Quantum phase transitions in finite systems
Clare Dunning, Katrina Hibberd, Jon Links
Abstract
The aim of this work is to develop a technique for identifying quantum phase transitions which does not rely on the existence of a thermodynamic limit, for studies in finite systems. The approach we adopt exploits an exact mapping of the spectrum of a many-body integrable system, which admits an exact Bethe ansatz solution, into the quasi-exactly solvable spectrum of a one-particle Schrodinger operator. Bifurcations of the minima for the potential of the Schrodinger operator determine critical ground-state couplings. By considering the behaviour of certain ground-state correlation functions, these may be identified as quantum phase transitions in the many-body integrable system with finite particle number. We study two particular examples of bosonic Hamiltonians which admit second-order transitions, and discuss further applications.