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Symmetry

Parity-Dependent Quantum Phase Transition in the Quantum Ising Chain in a Transverse Field

Daniel Sacco Shaikh, Maura Sassetti, Niccolò Traverso Ziani

Published May 13, 2022• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Phase transitions- both in the classical and in the quantum version- are the perfect playground for appreciating universality at work. Indeed, the fine details become unimportant and a classification in very few universality classes is possible. Very recently, a striking deviation from this picture has been discovered: some antiferromagnetic spin chains with competing interactions show a different set of phase transitions depending on the parity of number of spins in the chain. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the same behavior also characterizes the most simple quantum spin chain: the Ising model in a transverse field. By means of an exact solution based on a Wigner-Jordan transformation, we show that a first order quantum phase transition appears at zero applied field in the odd spin case, while it is not present in the even case. A hint of a possible physical interpretation is given by the combination of two fact: at the point of the phase transition, the degeneracy of the ground state in the even and the odd case substantially differ, being respectively 2 and 2N, with N the number of spins; the spin of the most favorable kink states changes at that point.

DOI
10.3390/sym14050996

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Phase transitions- both in the classical and in the quantum version- are the perfect playground for appreciating universality at work. Indeed, the fine details become unimportant and a classification in very few universality classes is possible. Very recently, a striking deviation from this picture has been discovered: some antiferromagnetic spin chains with competing interactions show a different set of phase transitions depending on the parity of number of spins in the chain. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the same behavior also characterizes the most simple quantum spin chain: the Ising model in a transverse field. By means of an exact solution based on a Wigner-Jordan transformation, we show that a first order quantum phase transition appears at zero applied field in the odd spin case, while it is not present in the even case. A hint of a possible physical interpretation is given by the combination of two fact: at the point of the phase transition, the degeneracy of the ground state in the even and the odd case substantially differ, being respectively 2 and 2N, with N the number of spins; the spin of the most favorable kink states changes at that point.
Phase transitions in Ising models are a broadly studied subject within physics.In this thesis we will study the quantum mechanical transverse-field Ising model in order to determine analytical critical points for quantum phase transitions.This will be done by introducing the concept of fermionic operators and the Jordan-Wigner transformation.Hereafter it is possible to Fourier transform the transverse Ising Hamiltonian and derive an exact eigenenergy spectrum.With these eigenenergies it is possible to derive the condition(s) for which a phase transition can occur.This is done by looking when the eigenenergy solutions are equal to zero.This causes the system to become unstable and thus indicates a point of phase transition.Further in this thesis we will cover two different variations of the transverse-field Ising model which are the di-atomic transverse Ising chain and the frustrated Ising chain.The frustrated Ising chain will be a modification of the mono-atomic Ising chain where there is an extra interaction term introduced which will require an assumption of lowest order approximation of perturbation theory to solve analytically.I would like to thank Lars Fritz for the great learning experience as a physicist within my bachelor thesis.
This chapter is devoted to a discussion of quantum phase transitions in regularly alternating spin-1/2 Ising chain in a transverse field. After recalling some generally-known topics of the classical (temperature-driven) phase transition theory and some basic concepts of the quantum phase transition theory I pass to the statistical mechanics calculations for a one-dimensional spin-1/2 Ising model in a transverse field, which is the simplest possible system exhibiting the continuous quantum phase transition. The essential tool for these calculations is the Jordan-Wigner fermionization. The latter technique being completed by the continued fraction approach permits to obtain analytically the thermodynamic quantities for a `slightly complicated' model in which the intersite exchange interactions and on-site fields vary regularly along a chain. Rigorous analytical results for the ground-state and thermodynamic quantities, as well as exact numerical data for the spin correlations computed for long chains (up to a few thousand sites) demonstrate how the regularly alternating bonds/fields effect the quantum phase transition. I discuss in detail the case of period 2, swiftly sketch the case of period 3 and finally summarize emphasizing the effects of periodically modulated Hamiltonian parameters on quantum phase transitions in the transverse Ising chain and in some related models.
