The zero-temperature phase diagram of the ${J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{SU}(N)$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin chain is investigated by means of complementary field theory and numerical approaches for general
N. A fully gapped
SU(N) valence bond solid made of
N sites is formed above a critical value of
J2/J1 for all
N. We find that the extension of this
N-merized phase for larger values of
J2 strongly depends on the parity of
N. For even
N, the phase smoothly interpolates to the large
J2 regime where the model can be viewed as a zigzag
SU(N) two-leg spin ladder. The phase exhibits both a
N-merized ground state and incommensurate spin-spin correlations. In stark contrast to the even case, we show that the
N-merized phase with odd
N has only a finite extent with no incommensuration. A gapless phase in the
SU(N)1 universality class is stabilized for larger
J2 that stems from the existence of a massless renormalization group flow from
SU(N)2 to
SU(N)1 conformal field theories when
N is odd.
Motivated by near-term experiments with ultracold alkaline-earth atoms confined to optical lattices, we establish numerically and analytically the phase diagram of two-leg
SU(N) spin ladders. Two-leg ladders provide a rich and highly nontrivial extension of the single chain case on the way towards the relatively little explored two-dimensional situation. Focusing on the experimentally relevant limit of one fermion per site, antiferromagnetic exchange interactions, and $2\ensuremath{\le}N\ensuremath{\le}6$, we show that the phase diagrams as a function of the interchain (rung) to intrachain (leg) coupling ratio, ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}/{J}_{\ensuremath{\parallel}}$, strongly differ for even versus odd
N. For even
N=4 and 6, we demonstrate that the phase diagram consists of a single valence bond crystal (VBC) with a spatial period of
N/2 rungs. For odd
N=3 and 5, we find surprisingly rich phase diagrams exhibiting three distinct phases. For weak rung coupling, we obtain a VBC with a spatial period of
N rungs, whereas for strong coupling we obtain a critical phase related to the case of a single chain. In addition, we encounter intermediate phases for odd
N, albeit of a different nature for
N=3 as compared to
N=5. For
N=3, we find a novel gapless intermediate phase with ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$-dependent incommensurate spatial fluctuations in a sizeable region of the phase diagram. For
N=5, there are strong indications for a narrow potentially gapped intermediate phase, whose nature is not entirely clear. Our results are based on (i) field theoretical techniques, (ii) qualitative symmetry considerations, and (iii) large-scale density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations keeping beyond a million of states by fully exploiting and thus preserving the
SU(N) symmetry.
We study the ground-state properties of antiferromagnetic ${J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}$ chains with half-integer spins ranging from
S=23 to
S=211 using the density-matrix renormalization group method. We map out the ground-state phase diagrams as a function of
J1J2 containing topological phases with alternating $\frac{2S\ensuremath{-}1}{2}$ and
22S+1 valence bonds. We identify these topological phases and their boundaries by calculating the string order parameter, the dimer order parameter, and the spin gap for those $\mathrm{high}\text{\ensuremath{-}}S$ systems in the thermodynamic limit (finite-size scaling). We find that these topological regions narrow down inversely with
S and converge to a single point at
J1J2=41 in the classical limit---a critical threshold between commensurate and incommensurate orders. In addition, we extend the discussion of the Majumder-Ghosh state, previously noted only for
S=21, and speculate about its possible presence as a ground state in half-integer high-spin systems over a substantial range of
J1J2 values.
The Hubbard and spinless fermion chains are paradigms of strongly correlated systems, very well understood using the Bethe ansatz, density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), and field theory/renormalization group (RG) methods. They have been applied to one-dimensional materials and have provided important insights for understanding higher-dimensional cases. Recently, an interacting fermion model has been introduced, with possible applications to topological materials. It has a single Majorana fermion operator on each lattice site and interactions with the shortest possible range that involve four sites. We present a thorough analysis of the phase diagram of this model in one dimension using field-theory/RG and DMRG methods. It includes a gapped supersymmetric region and a gapless phase with coexisting Luttinger liquid and Ising degrees of freedom. In addition to a first-order transition, three critical points occur: tricritical Ising, Lifshitz, and a generalization of the commensurate-incommensurate transition. We also survey various gapped phases of the system that arise when the translation symmetry is broken by dimerization and find both trivial and topological phases with 0, 1, and 2 Majorana zero modes bound to the edges of the chain with open boundary conditions.
We investigate the infrared properties of SU(N)k conformal field theory perturbed by its adjoint primary field in 1+1 dimensions. The latter field theory is shown to govern the low-energy properties of various SU(N) spin chain problems. In particular, using a mapping onto k-leg SU(N) spin ladder, a massless renormalization group flow to SU(N)1 criticality is predicted when N and k have no common divisor. The latter result extends the well-known massless flow between SU(2)k and SU(2)1 Wess–Zumino–Novikov–Witten theories when k is odd in connection to the Haldane's conjecture on SU(2) Heisenberg spin chains. A direct approach is presented in the simplest N=3 and k=2 case to investigate the existence of this massless flow.
We map out the ground-state phase diagram of a one-dimensional
SU(N) Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model at half-filling and in the fully antisymmetric self-adjoint representation as a function of
N1 and Kondo coupling
Jk/t. On the basis of auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations with even
N up to 8, we show that the enlarged $\mathrm{SU}(N\ensuremath{\ge}4$) symmetry realizes a quantum phase transition separating a valence bond solid (VBS) phase occupying a weak-coupling part of the phase diagram and the Kondo insulator (KI) state dominating in the strong
Jk/t limit. Along the phase boundary, we always observe critical exponents that belong to a two-dimensional classical Ising universality class. We next trace the evolution of the composite fermion and spin spectral functions across the phase boundary and conclude that VBS order triggers a bond order wave state of conduction electrons, both coexisting with Kondo screening. Upon further reducing
Jk/t, we observe that composite quasiparticles lose their spectral weight indicating that VBS order gradually liberates localized
f spins from forming Kondo singlets with conduction electron spins. We contrast the QMC results with a static large-
N approximation, and we show that in the limit of infinite degeneracy $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ the order-disorder transition becomes of first order and is accompanied by a full decoupling of conduction electrons and localized
f spins. We complete our analysis by considering the limit of a vanishing Heisenberg coupling
Jh=0, and we provide evidence that the enlarged
SU(N) symmetry and low dimensionality of the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida exchange interaction are not sufficient to induce VBS order in the conventional
SU(N) Kondo chain, which hosts solely a KI phase. Finally, we quantify the role of increasing
N in reducing the separation of charge and spin timescales specific to the KI state, and we show that the latter is adiabatically connected to a trivial band insulator captured by the large-
N approximation.