We use bosonization to derive the effective field theory that properly describes ferromagnetic transition in one-dimensional itinerant electron systems. The resultant theory is shown to have dynamical exponent z = 2 at tree level and upper critical dimension dc = 2. Thus one dimension is below the upper critical dimension of the theory, and the critical behavior of the transition is controlled by an interacting fixed point, which we study via epsilon expansion. Comparisons will be made with the Hertz-Millis theory, which describes the ferromagnetic transition in higher dimensions.
One-band Hubbard model with transverse anisotropy is considered at density of electrons
n=0.4. It is shown that when the anisotropy is appropriately chosen, the ground state is ferromagnetic with magnetic order perpendicular to the anisotropy. The increasing of the ratio
Ut, where
t is the hopping parameter and
U is the Coulomb repulsion, decreases the Curie temperature, and the system arrives at the quantum critical point
(TC=0). The result is obtained introducing Schwinger bosons and slave Fermions representation of the electron operators. Integrating out the spin-singlet Fermi fields an effective Heisenberg model with ferromagnetic exchange constant is obtained for vectors which identifies the local orientation of the spin of the itinerant electrons. The amplitude of the spin vectors is an effective spin of the itinerant electrons accounting for the fact that some sites, in the ground state, are doubly occupied or empty. Owing to the anisotropy, the magnon fluctuations drive the system to quantum criticality and when the effective spin is critically small these fluctuations suppress the magnetic order.
This paper proposes an approach to the study of critical phenomena in quantum-mechanical systems at zero or low temperatures, where classical free-energy functionals of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson sort are not valid. The functional integral transformations first proposed by Stratonovich and Hubbard allow one to construct a quantum-mechanical generalization of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson functional in which the order-parameter field depends on (imaginary) time as well as space. Since the time variable lies in the finite interval [$0,\ensuremath{-}i\ensuremath{\beta}$], where $\ensuremath{\beta}$ is the inverse temperature, the resulting description of a
d-dimensional system shares some features with that of a (
d+1)-dimensional classical system which has finite extent in one dimension. However, the analogy is not complete, in general, since time and space do not necessarily enter the generalized free-energy functional in the same way. The Wilson renormalization group is used here to investigate the critical behavior of several systems for which these generalized functionals can be constructed simply. Of these, the itinerant ferromagnet is studied in greater detail. The principal results of this investigation are (i) at zero temperature, in situations where the ordering is brought about by changing a coupling constant, the dimensionality which separates classical from nonclassical critical-exponent behavior is not 4, as is usually the case in classical statistics, but $4\ensuremath{-}z$ dimensions, where
z depends on the way the frequency enters the generalized free-energy functional. When it does so in the same way that the wave vector does, as happens in the case of interacting magnetic excitons, the effective dimensionality is simply increased by 1;
z=1. It need not appear in this fashion, however, and in the examples of itinerant antiferromagnetism and clean and dirty itinerant ferromagnetism, one finds
z=2,3,and4, respectively. (ii) At finite temperatures, one finds that a classical statistical-mechanical description holds (and nonclassical exponents, for
d<4) very close to the critical value of the coupling
Uc, when $\frac{(U\ensuremath{-}{U}_{c})}{{U}_{c}}\ensuremath{\ll}{(\frac{T}{{U}_{c}})}^{\frac{2}{z}}$.
2z is therefore the quantum-to-classical crossover exponent.
By means of the dynamical vertex approximation (DΓA) we include spatial correlations on all length scales beyond the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) for the half-filled Hubbard model in three dimensions. The most relevant changes due to nonlocal fluctuations are (i) a deviation from the mean-field critical behavior with the same critical exponents as for the three dimensional Heisenberg (anti)ferromagnet and (ii) a sizable reduction of the Néel temperature (T(N)) by ~30% for the onset of antiferromagnetic order. Finally, we give a quantitative estimate of the deviation of the spectra between DΓA and DMFT in different regions of the phase diagram.
Zero-temperature or quantum phase transitions in itinerant electronic systems both with and without quenched disordered are discussed. Phase transitions considered include, the ferromagnetic transition, the antiferromagnetic transition, the superconductor-metal transition, and various metal-insulator transitions. Emphasis is placed on how to determine the universal properties that characterize these quantum phase transitions. For the first three of the phase transitions listed above, one of the main physical ideas established is that in zero-temperature systems there are soft or slow modes that exist in addition to the soft order parameter fluctuations, and that these modes can couple to the critical modes. These extra soft modes are shown to have a profound effect on the quantum critical properties. For quantum phase transitions involving zero wavenumber order parameters, i.e., the ferromagnetic and superconductor-metal transitions, these extra modes effectively lead to long-ranged effective interactions between order parameter fluctuations, which in turn lead to exactly soluble critical behaviors. For the antiferromagnetic case, we argue that while in low enough dimensions disorder fluctuation effects tend to destroy long-range order, quantum fluctuations counteract this effect and in some parameter regions manage to re-establish antiferromagnetic long-range order. For the metal-insulator transition, some recent new ideas are reviewed. In particular, it is pointed out that for interacting disordered electrons, one expects that in high dimensions the metal-insulator transition is related to the phase transition that occurs in random-field magnets in high dimensions. If the analogy also holds in three dimensions this suggests that the metal-insulator transition might have glassy characteristics.
The effects of quenched disorder on the critical properties of itinerant quantum antiferromagnets and ferromagnets are considered. Particular attention is paid to locally ordered spatial regions that are formed in the presence of quenched disorder even when the bulk system is still in the paramagnetic phase. These rare regions or local moments are reflected in the existence of spatially inhomogeneous saddle points of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson functional. We derive an effective theory that takes into account small fluctuations around all of these saddle points. The resulting free energy functional contains a new term in addition to those obtained within the conventional perturbative approach, and it comprises what would be considered nonperturbative effects within the latter. A renormalization group analysis shows that in the case of antiferromagnets, the previously found critical fixed point is unstable with respect to this new term, and that no stable critical fixed point exists at one-loop order. This is contrasted with the case of itinerant ferromagnets, where we find that the previously found critical behavior is unaffected by the rare regions due to an effective long-ranged interaction between the order parameter fluctuations.