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arXiv:2209.10624 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Depletion in fermionic chains with inhomogeneous hoppings

Begoña Mula, Nadir Samos Sáenz de Buruaga, Germán Sierra, Silvia N. Santalla, Javier Rodríguez-Laguna

Published Dec 9, 2022• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The ground state of a free-fermionic chain with inhomogeneous hoppings at half-filling can be mapped into the Dirac vacuum on a static curved space-time, which presents exactly homogeneous occupations due to particle-hole symmetry. Yet, far from half-filling, we observe density modulations and depletion effects. The system can be described by a 1D Schr\"odinger equation on a different static space-time, with an effective potential, which accounts for the depleted regions. We provide a semiclassical expression for the single-particle modes and the density profiles associated to different hopping patterns and filling fractions. Moreover, we show that the depletion effects can be compensated for all filling fractions by adding a chemical potential proportional to the hoppings. Interestingly, we can obtain exactly the same density profiles on a homogeneous chain if we introduce a chemical potential, which is inverse to the hopping intensities, even though the ground state is different from the original one.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.106.224204

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The ground state of a free-fermionic chain with inhomogeneous hoppings at half-filling can be mapped into the Dirac vacuum on a static curved space-time, which presents exactly homogeneous occupations due to particle-hole symmetry. Yet, far from half-filling, we observe density modulations and depletion effects. The system can be described by a 1D Schr"odinger equation on a different static space-time, with an effective potential, which accounts for the depleted regions. We provide a semiclassical expression for the single-particle modes and the density profiles associated to different hopping patterns and filling fractions. Moreover, we show that the depletion effects can be compensated for all filling fractions by adding a chemical potential proportional to the hoppings. Interestingly, we can obtain exactly the same density profiles on a homogeneous chain if we introduce a chemical potential, which is inverse to the hopping intensities, even though the ground state is different from the original one.
We introduce a novel analytical approach for studying free-fermion (XX) chains with smoothly varying, site-dependent hoppings and magnetic fields. Building on a discrete WKB-like approximation applied directly to the recurrence relation for the single-particle eigenfunctions, we derive a closed-form expression for the local fermion density profile as a function of the Fermi energy, which is valid for arbitrary fillings, hopping amplitudes and magnetic fields. This formula reproduces the depletion and saturation effects observed in previous studies of inhomogeneous free-fermion chains, and provides a theoretical framework to understand entanglement entropy suppression in these models. We demonstrate the accuracy of our asymptotic formula in several chains with different hopping and magnetic field profiles. Our findings are thus the first step towards an analytical treatment of entanglement in free-fermion chains beyond the reach of conventional field-theoretic techniques.
We extend the discrete WKB method to one-dimensional bipartite tight-binding chains of free fermions with slowly varying hopping amplitudes and on-site potentials. We focus on the inhomogeneous Rice-Mele model, suggesting possible experimental realizations thereof in optical superlattices. We derive explicit semiclassical expressions for the single-particle wave functions and density of states, as well as the sublattice-resolved local particle densities and filling fraction at arbitrary Fermi energy. In particular, we show that the WKB density profiles agree with those obtained from the local-density approximation. We analyze the spatial dependence of the local band edges and its consequences for the global spectral structure, and clarify the role played by the phase-space topology in determining the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization conditions. Finally, we illustrate our results with two representative examples: a homogeneous Rice-Mele chain subject to a harmonic trap and a fully inhomogeneous chain containing a domain wall.
At non-half-filling, a one-dimensional interacting electronic model (t–U–R) is studied analytically. The particular correlated hopping keeps particle–hole symmetry of the Hubbard model. Physically, the model involved is equivalent to an extended Hubbard chain incorporating a two-body (X) and a three-body (X˜) site-bond interactions with X˜=2X. The analysis of weak-coupling theory leads to the ground-state phase diagram, which consists of three types of metallic phases, characterized by the charge- (CDW) and spin-density-wave (SDW) and singlet-superconductivity (SS) instabilities.
We consider the non-equilibrium physics induced by joining together two tight-binding fermionic chains to form a single chain. Before being joined, each chain is in a many-fermion ground state. The fillings (densities) in the two chains might be different. We present a number of exact results, focusing on two-point correlators and the Loschmidt echo (return probability). For the non-interacting case, we identify through an exact derivation the regime in which a semiclassical ansatz is valid. We present a number of analytical results beyond semiclassics, such as the approach to the non-equilibrium steady state and the appearance of Tracy-Widom distributions at the front of the light cone. The light cone behavior is quantified through a series expansion in time, and this description is shown to be valid for interacting systems as well. Results on the Loschmidt echo, presented for finite and zero interactions, illustrate that the physics is different from both local and global quenches.
We propose a particle-hole symmetric theory of the Fermi-liquid ground state of a half-filled Landau level. This theory should be applicable for a Dirac fermion in the magnetic field at charge neutrality, as well as for the v = 1/2 quantum Hall ground state of nonrelativistic fermions in the limit of negligible inter-Landau-level mixing. We argue that when particle-hole symmetry is exact, the composite fermion is a massless Dirac fermion, characterized by a Berry phase of π around the Fermi circle. We write down a tentative effective field theory of such a fermion and discuss the discrete symmetries, in particular, C P. The Dirac composite fermions interact through a gauge, but non-Chern-Simons, interaction. The particle-hole conjugate pair of Jain-sequence states at filling factors n/(2n + 1) and (n + 1)/(2n + 1), which in the conventional composite fermion picture corresponds to integer quantum Hall states with different filling factors, n and n + 1, is now mapped to the same half-integer filling factor n + 1/2 of the Dirac composite fermion. The Pfaffian and anti-Pfaffian states are interpreted as d -wave Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer paired states of the Dirac fermion with orbital angular momentum of opposite signs, while s -wave pairing would give rise to a particle-hole symmetric non-Abelian gapped phase. When particle-hole symmetry is not exact, the Dirac fermion has a C P -breaking mass. The conventional fermionic Chern-Simons theory is shown to emerge in the nonrelativistic limit of the massive theory.
Abstract The weak‐coupling phase diagram of a system of three coupled spin 1/2 chains (at zero temperature) is studied as a function of fermion density and of transverse single‐particle hopping by means of a renormalization‐group analysis. We identify different phases with a different behavior of the renormalization‐group flow and interpret the effect of relevant couplings in terms of the associated bosonized Hamiltonian. A frustrated (gapped) magnetic spectrum in a large region about and at half filling is obtained in the unphysical case of periodic boundary conditions in the direction transverse to the chains. The expected spin phase diagram (as also observed in the Sr2Cu3O5 ladder compounds) is instead obtained when open transverse boundary conditions are considered. In particular, the spin modes are ungapped in a wide region about half filling and at half filling down to a critical value of the transverse hopping t⟂. A Mott transition as a function of ⟂ is thus present at half filling.