We study a finite spin-1/2 Ising chain with a spatially alternating transverse field of period 2. By means of a Jordan-Wigner transformation for even and odd sites, we are able to map it into a one-dimensional model of free fermions. We determine the ground-state energies in the positive- and negative-parity subspaces (subspaces with an even or odd total number of down spins, respectively) and compare them in order to establish the ground-state energy for the entire Hamiltonian. We derive closed-form expressions for this energy gap between the different parity subspaces and analyze its behavior and dependence on the system size in the various regimes of the applied field. Finally, we suggest an expression for the correlation length of such a model that is consistent with the various values found in the literature for its behavior in the vicinity of critical points.
The ground-state behaviour of the frustrated quantum spin-1/2 two-leg ladder with the Heisenberg intra-rung and Ising inter-rung interactions is examined in detail. The investigated model is transformed into the quantum Ising chain with composite spins in an effective transverse and longitudinal field by employing either the bond-state representation or the unitary transformation. It is shown that the ground state of the Heisenberg–Ising ladder can be descended from three exactly solvable models: the quantum Ising chain in a transverse field, the ‘classical’ Ising chain in a longitudinal field or the spin-chain model in a staggered longitudinal–transverse field. The last model serves in evidence of the staggered bond phase with alternating singlet and triplet bonds on the rungs of a two-leg ladder, which appears at moderate values of the external magnetic field and consequently leads to a fractional plateau at a half of the saturation magnetization. The ground-state phase diagram totally consists of five ordered and one quantum paramagnetic phase, which are separated from each other either by the lines of discontinuous or continuous quantum phase transitions. The order parameters are exactly calculated for all five ordered phases and the quantum paramagnetic phase is characterized through different short-range spin–spin correlations.
The phase transitions in the transverse field Ising model in a competing spatially modulated (periodic and oscillatory) longitudinal field are studied numerically. There is a multiphase point in absence of the transverse field where the degeneracy for a longitudinal field of wavelength lambda is [(1+sqrt[5])/2](2N/lambda) for a system with N spins, an exact result obtained from the known result for lambda=2. The phase transitions in the Gamma (transverse field) versus h(0) (amplitude of the longitudinal field) phase diagram are obtained from the vanishing of the mass gap Delta. We find that for all the phase transition points obtained in this way, Delta shows finite size scaling behavior signifying a continuous phase transition everywhere. The values of the critical exponents show that the model belongs to the universality class of the two dimensional Ising model. The longitudinal field is found to have the same scaling behavior as that of the transverse field, which seems to be a unique feature for the competing field. The phase boundaries for two different wavelengths of the modulated field are obtained. Close to the multiphase point at h(c), the phase boundary behaves as (h(c)-h(0))(b), where b is also lambda dependent.
Hyperuniform states of matter are characterized by anomalous suppression of long-wavelength density fluctuations. While most of the interesting cases of disordered hyperuniformity are provided by complex many-body systems such as liquids or amorphous solids, classical spin chains with certain long-range interactions have been shown to demonstrate the same phenomenon. Such spin-chain systems are ideal models for exploring the effects of quantum mechanics on hyperuniformity. It is well-known that the transverse field Ising model shows a quantum phase transition (QPT) at zero temperature. Under the quantum effects of a transverse magnetic field, classical hyperuniform spin chains are expected to lose their hyperuniformity. High-precision simulations of these cases are complicated because of the presence of highly nontrivial long-range interactions. We perform an extensive analysis of these systems using density matrix renormalization group simulations to study the possibilities of phase transitions and the mechanism by which they lose hyperuniformity. Even for a spin chain of length 30, we see discontinuous changes in properties like the ``$\ensuremath{\tau}$ order metric'' of the ground state, the measure of hyperuniformity, and the second cumulant of the total magnetization along the xxx-direction, all suggestive of first-order QPTs. An interesting feature of the phase transitions in these disordered hyperuniform spin chains is that, depending on the parameter values, the presence of a transverse magnetic field may lead remarkably to an increase in the order of the ground state as measured by the ``$\ensuremath{\tau}$ order metric,'' even if hyperuniformity is lost. Therefore, it would be possible to design materials to target specific novel quantum behaviors in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. Our numerical investigations suggest that these spin chains can show no more than two QPTs. We further analyze the long-range interacting spin chains via the Jordan-Wigner mapping onto a system of spinless fermions, showing that under the pairwise-interaction approximation and a mean-field treatment, there can be at most two quantum phase transitions. Based on these numerical and theoretical explorations, we conjecture that for spin chains with long-range pair interactions that have convergent cosine transforms, there can be a maximum of two quantum phase transitions at zero temperature.