Harris criterion In studies of the phase-transition phenomena, the systems considered before were assumed to be perfectly homogeneous. In real physical systems, however, some defects or impurities are always present. Therefore, it is natural to consider what effect impurities might have on the phase-transition phenomena. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the thermodynamics of the second-order phase transition is dominated by large-scale fluctuations. The dominant scale, or the correlation length, R c ∼ | T / T C – l| – v grows as T approaches the critical temperature T c , where it becomes infinite. The large-scale fluctuations lead to singularities in the thermodynamical functions as |τ| ≡ | T / T c – 1| → 0. These singularities are the main subject of the theory. If the concentration of impurities is small, their effect on the critical behavior remains negligible so long as R c is not too large, i.e. for T not too close to T c . In this regime the critical behavior will be essentially the same as in the perfect system. However, as |τ| → 0 ( T → T c ) and R c becomes larger than the average distance between impurities, their influence can become crucial. As T c is approached the following change of length scale takes place. First, the correlation length of the fluctuations becomes much larger than the lattice spacing, and the system ‘forgets’ about the lattice. The only relevant scale that remains in the system in this regime is the correlation length R c (τ).
Harris criterion In studies of the phase-transition phenomena, the systems considered before were assumed to be perfectly homogeneous. In real physical systems, however, some defects or impurities are always present. Therefore, it is natural to consider what effect impurities might have on the phase-transition phenomena. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the thermodynamics of the second-order phase transition is dominated by large-scale fluctuations. The dominant scale, or the correlation length, R c ∼ | T / T C – l| – v grows as T approaches the critical temperature T c , where it becomes infinite. The large-scale fluctuations lead to singularities in the thermodynamical functions as |τ| ≡ | T / T c – 1| → 0. These singularities are the main subject of the theory. If the concentration of impurities is small, their effect on the critical behavior remains negligible so long as R c is not too large, i.e. for T not too close to T c . In this regime the critical behavior will be essentially the same as in the perfect system. However, as |τ| → 0 ( T → T c ) and R c becomes larger than the average distance between impurities, their influence can become crucial. As T c is approached the following change of length scale takes place. First, the correlation length of the fluctuations becomes much larger than the lattice spacing, and the system ‘forgets’ about the lattice. The only relevant scale that remains in the system in this regime is the correlation length R c (τ).
The problem of the effect of inhomogeneous impurities in a lattice structure on the critical behaviour of systems which undergo a second-order phase transition is studied on a model system, the 2D Ising Model with impurity bonds randomly distributed over the lattice. It is known that in the critical region the 2D Ising Model is equivalent to the model of free fermions. We show that the effect of impurities is to add a four-fermion interaction with the corresponding charge proportional to the concentration of impurities. The resulting fermion model is simple enough and can be studied exactly by renormalization group methods. We show that for any small concentration of impurity bonds a new critical regime is established if we go sufficiently close to the phase-transition point. In particular we find that the specific heat singularity changes from C ˜ ln 1/|τ|(τ=(Τ − Τc/Τc to C ˜ ln ln 1/|τ| for τ≪τi ˜ exp(−const/c i), c i being the concentration of impurities, while the spin-spin correlation function in the critical point changes more seriously: from <σ R σΟ> ˜ 1/R1/4 to <σ R σΟ> ˜ exp { − (const/c i)(ln ln R2 )} for R≫R i˜ exp (const/c i), which corresponds to a change of the critical exponent η from 1/4 to 0.
Abstract This chapter is devoted to a brief review of general properties of phase transitions in macroscopic physics and, in particular in lattice models. Some of these lattice models actually appear as lattice regularizations of Euclidean (imaginary time) quantum physics theory (QFT). Most of the transitions considered in this work have the following character: spins on the lattice, or macroscopic particles in the continuum, interact through short-range forces, assumed, for simplicity, to decay exponentially. For simple systems, it is possible to find a local observable, called order parameter, whose expectation values depend on the phase in the several phase region, for example, the spin in ferromagnetic systems. In the disordered phase, the connected two-point function decreases exponentially at large distance, at a rate characterized by the correlation length (the inverse of the smallest physical mass in particle physics). In continuous transitions, the correlation length diverges at the critical temperature. Within the mean-field approximation (consistent with Landau's theory of critical phenomena), it can be shown that the singular behaviour of thermodynamic quantities at the critical temperature is universal. These properties can also be reproduced by calculating correlation functions with a perturbed Gaussian measure. It is then shown that the leading corrections to the mean-field approximation, in Ising-like systems, diverge at the critical temperature for dimensions smaller than or equal to 4.
