We present a numerical method for the evaluation of the mass gap and the low-lying energy gaps of a large family of free-fermionic and free-parafermionic quantum chains. The method is suitable for some generalizations of the quantum Ising and XY models with multispin interactions. We illustrate the method by considering the Ising quantum chains with uniform and random coupling constants. The mass gaps of these quantum chains are obtained from the largest root of a characteristic polynomial. We also show that the Laguerre bound, for the largest root of a polynomial, used as an initial guess for the largest root in the method, gives us estimates for the mass gaps sharing the same leading finite-size behavior as the exact results. This opens an interesting possibility of obtaining precise critical properties very efficiently, which we explore by studying the critical point and the paramagnetic Griffiths phase of the quantum Ising chain with random couplings. In this last phase, we obtain the effective dynamical critical exponent as a function of the distance to criticality. Finally, we compare the mass gap estimates derived from the Laguerre bound and the strong-disorder renormalization-group method. Both estimates require comparable computational efforts, with the former having the advantage of being more accurate and also being applicable away from infinite-randomness fixed points. We believe this method is a relevant tool for tackling critical quantum chains with and without quenched disorder.
We present a numerical method for the evaluation of the mass gap and the low-lying energy gaps of a large family of free-fermionic and free-parafermionic quantum chains. The method is suitable for some generalizations of the quantum Ising and XY models with multispin interactions. We illustrate the method by considering the Ising quantum chains with uniform and random coupling constants. The mass gaps of these quantum chains are obtained from the largest root of a characteristic polynomial. We also show that the Laguerre bound, for the largest root of a polynomial, used as an initial guess for the largest root in the method, gives us estimates for the mass gaps sharing the same leading finite-size behavior as the exact results. This opens an interesting possibility of obtaining precise critical properties very efficiently, which we explore by studying the critical point and the paramagnetic Griffiths phase of the quantum Ising chain with random couplings. In this last phase, we obtain the effective dynamical critical exponent as a function of the distance to criticality. Finally, we compare the mass gap estimates derived from the Laguerre bound and the strong-disorder renormalization-group method. Both estimates require comparable computational efforts, with the former having the advantage of being more accurate and also being applicable away from infinite-randomness fixed points. We believe this method is a relevant tool for tackling critical quantum chains with and without quenched disorder.
We study the effects of quenched disorder in a class of quantum chains with (p+1)-multispin interactions exhibiting a free fermionic spectrum, paying special attention to the case p=2. Depending if disorder couples to (i) all the couplings or just to (ii) some of them, we have two distinct physical scenarios. In case (i), we find that the transitions of the model are governed by a universal infinite-randomness critical point surrounded by quantum Griffiths phases similarly as happens to the random transverse-field Ising chain. In case (ii), we find that quenched disorder becomes an irrelevant perturbation: the clean critical behavior is stable and Griffiths phases are absent. Beyond the perturbative regime, disorder stabilizes a line of finite-randomness critical points (with nonuniversal critical exponents), that ends in a multicritical point of infinite-randomness type. In that case, quantum Griffiths phases also appear surrounding the finite-disorder transition point. We have characterized the correlation functions and the low-temperature thermodynamics of these chains. Our results are derived from a strong-disorder renormalization-group technique and from finite-size scaling analysis of the spectral gap computed exactly (up to sizes $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{7}$) via an efficient new numerical method recently introduced in the literature [Phys. Rev. B 104, 174206 (2021)].
