The fluctuations-driven continuous quantum criticality has sparked tremendous interest in condensed matter physics. It has been verified that the gapless fermions fluctuations can change the nature of phase transition at criticality. In this paper, we study the fermionic quantum criticality with enlarged Ising
×Ising fluctuations in honeycomb lattice materials. The Gross-Neveu-Yukawa theory for the multicriticality between the semimetallic phase and two ordered phases that break Ising symmetry is investigated by employing perturbative renormalization group approach. We first determine the critical range in which the quantum fluctuations may render the phase transition continuous. We find that the Ising criticality is continuous only when the flavor numbers of four-component Dirac fermions
Nf≥1/4. Using the
ε expansion in four space-time dimensions, we then study the Ising
×Ising multicriticality stemming from the symmetry-breaking electronic instabilities. We analyze the underlying fixed-point structure and compute the critical exponents for the Ising
×Ising Gross-Neveu-Yukawa universality class. Further, the correlation scaling behavior for the fermion bilinear on the honeycomb lattice at the multicritical point are also briefly discussed.
A unified theory of quantum critical points beyond the conventional Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson paradigm remains unknown. According to Landau cubic criterion, phase transitions should be first-order when cubic terms of order parameters are allowed by symmetry in the Landau-Ginzburg free energy. Here, from renormalization group analysis, we show that second-order quantum phase transitions can occur at such putatively first-order transitions in interacting two-dimensional Dirac semimetals. As such type of Landau-forbidden quantum critical points are induced by gapless fermions, we call them fermion-induced quantum critical points. We further introduce a microscopic model of SU(N) fermions on the honeycomb lattice featuring a transition between Dirac semimetals and Kekule valence bond solids. Remarkably, our large-scale sign-problem-free Majorana quantum Monte Carlo simulations show convincing evidences of a fermion-induced quantum critical points for N = 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, consistent with the renormalization group analysis. We finally discuss possible experimental realizations of the fermion-induced quantum critical points in graphene and graphene-like materials.Quantum phase transitions are governed by Landau-Ginzburg theory and the exceptions are rare. Here, Li et al. propose a type of Landau-forbidden quantum critical points induced by gapless fermions in two-dimensional Dirac semimetals.
This Thesis explores the formation of novel phases in Dirac systems that are driven by strong many-body interactions and collective quantum fluctuations. The central focus is the half-filled honeycomb lattice, which is the prototypical Dirac semimetal with low-energy excitations described by Dirac fermions. Of particular interest are exotic phases of matter that are not favoured at mean-field but are stabilised by fluctuations. Self-consistent path integral techniques are used to demonstrate that extended repulsive interactions favour charge order that breaks translational and other lattice symmetries. This charge order outcompetes interaction induced topological insulating phases, which are dominant at the mean-field level. The interacting quantum critical point was found to be near the critical point of a topological Lifshitz transition. Interacting Dirac fermions exhibit perhaps the simplest example of fermionic quantum criticality. Gross-Neveu-Yukawa field theories describe the universality class of semimetal-insulator transitions, which are driven by on-site and nearest neighbour repulsive interactions on the honeycomb lattice. The Dirac fermions couple to the dynamical order parameter fields and play a crucial role in determining the universal behaviour. Naturally, this variety of criticality is outside of the Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson paradigm. This idea is extended to include the translational symmetry breaking charge order. Here it is found that the breaking of crystal symmetries corresponds to Lorentz violating effective field theories. The criticality is analysed with the renormalisation group. The low energy excitations at the topological transition are gapless semi-Dirac fermionic quasiparticles that disperse linearly in one direction and quadratically in the other. The instabilities induced by generic short-range repulsions are investigated. The criticality of this anisotropic system is analysed with the renormalisation group in two spatial dimensions, and it is found to exhibit anisotropic order parameter correlations.
According to the Landau criterion, a phase transition should be first order when cubic terms of order parameters are allowed in its effective Ginzburg-Landau free energy. Recently, it was shown by renormalization-group (RG) analysis that continuous transition can happen at putatively first-order
Z3 transitions in two-dimensional (2D) Dirac semimetals and such non-Landau phase transitions were dubbed ``fermion-induced quantum critical points'' (FIQCPs) [Z.-X. Li, Y.-F. Jiang, S.-K. Jian, and H. Yao, Nat. Commun. 8, 314 (2017)]. The RG analysis, controlled by the
1/N expansion with
N the number of flavors of four-component Dirac fermions, shows that the FIQCP occurs for $N\ensuremath{\ge}{N}_{c}$. Previous quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a microscopic model of
SU(N) fermions on the honeycomb lattice showed that the FIQCP occurs at the transition between Dirac semimetals and Kekule valence bond solids for $N\ensuremath{\ge}2$. However, the precise value of the lower bound
Nc has not been established. Especially, the case of
N=1 has not been explored by studying microscopic models so far. Here, by introducing a generalized
SU(N) fermion model with
N=1 (namely, spinless fermions on the honeycomb lattice), we perform large-scale sign-problem-free Majorana quantum Monte Carlo simulations and find convincing evidence of the FIQCP for
N=1. Consequently, our results suggest that the FIQCP can occur in 2D Dirac semimetals for all positive integers $N\ensuremath{\ge}1$.
Thermal phase transitions are successfully described by fluctuations of an appropriate order parameter, which further allows classification of the transition into first or second order. However, some quantum analogs of thermal phase transitions defy this description and identifying the mechanisms behind these unconventional processes will fundamentally improve our understanding of matter. Here, the authors provide a thorough study of such a transition, which has been experimentally accessed in graphene: the emergence of a Kekul\'e valence bond solid. Additional gapless quantum fluctuations of Dirac electrons change the nature of this transition from first to second order. Using a nonperturbative functional renormalization group approach, the authors advance the state-of-the-art estimates for the corresponding critical exponents and predict measurable corrections to scaling.
Spinless fermions on a honeycomb lattice provide a minimal realization of lattice Dirac fermions. Repulsive interactions between nearest neighbors drive a quantum phase transition from a Dirac semimetal to a charge-density-wave state through a fermionic quantum critical point, where the coupling of the Ising order parameter to the Dirac fermions at low energy drastically affects the quantum critical behavior. Encouraged by a recent discovery (Huffman and Chandrasekharan 2014 Phys. Rev. B 89 111101 ) of the absence of the fermion sign problem in this model, we study the fermionic quantum critical point using the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method with a worm-sampling technique. We estimate the transition point with the critical exponents and . Compatible results for the transition point are also obtained with infinite projected entangled-pair states.