Ising-Model Description of Quantum Critical Points in 1D Electron and Spin Systems

Hiromi Otsuka, Masaaki Nakamura

R. F. Bishop, John B. Parkinson, Yang Xian

The coupled-cluster method (CCM) is applied to anisotropic-quantum-antiferromagnetic models in one and two dimensions (1D and 2D). Several hierarchical approximation schemes of the CCM are defined, which are specialized for the spin-lattice models. Good results are obtained for both ground-state and excited-state energies. The spin-spin correlation functions and the staggered magnetizations are also calculated. We have found that the CCM gives a qualitatively correct description of the entire Heisenberg-Ising phase, including the critical point where a phase transition occurs in 1D. Some interesting differences between 1D and 2D models near the critical point are discussed.

Michael P. Zaletel, Jens Hjorleifur Bardarson, Joel E. Moore

Universal logarithmic terms in the entanglement entropy appear at quantum critical points (QCPs) in one dimension (1D) and have been predicted in 2D at QCPs described by 2D conformal field theories. The entanglement entropy in a strip geometry at such QCPs can be obtained via the "Shannon entropy" of a 1D spin chain with open boundary conditions. The Shannon entropy of the XXZ chain is found to have a logarithmic term that implies, for the QCP of the square-lattice quantum dimer model, a logarithm with universal coefficient ±0.25. However, the logarithm in the Shannon entropy of the transverse-field Ising model, which corresponds to entanglement in the 2D Ising conformal QCP, is found to have a singular dependence on the replica or Rényi index resulting from flows to different boundary conditions at the entanglement cut.

Jakob E. Björnberg

Amin Moharramipour, Dan Sehayek, Thomas Scaffidi

We construct a class of solvable models for 2+1D quantum critical points by attaching 1+1D conformal field theories (CFTs) to fluctuating domain walls forming a “loop soup”. Specifically, our local Hamiltonian attaches gapless spin chains to the domain walls of a triangular lattice Ising antiferromagnet. The macroscopic degeneracy between antiferromagnetic configurations is split by the Casimir energy of each decorating CFT, which is usually negative and thus favors a short loop phase with a finite gap. However, we found a set of 1D CFT Hamiltonians for which the Casimir energy is effectively positive, making it favorable for domain walls to coalesce into a single “snake” which is macroscopically long and thus hosts a CFT with a vanishing gap. The snake configurations are geometrical objects also known as fully-packed self-avoiding walks or Hamiltonian walks which are described by an \mathrm{O} O (n=0) loop ensemble with a non-unitary 2+0D CFT description. Combining this description with the 1+1D decoration CFT, we obtain a 2+1D theory with unusual critical exponents and entanglement properties. Regarding the latter, we show that the log contributions from the decoration CFTs conspire with the spatial distribution of loops crossing the entanglement cut to generate a “non-local area law”. Our predictions are verified by Monte Carlo simulations.

Subir Sachdev A