Exploring and understanding topological phases in systems with strong distributed disorder requires developing fundamentally new approaches to replace traditional tools such as topological band theory. Here, we present a general real-space renormalization group (RG) approach for scattering models, which is capable of dealing with strong distributed disorder without relying on the renormalization of Hamiltonians or wave functions. Such scheme, based on a block-scattering transformation combined with a replica strategy, is applied for a comprehensive study of strongly disordered unitary scattering networks with localized bulk states, uncovering a connection between topological physics and critical behavior. Our RG scheme leads to topological flow diagrams that unveil how the microscopic competition between reflection and non-reciprocity leads to the large-scale emergence of macroscopic scattering attractors, corresponding to trivial and topological insulators. Our findings are confirmed by a scaling analysis of the localization length (LL) and critical exponents, and experimentally validated. The results not only shed light on the fundamental understanding of topological phase transitions and scaling properties in strongly disordered regimes, but also pave the way for practical applications in modern topological condensed-matter and photonics, where disorder may be seen as a useful design degree of freedom, and no longer as a hindrance.
Exploring and understanding topological phases in systems with strong distributed disorder requires developing fundamentally new approaches to replace traditional tools such as topological band theory. Here, we present a general real-space renormalization group (RG) approach for scattering models, which is capable of dealing with strong distributed disorder without relying on the renormalization of Hamiltonians or wave functions. Such scheme, based on a block-scattering transformation combined with a replica strategy, is applied for a comprehensive study of strongly disordered unitary scattering networks with localized bulk states, uncovering a connection between topological physics and critical behavior. Our RG scheme leads to topological flow diagrams that unveil how the microscopic competition between reflection and non-reciprocity leads to the large-scale emergence of macroscopic scattering attractors, corresponding to trivial and topological insulators. Our findings are confirmed by a scaling analysis of the localization length (LL) and critical exponents, and experimentally validated. The results not only shed light on the fundamental understanding of topological phase transitions and scaling properties in strongly disordered regimes, but also pave the way for practical applications in modern topological condensed-matter and photonics, where disorder may be seen as a useful design degree of freedom, and no longer as a hindrance.
Understanding the robustness of topological phases of matter in the presence of interactions poses a difficult challenge in modern condensed matter, showing interesting connections to high-energy physics. In this work, we leverage these connections to present a complete analysis of the continuum long-wavelength description of a generic class of correlated topological insulators: Wilson-Hubbard topological matter. We show that a Wilsonian renormalization group (RG) approach, combined with the so-called topological Hamiltonian, provide a quantitative route to understand interaction-induced topological phase transitions that occur in Wilson-Hubbard matter. We benchmark two-loop RG predictions for a quasi-1D Wilson-Hubbard model by means of exhaustive numerical simulations based on matrix product states (MPS). The agreement of the RG predictions with MPS simulations motivates the extension of the RG calculations to higher-dimensional topological insulators.
Strong disorder renormalization is an energy-based renormalization that leads to a complicated renormalized topology for the surviving clusters as soon as d > 1. In this paper, we propose to include strong disorder renormalization ideas within the more traditional fixed-cell-size real space RG framework. We first consider the one-dimensional chain as a test for this fixed-cell-size procedure: we find that all exactly known critical exponents are reproduced correctly, except for the magnetic exponent β (because it is related to more subtle persistence properties of the full RG flow). We then apply numerically this fixed-cell-size procedure to two types of renormalizable fractal lattice: (i) the Sierpinski gasket of fractal dimension D = ln3/ln2, where there is no underlying classical ferromagnetic transition, so that the RG flow in the ordered phase is similar to what happens in d = 1; (ii) a hierarchical diamond lattice of fractal dimension D = 4/3, where there is an underlying classical ferromagnetic transition, so that the RG flow in the ordered phase is similar to what happens on hypercubic lattices of dimension d > 1. In both cases, we find that the transition is governed by an infinite disorder fixed point: besides the measure of the activated exponent ψ, we analyze the RG flow of various observables in the disordered and ordered phases, in order to extract the 'typical' correlation length exponents of these two phases which are different from the finite-size correlation length exponent.