In the previous chapter, we developed the Landau theory of phase transitions, emphasizing how macroscopic order parameters and symmetry considerations determine the general form of the free energy near criticality. There, spatial variations of the order parameter were neglected, corresponding to the mean-field approximation . However, as we have seen, close to the critical temperature T c the correlation length ξ diverges, and fluctuations occur over arbitrarily large scales. In this regime, the assumption of spatial uniformity breaks down, and a local field description becomes necessary.
Condensed media show a large variety of critical phenomena, ranging from critical opalescence at the end point of the liquid–gas coexistence curve, the Curie transition of ferromagnetic materials, to the superfluid transition of helium, the behaviour of solutions of polymers, the conductivity of random media, … To this list should be added systems with local symmetries, such as those suggested by particle physics in order to understand quark confinement. Surprisingly all these phenomena can be classified into a few universality classes, characterized by specific large distance behaviour with the same critical exponents. In this chapter, we sketch the methods and ideas of the renormalization procedure. We illustrate the concepts with simple approximations in the language of classical spin models in the first section, treating in more detail the XY -model as an example in the second section. Scaling laws. Real space renormalization Homogeneity and scale invariance The discussion given in previous chapters suggests that, close to a continuous transition, critical systems exhibit universal properties. Correlations at large distance are not sensitive to the details of microscopic interactions. Their behaviour is described by a specific dimensional analysis governed by some essential characteristics of the system, such as the dimension of space, the nature of the order parameter and the underlying symmetries. The mean field approximation gave a first idea of a simple critical behaviour. Fluctuations have only a quantitative effect in dimension greater than the upper critical one.
Quantum Phase Transitions Quantum phase transitions, in contrast to temperature-driven critical phenomena, occur due to a competition between different parameters describing the basic interactions of the system. Their specific feature is the quantum character of the critical fluctuations. This implies, through the uncertainty principle, that energy fluctuations and time are coupled. Then at zero temperature time plays a crucial and fundamental role, the static properties being entangled with the dynamics (Continentino, 1994a; Sondhi et al ., 1997; Sachdev, 1999). In this book we are mainly interested in quantum phase transitions that occur in electronic many-body systems and how scaling concepts can be useful to understand their properties close to these transitions (Continentino, 1994a). Even though a similar approach has been used in the case of interacting bosons (Fisher et al ., 1989) the fermionic problem has its own idiosyncrasies and difficulties. For example, there is no natural order parameter associated with the localisation transition in the electronic case, while bosons at zero temperature are either localised or superfluid so that the superfluid order parameter can be used to distinguish between both phases. If the results of the study of quantum phase transitions were restricted to zero temperature, this would be an interesting but purely academic area of research. What is really exciting about this subject is the effect of quantum critical points (QCP) in the finite temperature phase diagram of actual physical systems, even far away from the QCP (Freitas, 2015). As we will show, there is a special line in this phase diagram, the quantum critical trajectory , where the temperature dependence of the thermodynamic and transport properties is governed by the quantum critical exponents, i.e. those associated with the QCP. This and the observed crossover effects induced by temperature in the non-critical side of the phase diagram of a material with a QCP are sufficient to make the study of quantum phase transitions an inevitable subject. We start this chapter by introducing the scaling theory of quantum critical phenomena, since scaling concepts are used throughout this book.
One of the most striking aspects of critical behaviour is that of the crucial role played by the geometry of the System. Critical exponents depend in a non-trivial manner on the dimensionality d . The very existence of a phase transition depends on the way in which the infinite volume limit is taken, as discussed in Section 4.4. This happens because the critical fluctuations, which determine the universal properties, occur at long wavelengths and are therefore very sensitive to the large scale geometry. By contrast, the non-critical properties of a system are sensitive to fluctuations on the scale of the correlation length and are therefore much less influenced. This line of reasoning also suggests that not all points in a system are equivalent in the way the local degrees of freedom couple to these critical fluctuations. So far, we have considered the behaviour of scaling operators only at points deep inside the bulk of a system. Near a boundary, however, the local environment of a given degree of freedom is different, and we might expect to find different critical properties there. In general, such differences should extend into the bulk only over distances of the order of the bulk correlation length. However, at a continuous bulk phase transition, this distance diverges, and we should expect the influence of boundaries to be more pronounced. The simplest modification of the bulk geometry to consider is that of a ( d − 1)-dimensional hyperplane bounding a semi-infinite d -dimensional system.