Quantum phase transitions (QPTs) are investigated in biquadratic spin-
1 XY chain with rhombic single-ion anisotropy by using the ground state energy (GE), the bipartite entanglement entropy (BEE), and the mutual information (MI). It turns out that there are three spin nematic phases and two Tomonaga-Luttinger (TL) liquid phases with the central charge
c=1. The TL Liquid phases emerge roughly for biquadratic interaction strength two times stronger than the absolute value of the single-ion anisotropy. The GE and the derivatives up to the second order reveal a first-order QPT between spin nematic ferroquarupole (FQ) phases but cannot capture an evident signal of QPTs between the spin nematic phases and the TL Liquid phases as well as QPT between the two TL liquid phases. The TL liquid-to-liquid transition point features a highly degenerate state and the spin-block entanglement entropy increases logarithmically with block size. The BEE exhibits a divergent or convergent behavior identifying the TL Liquid or spin nematic FQ phases, respectively. Similarly, the MI and the spin-spin correlation are shown to decay algebraically or exponentially with increasing the lattice distance in the TL Liquid or spin nematic FQ phases, respectively. In the TL liquid phase, the exponents
ηI and
ηz of the MI and the spin-spin correlation vary with the interaction parameter of the biquadratic interaction strength and the rhombic single-ion anisotropy and satisfy the relationship of
ηz<ηI. Such changes of characteristic behavior of the BEE, the MI and the spin-spin correlation indicate an occurrence of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT)-type QPT between the TL Liquid phase and the spin nematic FQ phase. The staggered spin fluctuation
⟨SxSy⟩ is shown to play a significant role for the emergence of the TL liquid phase and thus give rise to the BKT-type QPT.
We study a large-N generalization of
J1-
J2 Heisenberg model on square lattice -- an
Sp(2N) spin model. The possible quantum spin liquid phases of the
Sp(2N) model are studied using the SU(2) projective construction. We find several spin liquid states at least in large
N limit, which include SU(2)
π-flux state, SU(2) chiral spin state and
Z2 spin liquid states. All those spin liquid states have non-trivial quantum orders. We show how projective symmetry group, which characterizes quantum order, protects the stability of even gapless spin liquids. We also study the continuous quantum phase transition from the SU(2)
π-flux state to the SU(2) chiral spin liquid state, and from the SU(2)
π-flux state to the
Z2 spin liquid state. We show that those phase transitions are beyond the paradigm of Landau symmetry-breaking theory. The first phase transition, although a
Z2 symmetry breaking transition, contains critical exponents that are different from those obtained from the Ginzburg-Landau theory of Ising universality class. The second transition does not even involve a change of symmetry and has no symmetry breaking order parameter.
We investigate signatures of topological quantum phase transitions (TQPTs) between the Z_{2} quantum spin liquids (QSLs). In two spatial dimensions, Z_{2} QSLs and their TQPTs are only well defined at zero temperature (T=0), and it is imperative to clarify their observable signatures under nonzero temperatures. Here, we present the vestiges of TQPTs between Z_{2} QSLs with Majorana fermions in terms of thermal Hall conductivity κ_{xy} at nonzero temperatures. The κ_{xy}/T shows characteristic temperature dependences around TQPTs. We argue that an exponential upturn near T=0 and the peak of κ_{xy}/T around massive excitation energy are observable smoking-gun signals of the TQPTs. Quantum critical fan-shape temperature dependences are uncovered across TQPTs. We also perform the parton mean-field analysis on a modified Kitaev model with next-nearest neighbor interactions finding TQPTs between the phases with different Chern numbers and their vestiges self-consistently. We discuss the implication of our results to the recent experiments in α-RuCl_{3}.