Using a new approximate strong-randomness renormalization group (RG), we study the many-body localized (MBL) phase and phase transition in one-dimensional quantum systems with short-range interactions and quenched disorder. Our RG is built on those of Zhang et al. [Phys. Rev. B 93, 224201 (2016)] and Goremykina et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 040601 (2019)], which are based on thermal and insulating blocks. Our main addition is to characterize each insulating block with two lengths: a physical length and an internal decay length $\ensuremath{\zeta}$ for its effective interactions. In this approach, the MBL phase is governed by a RG fixed line that is parametrized by a global decay length $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\zeta}}$, and the rare large thermal inclusions within the MBL phase have a fractal geometry. As the phase transition is approached from within the MBL phase, $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\zeta}}$ approaches the finite critical value corresponding to the avalanche instability, and the fractal dimension of large thermal inclusions approaches zero. Our analysis is consistent with a Kosterlitz-Thouless-like RG flow, with no intermediate critical MBL phase.
Introduction The real space renormalisation group has a wide application in the study of classical critical phenomena. For quantum systems, several versions of the real space renormalisation group have been proposed (Jullien, 1981; Pfeuty et al ., 1982; dos Santos, 1982). The real space RG is the most direct way of implementing the scaling ideas presented in Chapter 1. The operation of elimination of degrees of freedom as the system is reduced to blocks of smaller sizes under a change of length scale is directly and intuitively represented as mathematical equations. In particular, the block method has been used to study different problems of strongly correlated systems (Pfeuty et al ., 1982) and spin chains (White, 1992, 1993) with different degrees of sophistication. We show here in detail a simple form of this technique applied to the case of the one-dimensional Ising model in a transverse field. The purpose is to illustrate the ideas introduced earlier in Chapter 1 with a concrete example where a quantum critical point is associated with an unstable fixed point. Also, we show how the stable attractors or fixed points can characterise the different phases and how the critical exponents can be obtained. Although the actual values for the quantum critical point and critical exponents that we obtain using a small block are not exact, a procedure is outlined which can be used to improve these results. In this sense, the block method presented here represents a controlled approximation, which can be systematically improved to yield in the limit of very large blocks essentially the correct results. When compared to the k -space version of the RG (to be presented in the next two chapters), the real space version turns out to be in general more difficult to control, in the sense of producing a systematic improvement of the results. On the other hand, this method yields without much effort the attractive fixed points of the different phases, allowing for their characterisation. This turns out to be useful since the nature of the phase transition, whether first or second order, can be determined by exponents calculated in the attractor of this phase (Nienhuis and Naunberg, 1975).
In clean and weakly disordered systems, topological and trivial phases having a finite bulk energy gap can transit to each other via a quantum critical point. In presence of strong disorder, both the nature of the phases and the associated criticality can fundamentally change. Here we investigate topological properties of a strongly disordered fermionic chain where the bond couplings are drawn from normal probability distributions which are defined by characteristic standard deviations. Using numerical strong disorder renormalization group methods along with analytical techniques, we show that the competition between fluctuation scales renders both the trivial and topological phases gapless with Griffiths like rare regions. Moreover, the transition between these phases is solely governed by the fluctuation scales, rather than the means, rendering the critical behavior to be determined by an infinite randomness fixed point with an irrational central charge. Our work points to a host of novel topological phases and atypical topological phase transitions which can be realized in systems under strong disorder.
This dissertation contributes to the ongoing effort of understanding the origins and applications of real-space renormalization group methods in tensor network representations of classical and quantum many-body systems. First, we construct a matrix product operator ansatz to coarse-grain real-space transfer matrices of matrix product state descriptions of one-dimensional quantum spin chains. By treating the physical spin as an impurity, we unravel the virtual entanglement degrees of freedom of matrix product states into a layered structure to reveal an inherent renormalization group scale. Secondly, we rephrase tensor network renormalization for two-dimensional classical lattice models in a manifestly nonnegative way. The resulting real-space renormalization group flow preserves positivity and hence yields an interpretation in terms of Hamiltonian flows, reconciling modern real-space tensor network renormalization methods with traditional block-spin approaches. Thirdly, we study non-local symmetries in tensor networks by expressing two-dimensional classical partition functions in terms of strange correlators of judiciously chosen product states and string-net wave functions. We exhibit and exploit the emerging non-local symmetries of the partition function at criticality and highlight parallels between topological sectors and conformal primary fields in the shared framework of matrix product operator symmetries. Additionally, we provide a complementary perspective on real-space renormalization by recognizing known tensor network renormalization methods as the approximate truncation of an exactly coarse-grained strange correlator.