There is a deep connection between the ground states of transverse-field spin systems and the late-time distributions of evolving viral populations-within simple models, both are obtained from the principal eigenvector of the same matrix. However, that vector is the wave-function amplitude in the quantum spin model, whereas it is the probability itself in the population model. We show that this seemingly minor difference has significant consequences: Phase transitions that are discontinuous in the spin system become continuous when viewed through the population perspective, and transitions that are continuous become governed by new critical exponents. We introduce a more general class of models that encompasses both cases and that can be solved exactly in a mean-field limit. Numerical results are also presented for a number of one-dimensional chains with power-law interactions. We see that well-worn spin models of quantum statistical mechanics can contain unexpected new physics and insights when treated as population-dynamical models and beyond, motivating further studies.
There is a deep connection between the ground states of transverse-field spin systems and the late-time distributions of evolving viral populations-within simple models, both are obtained from the principal eigenvector of the same matrix. However, that vector is the wave-function amplitude in the quantum spin model, whereas it is the probability itself in the population model. We show that this seemingly minor difference has significant consequences: Phase transitions that are discontinuous in the spin system become continuous when viewed through the population perspective, and transitions that are continuous become governed by new critical exponents. We introduce a more general class of models that encompasses both cases and that can be solved exactly in a mean-field limit. Numerical results are also presented for a number of one-dimensional chains with power-law interactions. We see that well-worn spin models of quantum statistical mechanics can contain unexpected new physics and insights when treated as population-dynamical models and beyond, motivating further studies.
We theoretically study the dynamics of a transverse-field Ising chain with power-law decaying interactions characterized by an exponent α, which can be experimentally realized in ion traps. We focus on two classes of emergent dynamical critical phenomena following a quantum quench from a ferromagnetic initial state: The first one manifests in the time-averaged order parameter, which vanishes at a critical transverse field. We argue that such a transition occurs only for long-range interactions α≤2. The second class corresponds to the emergence of time-periodic singularities in the return probability to the ground-state manifold which is obtained for all values of α and agrees with the order parameter transition for α≤2. We characterize how the two classes of nonequilibrium criticality correspond to each other and give a physical interpretation based on the symmetry of the time-evolved quantum states.
Dynamical correlations of the spin and the energy density are investigated in the critical region of the random transverse-field Ising chain by numerically exact calculations in large finite systems (L ≤ 128). The spin-spin autocorrelation function is found to decay proportional to (log t) −2xm and (log t) −2xs m in the bulk and on the surface, respectively, with xm and x s m the bulk and surface magnetization exponents, respectively. On the other hand the critical energy-energy autocorrelation functions have a power law decay, which are characterized by novel critical exponents ηe ≈ 2.2 in the bulk and η s e ≈ 2.5 at the surface, respectively. The numerical results are compared with the predictions of a scaling theory. 05.50.+q, 64.60.Ak, 68.35.Rh Typeset using REVTEX 1 The asymptotic behavior of the time-dependent correlation functions for interacting many-body systems turned out a very difficult subject of theoretical research. Exact results in this field are scarce, one can mention the one-dimensional spin 1/2 XY-model [1] and the Ising chain in a transverse-field [2]. Both models can be mapped onto a system of non-interacting fermions, where the equal-position correlation functions are calculated by the Pfaffian method utilizing the theory of Töplitz determinants. In this Letter we consider- at the first time- the critical dynamical correlations of an interacting quantum system in the presence of quenched (i.e. time-dependent) disorder. It has recently become clear that quenched disorder has rather different effects on phase transitions in quantum systems [3] than on those thermally driven phase transitions. For example, in the Griffiths phase, which is situated at the disordered side of the critical point, the susceptibility has an essential singularity in classical systems, whereas in a quantum system the corresponding singularity is stronger, it is in a power law form. Here we consider the prototype of random quantum systems the one-dimensional random transverse-field Ising model defined by the Hamiltonian:
The dynamic critical behavior of one-dimensional random spin systems in a field at zero temperature is investigated by a generalized transfer-matrix scaling technique. Three spin models are considered: Heisenberg in a longitudinal field, XY in a transverse field, and Ising in a transverse field, with either spin-glass or random-field disorder. Near the transition, i.e., for small values of the reduced field \ensuremath{\Delta}=(H-Hc), where Hc is the critical field, one finds that the dispersion relation for the low-frequency \ensuremath{\omega}, small-wave-vector k spin-wave excitations takes the scaling form \ensuremath{\omega}=kzf(\ensuremath{\Delta}/kcphi), and exact results are given for the dynamic exponent z and crossover exponent cphi. This form contains a crossover of the frequency \ensuremath{\omega} between two different asymptotic behaviors: kz for \ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\ll}kcphi and ${h}^{\ensuremath{\delta}}$ for \ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\gg}kcphi, where the field exponent is \ensuremath{\delta}=z/cphi. In the case of the Heisenberg systems the spin-glass disorder gives rise to the nontrivial dynamic exponent z=(3/2, whereas in the random-field case it is the exponent associated to the field that becomes nontrivial, taking the value (4/3. For the transverse XY systems the random-field disorder implies nontrivial values for both the dynamic and field exponents, (3/2 and (3/4, respectively, whereas the spin-glass disorder does not affect the dynamics of the system, which behaves like a pure transverse XY ferromagnet. Finally, for the transverse Ising systems neither the random field nor the spin-glass disorder affects the dynamics, which is the same as for a pure transverse Ising ferromagnet.
