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Dissipative quantum phase transitions and high-temperature superconductors

Iver Bakken Sperstad

Published Jan 1, 2012• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

This thesis presents seven research papers on topics in condensed-matter theory. Five of the papers report on Monte Carlo studies of quantum phase transitions in various (d+1)-dimensional statistical mechanics models featuring Caldeira-Leggettlike dissipation. The principal motivation for these studies was to investigate a particular bond-dissipative (2+1)-dimensional XY model of circulating currents in cuprate high-temperature superconductors. It has been proposed that quantum critical fluctuations associated with a local quantum critical point described by this model can explain the marginal-Fermi-liquid behaviour of the normal state of these compounds. We present simulation results for this model for both compact and noncompact phase variables and show unambiguously that the quantum critical point in the compact case is not local. If the phases are taken to be noncompact variables, the model is also a model of resistively shunted Josephson junction arrays. The results in this case reveal a more complicated phase diagram, but we have not been able to establish critical behaviour consistent with the scenario of local quantum criticality.\n\nThe study of extended quantum dissipative models is also motivated by the general effect on condensed-matter systems of the coupling to environmental degrees of freedom. Their influence on quantum critical phenomena is characterized by the dynamical critical exponent z, a measure of spatiotemporal anisotropy, the value of which can be estimated by naive scaling arguments. We confirm by numerical means that such scaling estimates give correct results to a good approximations (with a few reservations), irrespective of system dimensionality, order parameter symmetry, or whether the variables are compact or noncompact. Corrections to the naive scaling estimates have to be invoked for strongly super-Ohmic dissipation for d = 1 due to relatively large values of the anomalous scaling dimension η.\n\nThe two last research papers are concerned with the superconducting pairing state of the recently discovered class of iron-based high-temperature superconductors. Here, we calculate possible signatures of the proposed s±-wave pairing state in conductance-spectroscopy and Josephson-effect experiments.

