We introduce models of one-dimensional $n(\ensuremath{\ge}3)$-body problems that undergo phase transition from a continuous scale-invariant phase to a discrete scale-invariant phase. In this paper, we focus on identical spinless particles that interact only through two-body contacts. Without assuming any particular cluster-decomposition property, we first classify all possible scale-invariant two-body contact interactions that respect unitarity, permutation invariance, and translation invariance in one dimension. We then present a criterion for the breakdown of continuous scale invariance to discrete scale invariance. Under the assumption that the criterion is met, we solve the many-body Schr\"odinger equation exactly; we obtain the exact
n-body bound-state spectrum as well as the exact
n-body
S-matrix elements for arbitrary $n\ensuremath{\ge}3$, all of which enjoy discrete scale invariance or log periodicity. Thanks to the boson-fermion duality, these results can be applied equally well to both bosons and fermions. Finally, we demonstrate how the criterion is met in the case of
n=3; we determine the exact phase diagram for the scale-invariance breaking in the three-body problem of identical bosons and fermions. The zero-temperature transition from the unbroken phase to the broken phase is the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless-like transition discussed in the literature.
Scale invariance in quantum mechanics can be broken in several ways. A well-known example is the breakdown of continuous scale invariance to discrete scale invariance, whose typical realization is the Efimov effect of three-body problems. Here we discuss yet another discrete symmetry to which continuous scale invariance can be broken: discrete phase invariance. We first revisit the one-body problem on the half line in the presence of an inverse-square potential -- the simplest example of nontrivial scale-invariant quantum mechanics -- and show that continuous scale invariance can be broken to discrete phase invariance in a small window of coupling constant. We also show that discrete phase invariance manifests itself as circularly distributed simple poles on Riemann sheets of the S-matrix. We then present three examples of few-body problems that exhibit discrete phase invariance. These examples are the one-body Aharonov-Bohm problem, a two-body problem of nonidentical particles in two dimensions, and a three-body problem of nonidentical particles in one dimension, all of which contain a codimension-two ``magnetic'' flux in configuration spaces.