Abstract Motivated by recent progress on the experimental realization of proximate deconfined quantum critical point in a frustrated quantum magnet, we study the low-energy spin dynamics of a related checkerboard J-Q model by using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The ground state of this model undergoes a weakly first-order quantum phase transition with an emergent O(4) symmetry between an antiferromagnetic state and a plaquette valence bond solid. The calculated spin lattice relaxation rate of nuclear magnetic resonance, 1 / T 1 , exhibits distinct low-temperature behaviors depending on the ground states. With decreasing the temperature, 1 / T 1 rises up on the antiferromagnetic side, characterizing a crossover to the renormalized classical regime, whereas 1 / T 1 drops exponentially on the side of valence bond solid, reflecting the gap opening in the plaquette ordered phase. The extracted spin gap scales with the distance to the transition point as a power-law with an exponent φ ≈ 0.3, consistent with the scaling ansatz ϕ = ν z with ν ≈ 0.3 and z = 1. Near the quantum phase transition, the temperature dependent 1 / T 1 shows a broad crossover regime where a universal scaling 1 / T 1 ∼ T η with η ≈ 0.6 is found. Our results suggest a quantum scaling regime associated with the emergent enhanced symmetry near this first-order quantum phase transition.
Abstract Motivated by recent progress on the experimental realization of proximate deconfined quantum critical point in a frustrated quantum magnet, we study the low-energy spin dynamics of a related checkerboard J-Q model by using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The ground state of this model undergoes a weakly first-order quantum phase transition with an emergent O(4) symmetry between an antiferromagnetic state and a plaquette valence bond solid. The calculated spin lattice relaxation rate of nuclear magnetic resonance, 1 / T 1 , exhibits distinct low-temperature behaviors depending on the ground states. With decreasing the temperature, 1 / T 1 rises up on the antiferromagnetic side, characterizing a crossover to the renormalized classical regime, whereas 1 / T 1 drops exponentially on the side of valence bond solid, reflecting the gap opening in the plaquette ordered phase. The extracted spin gap scales with the distance to the transition point as a power-law with an exponent φ ≈ 0.3, consistent with the scaling ansatz ϕ = ν z with ν ≈ 0.3 and z = 1. Near the quantum phase transition, the temperature dependent 1 / T 1 shows a broad crossover regime where a universal scaling 1 / T 1 ∼ T η with η ≈ 0.6 is found. Our results suggest a quantum scaling regime associated with the emergent enhanced symmetry near this first-order quantum phase transition.
We resolve the nature of the quantum phase transition between antiferromagnetic and valence-bond solid ground states in square-lattice spin-1/2 magnets - the putative deconfined quantum-critical point. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations of J-Q models, in which Heisenberg exchange J competes with multi-spin interactions Qn formed by n singlet projectors, we demonstrate first-order discontinuities increasing with n. For n=2 and n=3, the first-order signatures are very weak and we extract universal scaling dimensions of a proximate multicritical point. Their values coincide closely with known bounds for an SO(5) symmetric conformal field theory (CFT) containing a relevant SO(5) singlet operator that destabilizes the generic deconfined critical point. We characterize the emergent SO(5) symmetry by its scaling dimensions of the leading irrelevant perturbations. Using the J-Q2-Q6 model, we tune the transition from weak to stronger first-order and find scaling of the coexisting order parameters with a large exponent beta ~ 0.85, in agreement with the relevant scaling dimensions of the multicritical point. The exponent that had previously been identified with the correlation length does not have a corresponding CFT level, and we explain it as pseudo-critical length scale of bubbles of one phase inside the other that are compressed in size by an SO(5)-violating irrelevant repulsive interaction between the two order parameters. The bubble scale reflects a hierarchy of excitation gaps generated by the SO(5) perturbation in the neighborhood of the first-order transition, akin to a Higgs mechanism. We argue that the multicritical point is the tip of a gapless spin liquid phase in frustrated Heisenberg models into which the J-Q models can be deformed, but the spin liquid, and perhaps the multicritical point itself, exist outside the regime amenable to sign-free simulations.
Low-dimensional quantum magnets, particularly those with strong spin frustration, are characterized by their notable spin fluctuations. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) serves as a sensitive probe of low-energy fluctuations that offers valuable insight into rich magnetic phases and emergent phenomena in quantum magnets. Although experimentally accessible, the numerical simulation of NMR relaxation rates, specifically the spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1, remains a significant challenge. Analytical continuation based on Monte Carlo calculations are hampered by the notorious negative sign for frustrated systems, and the real-time simulations incur significant costs to capture low-energy fluctuations. Here we propose computing the relaxation rate using thermal tensor networks (TTNs), which provides a streamlined approach by calculating its imaginary-time proxy. We showcase the accuracy and versatility of our methodology by applying it to one-dimensional spin chains and two-dimensional lattices, where we find that the critical exponents η and zν can be extracted from the low-temperature scalings of the simulated 1/T1 near quantum critical points. Our results also provide insights into the low-dimensional and frustrated magnetic materials, elucidating universal scaling behaviors in the Ising chain compound CoNb2O6 and revealing the renormalized classical behaviors in the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Ba8CoNb6O24. We apply the approach to effective model of the family of frustrated magnets AYbCh2 (A = Na, K, Cs, and Ch = O, S, Se), and find dramatic changes from spin ordered to the proposed quantum spin liquid phase. Overall, with high reliability and accuracy, the TTN methodology offers a systematic strategy for studying the intricate dynamics observed across a broad spectrum of quantum magnets and related fields.