We numerically investigate classical and quantum correlations in one-dimensional quantum critical systems. The infinite matrix product state (iMPS) representation is employed in order to consider an infinite-size spin chain. By using the infinite time-evolving block decimation algorithm, iMPS ground state wave functions are obtained at critical points for the transverse-field spin-1/2 XY model. From the ground state wave functions, we calculate classical and quantum correlations and mutual information. All of the correlations are found to exhibit a power-law decay with the increments of the lattice distance for both the transition lines of the Ising universality class and the Gaussian universality class. Such power-law scaling behaviors of the correlations manifest the existence of diversing correlation lengths, which means scale invariance. The critical features of the correlations can be characterized by introducing a critical exponent of the power-law decaying correlations. Similar to the critical exponent η of the spin-spin correlation for the universality classes in the transverse-field XY model, we calculate the critical exponents of the two-spin classical and quantum correlations as well as that of the corresponding mutual information. All of the correlations have the same critical exponents, i.e., ηI=ηC=ηD at a critical point, where the superscripts I, C, and D stand for mutual information, classical correlation, and quantum correlation, respectively. Furthermore, the critical exponent η of the spin-spin correlation is shown to relate to η=ηα/2 with α∈{I,C,D}.
We face the problem of detecting and featuring footprints of quantum criticality in the finite-temperature behavior of quantum many-body systems. Our strategy is that of comparing the phase diagram of a system displaying a T=0 quantum phase transition with that of its classical limit, in order to single out the genuinely quantum effects. To this aim, we consider the one-dimensional Ising model in a transverse field: while the quantum S=1∕2 Ising chain is exactly solvable and extensively studied, results for the classical limit $(S\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty})$ of such model are lacking, and we supply them here. They are obtained numerically, via the transfer-matrix method, and their asymptotic low-temperature behavior is also derived analytically by self-consistent spin-wave theory. We draw the classical phase diagram according to the same procedure followed in the quantum analysis, and the two phase diagrams are found unexpectedly similar: Three regimes are detected also in the classical case, each characterized by a functional dependence of the correlation length on temperature and field analogous to that of the quantum model. What discriminates the classical from the quantum case are the different values of the exponents entering such dependencies, a consequence of the different nature of zero-temperature quantum fluctuations with respect to the thermal ones.
We review quantum phase transitions of spin systems in transverse magnetic fields taking the examples of the spin-1/2 Ising and XY models in a transverse field. Beginning with an overview of quantum phase transitions, we introduce a number of model Hamiltonians. We provide exact solutions in one spatial dimension connecting them to conformal field theoretical studies. We also discuss Kitaev models and some other exactly solvable spin systems. Studies of quantum phase transitions in the presence of quenched randomness and with frustrating interactions are presented in detail. We discuss novel phenomena like Griffiths-McCoy singularities. We then turn to more recent topics like information theoretic measures of the quantum phase transitions in these models such as concurrence, entanglement entropy, quantum discord and quantum fidelity. We then focus on non-equilibrium dynamics of a variety of transverse field systems across quantum critical points and lines. After mentioning rapid quenching studies, we dwell on slow dynamics and discuss the Kibble-Zurek scaling for the defect density following a quench across critical points and its modifications for quenching across critical lines, gapless regions and multicritical points. Topics like the role of different quenching schemes, local quenching, quenching of models with random interactions and quenching of a spin chain coupled to a heat bath are touched upon. The connection between non-equilibrium dynamics and quantum information theoretic measures is presented at some length. We indicate the connection between Kibble-Zurek scaling and adiabatic evolution of a state as well as the application of adiabatic dynamics as a tool of a quantum optimization technique known as quantum annealing. The final section is dedicated to a detailed discussion on recent experimental studies of transverse Ising-like systems.