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arXiv:2310.18300 · Physical Review Letters

Quantum Simulation of the Tricritical Ising Model in Tunable Josephson Junction Ladders

Lorenzo Maffi, Niklas Tausendpfund, Matteo Rizzi, Michele Burrello

Published May 28, 2024• 8 citations
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Abstract

Modern hybrid superconductor-semiconductor Josephson junction arrays are a promising platform for analog quantum simulations. Their controllable and nonsinusoidal energy-phase relation opens the path to implement nontrivial interactions and study the emergence of exotic quantum phase transitions. Here, we propose the analysis of an array of hybrid Josephson junctions defining a two-leg ladder geometry for the quantum simulation of the tricritical Ising phase transition. This transition provides the paradigmatic example of minimal conformal models beyond Ising criticality and its excitations are intimately related to Fibonacci non-Abelian anyons and topological order in two dimensions. We study this superconducting system and its thermodynamic phases based on bosonization and matrix-product-state techniques. Its effective continuous description in terms of a three-frequency sine-Gordon quantum field theory suggests the presence of the targeted tricritical point and the numerical simulations confirm this picture. Our results indicate which experimental observables can be adopted in realistic devices to probe the physics and the phase transitions of the model. Additionally, our proposal provides a useful one-dimensional building block to design exotic topological order in two-dimensional scalable Josephson junction arrays.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.132.226502

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Modern hybrid superconductor-semiconductor Josephson junction arrays are a promising platform for analog quantum simulations. Their controllable and nonsinusoidal energy-phase relation opens the path to implement nontrivial interactions and study the emergence of exotic quantum phase transitions. Here, we propose the analysis of an array of hybrid Josephson junctions defining a two-leg ladder geometry for the quantum simulation of the tricritical Ising phase transition. This transition provides the paradigmatic example of minimal conformal models beyond Ising criticality and its excitations are intimately related to Fibonacci non-Abelian anyons and topological order in two dimensions. We study this superconducting system and its thermodynamic phases based on bosonization and matrix-product-state techniques. Its effective continuous description in terms of a three-frequency sine-Gordon quantum field theory suggests the presence of the targeted tricritical point and the numerical simulations confirm this picture. Our results indicate which experimental observables can be adopted in realistic devices to probe the physics and the phase transitions of the model. Additionally, our proposal provides a useful one-dimensional building block to design exotic topological order in two-dimensional scalable Josephson junction arrays.
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Multicritical Ising models and their perturbations are paradigmatic models of statistical mechanics. In two space-time dimensions, these models provide a fertile testbed for investigation of numerous nonperturbative problems in strongly-interacting quantum field theories. In this work, analog superconducting quantum electronic circuit simulators are described for the realization of these multicritical Ising models. The latter arise as perturbations of the quantum sine-Gordon model with ppp-fold degenerate minima, p=2,3,4,...p=2,3,4,...p=2,3,4,.... The corresponding quantum circuits are constructed with Josephson junctions with $cos(n\ensuremath{\phi}+{\ensuremath{\delta}}_{n})$ potential with $1\ensuremath{\le}n\ensuremath{\le}p$ and ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{n}\ensuremath{\in}[\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\pi},\ensuremath{\pi}]$. The simplest case, p=2p=2p=2, corresponds to the quantum Ising model and can be realized using conventional Josephson junctions and the so-called $0\text{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\pi}$ qubits. The lattice models for the Ising and tricritical Ising models are analyzed numerically using the density matrix renormalization group technique. Evidence for the multicritical phenomena are obtained from computation of entanglement entropy of a subsystem and correlation functions of relevant lattice operators. The proposed quantum circuits provide a systematic approach for controlled numerical and experimental investigation of a wide range of nonperturbative phenomena occurring in low-dimensional quantum field theories.
Tricritical Ising (TCI) phase transition is known to occur in several interacting spin and Majorana fermion models and is described in terms of a supersymmetric conformal field theory (CFT) with central charge c=7/10c=7/10c=7/10. The field content of this CFT is highly nontrivial and includes among its primary fields the Fibonacci anyon, making it of potential interest to strategies seeking to implement fault-tolerant topological quantum computation with non-Abelian phases of matter. In this paper we explore the possibility that a TCI CFT can occur at the edge of a gapped two-dimensional topological state as a stable phase. We discuss a possible realization of this 2D phase based on a coupled-wire construction using the Grover-Sheng-Vishwanath chain model of Majorana zero modes coupled to Ising spins which is known to undergo the TCI phase transition. From the combined analysis using mean-field theory, conformal field theory, and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) on two- and four-leg ladders, we find that the left- and right-moving gapless TCI modes become spatially separated and reside on two opposite edges of the system, forming a precursor of the required 2D topological phase.
We propose a novel platform for the study of quantum phase transitions in one dimension (1D QPT). The system consists of a specially designed chain of asymmetric SQUIDs; each SQUID contains several Josephson junctions with one junction shared between the nearest-neighbor SQUIDs. We develop the theoretical description of the low-energy part of the spectrum. In particular, we show that the system exhibits a quantum phase transition of Ising type. In the vicinity of the transition, the low-energy excitations of the system can be described by Majorana fermions. This allows us to compute the matrix elements of the physical perturbations in the low-energy sector. In the microwave experiments with this system, we explored the phase boundaries between the ordered and disordered phases and the critical behavior of the system's low-energy modes close to the transition. Due to the flexible chain design and control of the parameters of individual Josephson junctions, future experiments will be able to address the effects of non-integrability and disorder on the 1D QPT.
The tricritical Ising universality class emerges at the end point of a line of continuous Ising phase transitions, above which the transition is first order. In 1+1 dimensions, it is described by the second minimal model of conformal field theory (CFT) with central charge c=7/10c=7/10c=7/10. Recently, there has been a revival of interest in the tricritical Ising model due to its emergent space-time supersymmetry. Combining numerical (infinite density-matrix renormalization group) and field theoretical (bosonization and CFT) techniques, there authors demonstrate here that Ising tricriticality occurs in a paradigmatic extended one dimensional Hubbard model with explicit bond dimerization. The low-energy sector can be described by a triple sine-Gordon model, which, in the transition region, reduces to the tricritical Ising CFT. The theoretically predicted decay of various two-point correlation functions is found to be in excellent agreement with the density-matrix renormalization group data.
Motivated by the presence of Ising transitions that take place entirely in the singlet sector of frustrated spin-1/2 ladders and spin-1 chains, we study two types of effective dimer models on ladders, a quantum dimer model and a quantum loop model. Building on the constraints imposed on the dimers, we develop a Density Matrix Renormalization Group algorithm that takes full advantage of the relatively small Hilbert space that only grows as Fibonacci number. We further show that both models can be mapped rigorously onto a hard-boson model first studied by Fendley, Sengupta and Sachdev [Phys. Rev. B 69, 075106 (2004)], and combining early results with recent results obtained with the present algorithm on this hard-boson model, we discuss the full phase diagram of these quantum dimer and quantum loop models, with special emphasis on the phase transitions. In particular, using conformal field theory, we fully characterize the Ising transition and the tricritical Ising end point, with a complete analysis of the boundary-field correspondence for the tricritical Ising point including partially polarized edges. Finally, we show that the Fibonacci anyon chain is exactly equivalent to special critical points of these models.