocal order parameter that characterizes topological quantum matters. Motivated by a recent paper [H. Watanabe et al., Phys. Rev. B 103, 134430 (2021)], we discuss magnetic analogs of the bulk polarization in one-dimensional quantum spin systems, that is, quantized magnetizations on the edges of one-dimensional quantum spin systems. The edge magnetization shares the topological origin with the fractional edge state of the topological odd-spin Haldane phases. Despite this topological origin, the edge magnetization can also appear in topologically trivial quantum phases. We develop straightforward field theoretical arguments that explain the characteristic properties of the edge magnetization. The field theory shows that a U(1) spin-rotation symmetry and a site-centered or bond-centered inversion symmetry protect the quantization of the edge magnetization. We proceed to discussions that quantum phases on nonzero magnetization plateaus can also have the quantized edge magnetization that deviates from the magnetization density in bulk. We demonstrate that the quantized edge magnetization distinguishes two quantum phases on a magnetization plateau separated by a quantum critical point. The edge magnetization exhibits an abrupt stepwise change from zero to 1/21/21/2 at the quantum critical point because the quantum phase transition occurs in the presence of the symmetries protecting the quantization of the edge magnetization. We also show that the quantized edge magnetization can result from the spontaneous ferrimagnetic order.
Quantum critical points can host symmetry-protected topological (SPT) edge modes even when the bulk is gapless, giving rise to symmetry-enriched universality classes beyond the conventional Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson paradigm. Here we show that the tricritical Ising (TCI) critical point-described by a paradigmatic conformal field theory (CFT) with emergent supersymmetry-admits a topologically nontrivial, symmetry-enriched realization, which we term the topological TCI. We construct this critical point in the cluster O'Brien-Fendley (OF) spin chain by applying an SPT entangler to the original OF model. The two realizations therefore share the same bulk TCI CFT. Under open boundary conditions, however, the original model exhibits the free conformal boundary condition, whereas the cluster model exhibits a spontaneously fixed boundary condition: an infinitesimal boundary field can select one of the fixed boundary states, yielding spontaneous boundary magnetization. We further show that symmetry enrichment and boundary renormalization-group flow provide two routes to the spontaneously fixed boundary condition. Whereas the free and spontaneously fixed boundary conditions of the original model can be interconverted by tuning a symmetry-preserving boundary term, no such conversion occurs for the cluster model along the boundary deformations studied here, even in the strong-deformation limit. Although they share the same conventional boundary CFT (BCFT) data, including the boundary operator content and boundary-function, the two realizations of the spontaneously fixed boundary condition are distinguished by different time-reversal charges of the disorder field, which impose different symmetry constraints on the allowed boundary conditions under symmetry-preserving boundary deformations. For the tested symmetry-preserving boundary perturbations that lift the exact twofold degeneracy, the finite-size energy splitting is numerically consistent with exponential decay over accessible system sizes, in stark contrast to the algebraic splitting at the symmetry-enriched Ising critical point of the cluster Ising spin chain. We also find that the topological TCI realization persists along a critical line in a two-parameter phase diagram. These results establish a symmetry-enriched TCI universality class and uncover boundary distinctions invisible to conventional BCFT data.
The edge of a quantum critical system can exhibit multiple distinct types of boundary criticality. We use a numerical real-space renormalization group (RSRG) to study the boundary criticality of a 2d quantum Ising model with random exchange couplings and transverse fields, whose bulk exhibits an infinite randomness critical point. This approach enables an asymptotically numerically exact extraction of universal scaling data from very large systems with many thousands of spins that cannot be efficiently simulated directly. We identify three distinct classes of boundary criticality, and extract key scaling exponents governing boundary-boundary and boundary-bulk correlations and dynamics. We anticipate that this approach can be generalized to studying a broad class of (disordered) boundary criticality, including symmetry-enriched criticality and edge modes of gapless symmetry-protected topological states, in contexts were other numerical methods are restricted to one-dimensional chains.
In symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases, the combination of symmetries and a bulk gap stabilizes protected modes at surfaces or at topological defects. Understanding the fate of these modes at a quantum critical point, when the protecting symmetries are on the verge of being broken, is an outstanding problem. This interplay of topology and criticality must incorporate both the bulk dynamics of critical points, often described by nontrivial conformal field theories, and SPT physics. Here, we study the simplest nontrivial setting - that of a 0+1 dimensional topological mode - a quantum spin - coupled to a 2+1D critical bulk. Using the large-NNN technique we solve a series of models which, as a consequence of topology, demonstrate intermediate coupling fixed points. We compare our results to previous numerical simulations and find good agreement. We also point out intriguing connections to generalized Kondo problems and Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models. In particular, we show that a Luttinger theorem derived for the complex SYK models, that relates the charge density to particle-hole asymmetry, also holds in our setting. These results should help stimulate further analytical study of the interplay between SPT physics and quantum criticality.
I study the universal finite-size scaling function for the lowest gap of the quantum Ising chain with a one-parameter family of ``defect'' boundary conditions, which includes periodic, open, and antiperiodic boundary conditions as special cases. The universal behavior can be described by the Majorana fermion field theory in 1+11+11+1 dimensions, with the mass proportional to the deviation from the critical point. Although the field theory appears to be symmetric with respect to the inversion of the mass (Kramers-Wannier duality), the actual gap is asymmetric, reflecting the spontaneous symmetry breaking in the ordered phase which leads to the two-fold ground-state degeneracy in the thermodynamic limit. The asymptotic ground-state degeneracy in the ordered phase is realized by (i) formation of a bound state at the defect (except for the periodic/antiperiodic boundary condition) and (ii) effective reversal of the fermion number parity in one of the sectors (except for the open boundary condition), resulting in a rather nontrivial crossover ``phase'' diagram in the space of the boundary condition (defect strength) and mass.