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arXiv:2206.11754 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Eight-vertex criticality in the interacting Kitaev chain

Natalia Chepiga, Frédéric Mila

Published Feb 13, 2023• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show that including pairing and repulsion into the description of one-dimensional spinless fermions, as in the domain wall theory of commensurate melting or the interacting Kitaev chain, leads, for strong enough repulsion, to a line of critical points in the eight-vertex universality class terminating floating phases with emergent $U(1)$ symmetry. For nearest-neighbor repulsion and pairing, the variation of the critical exponents along the line that can be extracted from Baxter's exact solution of the $XYZ$ chain at ${J}_{x}=\ensuremath{-}{J}_{z}$ is fully confirmed by extensive density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations of the entire phase diagram, and the qualitative features of the phase diagram are shown to be independent of the precise form of the interactions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.107.l081106

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We show that including pairing and repulsion into the description of one-dimensional spinless fermions, as in the domain wall theory of commensurate melting or the interacting Kitaev chain, leads, for strong enough repulsion, to a line of critical points in the eight-vertex universality class terminating floating phases with emergent U(1)U(1)U(1) symmetry. For nearest-neighbor repulsion and pairing, the variation of the critical exponents along the line that can be extracted from Baxter's exact solution of the XYZXYZXYZ chain at Jx=\ensuremath−Jz{J}_{x}=\ensuremath{-}{J}_{z}Jx​=\ensuremath−Jz​ is fully confirmed by extensive density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations of the entire phase diagram, and the qualitative features of the phase diagram are shown to be independent of the precise form of the interactions.
We study Majorana chain with the shortest possible interaction term and in the presence of hopping alternation. When formulated in terms of spins the model corresponds to the transverse field Ising model with nearest-neighbor transverse and next-nearest-neighbor longitudinal repulsion. The phase diagram obtained with extensive DMRG simulations is very rich and contains six phases. Four gapped phases include paramagnetic, period-2 with broken translation symmetry, \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 with broken parity symmetry and the period-2- \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 phase with both symmetries broken. In addition there are two floating phases: gapless and critical Luttinger liquid with incommensurate correlations, and with an additional spontaneously broken \mathbb{Z}_2 ℤ 2 symmetry in one of them. By analyzing an extended phase diagram we demonstrate that, in contrast with a common belief, the Luttinger liquid phase along the self-dual critical line terminates at a weaker interaction strength than the end point of the Ising critical line that we find to be in the tri-critical Ising universality class. We also show that none of these two points is a Lifshitz point terminating the incommensurability. In addition, we analyzed topological properties through Majorana zero modes emergent in the two topological phases, with and without incommensurability. In the weak interaction regime, a self-consistent mean-field treatment provides a remarkable accuracy for the description of the spectral pairing and the parity switches induced by the interaction.
We explore critical properties of a chain of interacting Majorana fermions, particles that are their own antiparticles. We study the combined effect of two competing interaction terms of the shortest possible range and show this results in a very rich phase diagram with nine different phases, five of which are critical. In addition, we report a wide variety of quantum phase transitions: the tri-critical Ising lines; the Lifshitz critical line characterized by the dynamical critical exponent z=3z=3z=3; two Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions; and an exotic first-order transition between the floating and the gapped phases. However, the most surprising result is the emergence of the commensurate line at which the floating phases collapse into direct transition. We provide numerical evidences that the resulting multicritical point belongs to the universality class of the eight-vertex model. Implications in the context of supersymmetric properties of the Majorana chain are briefly discussed.
We investigate the cluster Ising chain with an additional nearest-neighbor interaction using tensor-network methods and a weak-coupling field theory. Without the interaction, the Jordan-Wigner transformation decomposes the model into a triplet of identical Majorana chains related by an exact O(3)O(3)O(3) flavor symmetry. Their common mass vanishes at the SU(2)2SU(2)_2SU(2)2​ Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten critical point with central charge c=3/2c = 3/2c=3/2 separating the symmetry-protected topological cluster phase from a ferromagnet. The interaction reduces O(3)O(3)O(3) to its cyclic subgroup C3C_3C3​, splitting the triplet into a singlet and a doublet whose gaps close separately, producing a critical bifurcation into Ising (c=1/2c = 1/2c=1/2) and Gaussian (c=1c = 1c=1) critical lines. A second ferromagnetic phase opens between these critical lines for repulsive interactions and a disordered phase for attractive ones. The Gaussian line then separates two Landau-incompatible ferromagnets, realizing a deconfined quantum critical line with emergent O(2)O(2)O(2) symmetry, along which our independently extracted exponents vary continuously yet satisfy the parameter-free relation β=(2ν−1)/4β= (2ν- 1)/4β=(2ν−1)/4 of the eight-vertex weak universality class. At stronger repulsion this line opens into an extended gapless floating phase with incommensurate algebraic correlations, entered through Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions. All of these phases and the transitions between them are captured by the weak-coupling theory. Beyond its regime of validity, our simulations reveal a translation-symmetry-breaking antiferromagnet reached through first-order transitions.
Abstract We study the spin-1/2 Kitaev chain with additional XX and symmetric off-diagonal Gamma interactions. By combining the Jordan–Wigner transformation with density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) numerical simulations, we obtain the exact solution of the model and map out the phase diagram containing six distinct phases. The four gapped phases display ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic magnetic orders along the (1,1,0)- and (1,-1,0)-spin directions, whereas in the gapless phases, the low-energy spectrum consists of two branches of helical Majorana fermions with unequal velocities. The transition lines separating different phases include deconfined quantum critical lines with dynamical critical exponent z = 1 and quadratic critical lines with z = 2. Our work reveals the rich interplay among symmetry, magnetic order, and quantum criticality in the Kitaev–XX–Gamma chain.
We investigate the phase diagrams of a one-dimensional lattice model of fermions and of a spin chain with interactions extending up to next-nearest-neighbor range.In particular, we investigate the appearance of regions with dominant pairing physics in the presence of nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor interactions.Our analysis is based on analytical calculations in the classical limit, bosonization techniques and large-scale density-matrix renormalization group numerical simulations.The phase diagram, which is investigated in all relevant filling regimes, displays a remarkably rich collection of phases, including Luttinger liquids, phase separation, charge-density waves, bond-order phases, and exotic cluster Luttinger liquids with paired particles.In relation with recent studies, we show several emergent transition lines with a central charge c = 3/2 between the Luttinger liquid and the cluster Luttinger liquid phases.These results could be experimentally investigated using highly tunable quantum simulators.
The Hubbard and spinless fermion chains are paradigms of strongly correlated systems, very well understood using the Bethe ansatz, density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), and field theory/renormalization group (RG) methods. They have been applied to one-dimensional materials and have provided important insights for understanding higher-dimensional cases. Recently, an interacting fermion model has been introduced, with possible applications to topological materials. It has a single Majorana fermion operator on each lattice site and interactions with the shortest possible range that involve four sites. We present a thorough analysis of the phase diagram of this model in one dimension using field-theory/RG and DMRG methods. It includes a gapped supersymmetric region and a gapless phase with coexisting Luttinger liquid and Ising degrees of freedom. In addition to a first-order transition, three critical points occur: tricritical Ising, Lifshitz, and a generalization of the commensurate-incommensurate transition. We also survey various gapped phases of the system that arise when the translation symmetry is broken by dimerization and find both trivial and topological phases with 0, 1, and 2 Majorana zero modes bound to the edges of the chain with open boundary conditions.