Recent experiments [Guo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 206602 (2020)] on thermodynamic properties of the frustrated layered quantum magnet SrCu2(BO3)2 — the Shastry–Sutherland material — have provided strong evidence for a low-temperature phase transition between plaquette-singlet and antiferromagnetic order as a function of pressure. Further motivated by the recently discovered unusual first-order quantum phase transition with an apparent emergent O(4) symmetry of the antiferromagnetic and plaquette-singlet order parameters in a two-dimensional “checkerboard J-Q” quantum spin model [Zhao et al., Nat. Phys. 15 678 (2019)], we here study the same model in the presence of weak inter-layer couplings. Our focus is on the evolution of the emergent symmetry as the system crosses over from two to three dimensions and the phase transition extends from strictly zero temperature in two dimensions up to finite temperature as expected in SrCu2(BO3)2. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we map out the phase boundaries of the plaquette-singlet and antiferromagnetic phases, with particular focus on the triple point where these two ordered phases meet the paramagnetic phase for given strength of the inter-layer coupling. All transitions are first-order in the neighborhood of the triple point. We show that the emergent O(4) symmetry of the coexistence state breaks down clearly when the interlayer coupling becomes sufficiently large, but for a weak coupling, of the magnitude expected experimentally, the enlarged symmetry can still be observed at the triple point up to significant length scales. Thus, it is likely that the plaquette-singlet to antiferromagnetic transition in SrCu2(BO3)2 exhibits remnants of emergent O(4) symmetry, which should be observable due to additional weakly gapped Goldstone modes.
We report a quantum Monte Carlo study of the phase transition between antiferromagnetic and valence-bond solid ground states in the square-lattice S = 1/2 J – Q model. The critical correlation function of the Q terms gives a scaling dimension corresponding to the value ν = 0.455 ± 0.002 of the correlation-length exponent. This value agrees with previous (less precise) results from conventional methods, e.g., finite-size scaling of the near-critical order parameters. We also study the Q -derivatives of the Binder cumulants of the order parameters for L 2 lattices with L up to 448. The slope grows as L 1/ ν with a value of ν consistent with the scaling dimension of the Q term. There are no indications of runaway flow to a first-order phase transition. The mutually consistent estimates of ν provide compelling support for a continuous deconfined quantum-critical point.
We investigate a simple model antiferromagnet which shows a Quantum Phase Transition between a conventional Neel antiferromagnetic phase and a dimerized ‘Valence Bond Solid’ phase. Both the critical temperature and the ground state magnetization in the Neel phase approach zero at the critical point, and are found to scale according to power laws, with exponents 0.5, as expected from general considerations. 1. Introduction The subject of Quantum Phase Transitions (QPT’s) in condensed matter systems remains a frontier area of research [1]. These are transitions, at temperature T = 0, in the nature of the ground state of a strongly correlated quantum system. At QPT’s large quantum fluctuations play the same role as do large thermal fluctuations at normal phase transitions, and analogous universal scaling laws are to be expected. In real materials QPT’s can be induced by pressure, by applied magnetic fields, or by disorder. Theoretical studies of QPT’s are largely based on various simplified models, particularly low dimensional antiferromagnets, where the system can be tuned through a QPT by varying a particular parameter g in the Hamiltonian. Most of the models hereto studied have been two-dimensional. Examples include antiferromagnets with strong and weak bonds, with or without frustration, and bilayer systems, where the QPT separates a conventional Neel antiferromagnetic phase from a dimerized phase with only short-range correlations and no magnetic order. In such systems the magnetic order present in the ground state does not extend to finite temperatures. In the present work we study a three-dimensional model where magnetic order persists to some critical temperature Tc(g). We expect Tc(g) to vanish as g → gc, and we are interested in comparing the vanishing of Tc with the vanishing of the ground state magnetization M0. The magnetization is expected to vanish as (gc – g) β , where the critical exponent β is expected to have the value 0.5, corresponding to a classical thermally driven transition in four spatial dimensions, which is mean-field like (with possible logarithmic corrections). Does Tc(g) scale with (gc – g) in the same way? 2. The model and results
The ground state phase of a spin-$\frac{1}{2} {J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a square lattice around the maximally frustrated regime $({J}_{2}\ensuremath{\sim}0.5{J}_{1})$ has been debated for decades. Here we study this model using the cluster update algorithm for tensor-product states (TPSs). The ground state energies at finite sizes and in the thermodynamic limit (with finite size scaling) are in good agreement with exact diagonalization study. Through finite size scaling of the spin correlation function, we find the critical point J2c1=0.572(5)J1 and critical exponents $\ensuremath{\nu}=0.50(8),\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\ensuremath{\eta}}_{s}=0.28(6)$. In the range of $0.572<{J}_{2}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\le}0.6$ we find a paramagnetic ground state with an exponentially decaying spin-spin correlation. Up to a $24\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}24$ system size, we observe power law decaying dimer-dimer and plaquette-plaquette correlations with an anomalous plaquette scaling exponent ${\ensuremath{\eta}}_{p}=0.24(1)$ and an anomalous columnar scaling exponent ${\ensuremath{\eta}}_{c}=0.28(1)$ at J2/J1=0.6. These results are consistent with a potential gapless U(1) spin-liquid phase. However, since the U(1) spin liquid is unstable due to the instanton effect, a valence bond solid order with very small amplitude might develop in the thermodynamic limit. Thus, our numerical results strongly indicate a deconfined quantum critical point at J2c1. Remarkably, all the observed critical exponents are consistent with the $J\text{\ensuremath{-}}Q$ model.