We present a general study of a large family of exactly integrable quantum chains with multispin interactions. The exact integrability follows from the algebraic properties of the energy density operators defining the quantum chains. The Hamiltonians are characterized by a parameter $p=1,2,\ensuremath{\cdots}$ related to the number of interacting spins in the multispin interaction. In the general case, the quantum spins are of infinite dimension. In special cases, characterized by the parameter N=2,3,..., the quantum chains describe the dynamics of Z(N) quantum spin chains with open boundary conditions. The simplest case p=1 corresponds to the free fermionic quantum Ising chain (N=2) or the Z(N) free parafermionic quantum chain. The eigenenergies of the quantum chains are given in terms of the roots of special polynomials, and for general values of p the quantum chains are characterized by a free fermionic (N=2) or free parafermionic (N>2) eigenspectrum. The models have a special critical point when all coupling constants are equal. At this point, the ground-state energy is exactly calculated in the bulk limit, and our analytical and numerical analyses indicate that the models belong to universality classes of critical behavior with dynamical critical exponent z=(p+1)/N and specific-heat exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha}=max{0,1\ensuremath{-}(p+1)/N}$.
We employ an adaptation of a strong-disorder renormalization group technique in order to analyze the ferro–paramagnetic quantum phase transition of Ising chains with aperiodic but deterministic couplings under the action of a transverse field. In the presence of marginal or relevant geometric fluctuations induced by aperiodicity, for which the critical behavior is expected to depart from the Onsager universality class, we derive analytical and asymptotically exact expressions for various critical exponents (including the correlation length and the magnetization exponents, which are not easily obtainable by other methods), and shed light onto the nature of the ground-state structures in the neighborhood of the critical point. The main results obtained by this approach are confirmed by finite-size scaling analyses of numerical calculations based on the free-fermion method.
Finite-size scaling analysis turns out to be a powerful tool to calculate the phase diagram as well as the critical properties of two-dimensional classical statistical mechanics models and quantum Hamiltonians in one dimension. The most used method to locate quantum critical points is the so-called crossing method, where the estimates are obtained by comparing the mass gaps of two distinct lattice sizes. The success of this method is due to its simplicity and the ability to provide accurate results even considering relatively small lattice sizes. In this paper, we introduce an estimator that locates quantum critical points by exploring the known distinct behavior of the entanglement entropy in critical and noncritical systems. As a benchmark test, we use this new estimator to locate the critical point of the quantum Ising chain and the critical line of the spin-1 Blume-Capel quantum chain. The tricritical point of this last model is also obtained. Comparison with the standard crossing method is also presented. The method we propose is simple to implement in practice, particularly in density matrix renormalization group calculations, and provides us, like the crossing method, amazingly accurate results for quite small lattice sizes. Our applications show that the proposed method has several advantages, as compared with the standard crossing method, and we believe it will become popular in future numerical studies.
We introduce a family of Z(N) multispin quantum chains with a free fermionic (N=2) or free parafermionic (N>2) eigenspectrum. The models have (p+1) interacting spins ($p=1,2,\ensuremath{\cdots}$), which are Hermitian in the Z(2) (Ising) case and non-Hermitian for N>2. We construct a set of mutually commuting charges that allows us to derive the eigenenergies in terms of the roots of polynomials generated by a recurrence relation of order (p+1). In the critical limit we identify these polynomials with certain hypergeometric polynomials p+1Fp. Also in the critical regime, we calculate the ground-state energy in the bulk limit and verify that they are given in terms of the Lauricella hypergeometric series. The models with special couplings are self-dual and at the self-dual point show a critical behavior with a dynamical critical exponent zc=Np+1.
Based on a relationship with continuous-time random walks discovered by Igl\'oi, Turban, and Rieger [Phys. Rev. E 59, 1465 (1999)], we derive exact lower and upper bounds on the lowest energy gap of open transverse-field Ising chains, which are explicit in the parameters and are generally valid for arbitrary sets of possibly random couplings and fields. In the homogeneous chain and in the random chain with uncorrelated parameters, both the lower and upper bounds are found to show the same finite-size scaling in the ferromagnetic phase and at the critical point, demonstrating the ability of these bounds to infer the correct finite-size scaling of the critical gap. Applying the bounds to random transverse-field Ising chains with coupling-field correlations, a model which is relevant for adiabatic quantum computing, the finite-size scaling of the gap is shown to be related to that of sums of independent random variables. We determine the critical dynamical exponent of the model and reveal the existence of logarithmic corrections at special points.