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This thesis presents seven research papers on topics in condensed-matter theory. Five of the papers report on Monte Carlo studies of quantum phase transitions in various (d+1)-dimensional statistical mechanics models featuring Caldeira-Leggettlike dissipation. The principal motivation for these studies was to investigate a particular bond-dissipative (2+1)-dimensional XY model of circulating currents in cuprate high-temperature superconductors. It has been proposed that quantum critical fluctuations associated with a local quantum critical point described by this model can explain the marginal-Fermi-liquid behaviour of the normal state of these compounds. We present simulation results for this model for both compact and noncompact phase variables and show unambiguously that the quantum critical point in the compact case is not local. If the phases are taken to be noncompact variables, the model is also a model of resistively shunted Josephson junction arrays. The results in this case reveal a more complicated phase diagram, but we have not been able to establish critical behaviour consistent with the scenario of local quantum criticality.\n\nThe study of extended quantum dissipative models is also motivated by the general effect on condensed-matter systems of the coupling to environmental degrees of freedom. Their influence on quantum critical phenomena is characterized by the dynamical critical exponent z, a measure of spatiotemporal anisotropy, the value of which can be estimated by naive scaling arguments. We confirm by numerical means that such scaling estimates give correct results to a good approximations (with a few reservations), irrespective of system dimensionality, order parameter symmetry, or whether the variables are compact or noncompact. Corrections to the naive scaling estimates have to be invoked for strongly super-Ohmic dissipation for d = 1 due to relatively large values of the anomalous scaling dimension η.\n\nThe two last research papers are concerned with the superconducting pairing state of the recently discovered class of iron-based high-temperature superconductors. Here, we calculate possible signatures of the proposed s±-wave pairing state in conductance-spectroscopy and Josephson-effect experiments.
The discovery of high-temperature superconductors has raises questions that extend beyond the scope of quasiparticles, a foundational concept in condensed matter theory. This dissertation explores new theoretical approaches to quantum matter without quasiparticle excitations, with a particular focus on quantum criticality and the associated superconductivity in correlated electron compounds. The soluble Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model has recently emerged as a fascinating platform to address the unusual metallic states with T-linear resistivity. We first consider differ- ent variants of random Hubbard models, which share many similarities to key aspects of the original SYK model. Using a large M analysis and a renormalization group method, we propose the existence of quantum critical points with fractionalized excitations separating two distinct phases, which provides insights into the quantum phase transitions and non-Fermi liquid behaviors observed in cuprate superconductors. In the second part of this dissertation, we examine the interplay between non-Fermi liquids and superconductivity with two different pairing mechanisms. Under the framework of random Hubbard model, we demonstrate that superconductivity emerging from non-Fermi liquids strongly deviates from the BCS theory by tuning the relative strength of hopping and exchange interactions. Furthermore, we investigate a two-dimensional Yukawa-SYK model with spatially randomn interactions coupling a Fermi surface to a scalar field associated with a quantum phase transition. Our theory agrees well with transport properties analysed in cuprates, such as a T-linear resistivity and Planckian dissipation.
This thesis presents six research papers on topics in condensed-matter theory and one paper on a computational method.In two of the papers the focus is on the search for Deconfined Quantum Criticality in models describing quantum antiferromagnets on the square lattice. DQC is conjectured to be a quantum critical point between Neel and valence bond solid ordering in the models. If true, it would represent a schism with the Landau Ginzburg Wilson paradigm of phase transitions, inwhich such a critical point cannot be generic. Verification of the existence of DQC could have consequences not only for our understanding of phase transitions in general, but more specifically also for the understanding of the cuprate superconductors.Despite extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we are not able to reach a conclusion on the character of the phase transition for one of the proposed DQC models. In another, more fundamental model, no phase transition is found at all, severely undermining a lot of the theoretical framework assumed to be true in earlier work.Four of the papers investigate thermodynamical properties of superconductors with several (three or more) superconducting bands. This research is motivated by the multiband iron based superconductors, but the results should be quite general.Using large scale Monte Carlo simulations, we reveal that a new, time reversal symmetry broken non-superconducting phase should be viable for repulsive inter-band interactions. This is in contrast to mean field studies where no such phase is found, signifying the importance of fluctuations in these systems, even in three dimensions.In the last paper we present a multi-histogram reweighting method for nonequilibrium Markov chains with discrete energies.
We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the phase diagram and the correlation functions for the quantum phase transitions in the two-dimensional dissipative quantum XY model with and without fourfold anisotropy. Without anisotropy, the model describes the superconductor-to-insulator transition in two-dimensional dirty superconductors. With anisotropy, the model represents the loop-current order observed in the underdoped cuprates and its fluctuations, as well as the fluctuations near the ordering vector in simple models of two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnets and itinerant antiferromagnets. These calculations test an analytic solution of the model which reexpressed it in terms of topological excitations: the vortices with interactions only in space but none in time, and warps with leading interactions only in time but none in space, as well as subleading interactions which are both space and time dependent. For parameters where the proliferation of warps dominates the phase transition, the critical fluctuations as functions of the deviation of the dissipation parameter $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ on the disordered side from its critical value ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}$ are scale invariant in imaginary time $\ensuremath{\tau}$ as the correlation length in time ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}={\ensuremath{\tau}}_{c}{e}^{{[{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}/({\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\alpha})]}^{1/2}}$ diverges, where ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{c}$ is a short-time cutoff. On the other hand, the spatial correlations develop with a correlation length ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{x}\ensuremath{\approx}{\ensuremath{\xi}}_{0}ln({\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}})$, with ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{0}$ of the order of a lattice constant. The dynamic correlation exponent zzz is therefore $\ensuremath{\infty}$. The Monte Carlo calculations also directly show warps and vortices. Their densities and correlations across the various transitions in the model are calculated and related to those of the order-parameter correlations in the dissipative quantum XY model.
The two-dimensional quantum XY model, with a Caldeira-Leggett form of dissipation, is applicable to the quantum-critical properties of diverse experimental systems, ranging from superconductor to insulator transitions, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic transitions in metals, to the loop-current order transition in cuprates. We solve the reexpression of this model in terms of orthogonal topological excitations, vortices, and a variety of instantons, by renormalization group methods. The calculations explain the extraordinary properties of the model discovered in Monte Carlo calculations: the product form of the quantum-critical fluctuations in space and time, a spatial correlation length proportional to the logarithm of the temporal correlation length near the transition from a disordered to a fully ordered state, and the occurrence of a phase with spatial order without temporal order. They are intimately related to the flow of the metric of time in relation to the metric of space, i.e., of the dynamical critical exponent zzz. These properties appear to be essential in understanding the strange metallic phase found in a variety of quantum-critical transitions as well as the accompanying high-temperature superconductivity.
We present large-scale Monte Carlo results for the dynamical critical exponent zzz and the spatio-temporal two-point correlation function of a (2+1)-dimensional quantum XYXYXY model with bond dissipation, proposed to describe a quantum critical point in high-Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ cuprates near optimal doping. The phase variables of the model, originating with a parametrization of circulating currents within the CuO2{}_{2}2​ unit cells in cuprates, are compact, ${{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{\mathbf{r},\ensuremath{\tau}}}\ensuremath{\in}[\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\pi},\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\rangle}$. The dynamical critical exponent is found to be $z\ensuremath{\approx}1$, and the spatio-temporal correlation functions are explicitly demonstrated to be isotropic in space-imaginary time. The model thus has a fluctuation spectrum where momentum and frequency enter on equal footing, rather than having the essentially momentum-independent marginal Fermi-liquid-like fluctuation spectrum previously reported for the same model.
Earlier Monte Carlo calculations on the dissipative two-dimensional XY model are extended in several directions. We study the phase diagram and the correlation functions when dissipation is very small, where it has properties of the classical 3D-XY transition, i.e., one with a dynamical critical exponent z=1z=1z=1. The transition changes from z=1z=1z=1 to the class of criticality with $z\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ driven by topological defects, discovered earlier, beyond a critical dissipation. We also find that the critical correlations have power-law singularities as a function of tuning the ratio of the kinetic energy to the potential energy for fixed large dissipation, as opposed to essential singularities on tuning dissipation keeping the former fixed. A phase with temporal disorder but spatial order of the Kosterlitz-Thouless form is also further investigated. We also present results for the transition when the allowed Caldeira-Leggett form of dissipation and the allowed form of dissipation coupling to the compact rotor variables are both included. The nature of the transition is then determined by the Caldeira-Leggett form.