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Topological Lattice Actions for the 2d XY Model

Wolfgang Bietenholz A, Bögli, Michael, Niedermayer, Ferenc, Michele Pepe A, Fernando G. Rejón-Barrera, U.‐J. Wiese

Published Jan 1, 2013• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We consider the 2d XY Model with topological lattice actions, which are invariant against small deformations of the field configuration. These actions constrain the angle between neighbouring spins by an upper bound, or they explicitly suppress vortices (and anti-vortices). Although topological actions do not have a classical limit, they still lead to the universal behaviour of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition — at least up to moderate vortex suppression. In the massive phase, the analytically known Step Scaling Function (SSF) is reproduced in numerical simulations. However, deviations from the expected universal behaviour of the lattice artifacts are observed. In the massless phase, the BKT value of the critical exponent ηc is confirmed. Hence, even though for some topological actions vortices cost zero energy, they still drive the standard BKT transition. In addition we identify a vortex-free transition point, which deviates from the BKT behaviour.

DOI
10.7892/boris.42230

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We consider the 2d XY Model with topological lattice actions, which are invariant against small deformations of the field configuration. These actions constrain the angle between neighbouring spins by an upper bound, or they explicitly suppress vortices (and anti-vortices). Although topological actions do not have a classical limit, they still lead to the universal behaviour of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition — at least up to moderate vortex suppression. In the massive phase, the analytically known Step Scaling Function (SSF) is reproduced in numerical simulations. However, deviations from the expected universal behaviour of the lattice artifacts are observed. In the massless phase, the BKT value of the critical exponent ηc is confirmed. Hence, even though for some topological actions vortices cost zero energy, they still drive the standard BKT transition. In addition we identify a vortex-free transition point, which deviates from the BKT behaviour.
The 2D XY model exhibits an essential phase transition, which was predicted long ago—by Berezinskii, Kosterlitz and Thouless (BKT)—to be driven by the (un)binding of vortex–anti-vortex pairs. This transition has been confirmed for the standard lattice action, and for actions with distinct couplings, in agreement with universality. Here we study a highly unconventional formulation of this model, which belongs to the class of topological lattice actions: it does not have any couplings at all, but just a constraint for the relative angles between nearest neighbour spins. By means of dynamical boundary conditions we measure the helicity modulus ϒ, which shows that this formulation performs a BKT phase transition as well. Its finite size effects are amazingly mild, in contrast to other lattice actions. This provides one of the most precise numerical confirmations ever of a BKT transition in this model. On the other hand, up to the lattice sizes that we explored, there are deviations from the spin wave approximation, for instance for the Binder cumulant U 4 and for the leading finite size correction to ϒ. Finally we observe that the (un)binding mechanism follows the usual pattern, although free vortices do not require any energy in this formulation. Due to this observation, one should reconsider an aspect of the established picture, which estimates the critical temperature based on this energy requirement.
We investigate the 2d XY model by using the constraint angle action, which belongs to the class of topological lattice actions. These actions violate important features usually demanded for a lattice action, such as the correct classical continuum limit and the applicability of perturbation theory. Nevertheless, they still lead to the same universal quantum continuum limit and show excellent scaling behavior. By using the constraint angle action we gain new insight into the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition of the 2d XY model. This phase transition is of special interest since it is one of the few examples of a phase transition beyond second order. It is of infinite order and therefore an essential phase transition. In particular, we observe an excellent scaling behavior of the helicity modulus, which characterizes this phase transition. We also observe that the mechanism of (un)binding vortex-anti-vortex pairs follows the usual pattern, although free vortices do not require any energy in the formulation of the 2d XY model using the constraint angle action.
Abstract In this paper, we thoroughly examined the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition in the two-dimensional XY model on the honeycomb lattice. To address its thermodynamical behavior, we combined standard numerical Monte Carlo simulations with the simulated annealing (SA) protocol and entropic simulations based on the Wang-Landau (WL) algorithm. The transition temperature was determined using the second (ϒ) and fourth-order (ϒ4) helicity modulus as the order parameter. Our best finite-size scaling analysis suggests T BKT = 0.575(8) from SA and T BKT = 0.576(3) from WL. These values deviate significantly from the expected theoretical value of 1 / 2 . We believe that this discrepancy suggests that the theoretical assumptions regarding the analytical calculation may need to be revisited. Additionally, we calculated the vortex density and the formation energy of the vortex-antivortex pairs, where the obtained vortex formation energy is 2μ = 5.80(12). Upon comparison with the square lattice, our results support the notion of instability of the honeycomb lattice to support the spin long-range order and give additional backing to the critical behavior we found.
The Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition is the prototype of a phase transition driven by the formation and interaction of topological defects in two-dimensional (2D) systems. In typical models these are vortices: above a transition temperature TBKTT_{\rm BKT}TBKT​ vortices are free, below this transition temperature they get confined. In this work we extend the concept of BKT transition to quantum systems in two dimensions. In particular, we demonstrate that a zero-temperature quantum BKT phase transition, driven by a coupling constant can occur in 2D models governed by an effective gauge field theory with a diverging dielectric constant. One particular example is that of a compact U(1) gauge theory with a diverging dielectric constant, where the quantum BKT transition is induced by non-relativistic, purely 2D magnetic monopoles, which can be viewed also as electric vortices. These quantum BKT transitions have the same diverging exponent zzz as the quantum Griffiths transition but have nothing to do with disorder.
The Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) mechanism describes universal vortex unbinding in many two-dimensional systems, including the paradigmatic XY model. However, most of these systems present a complex interplay between excitations at different length scales that complicates theoretical calculations of nonuniversal thermodynamic quantities. These difficulties may be overcome by suitably modifying the initial conditions of the BKT flow equations to account for noncritical fluctuations at small length scales. In this work, we perform a systematic study of the validity and limits of this two-step approach by constructing optimised initial conditions for the BKT flow. We find that the two-step approach can accurately reproduce the results of Monte Carlo simulations of the traditional XY model. To systematically study the interplay between vortices and spin-wave excitations, we introduce a modified XY model with increased vortex fugacity. We present large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of the spin stiffness and vortex density for this modified XY model and show that even at large vortex fugacity, vortex unbinding is accurately described by the nonperturbative functional renormalization group.
The Berezinski˘ı-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) essential phase transition in the 2d XY model is revisited. Its mechanism is usually described by the (un)binding of vortex–anti-vortex (V–AV) pairs, which does, however, not provide a clear-cut quantitative criterion for criticality. Known sharp criteria are the divergence of the correlation length and a discontinuity of the helicity modulus. Here we propose and probe a new criterion: it is based on the concepts of semi-vortices and cluster vorticity, which are formulated in the framework of the multi-cluster algorithm that we use to simulate the 2d XY model