This thesis presents renormalization group (RG) analyses of two strongly correlated condensed matter systems. In the first part, the phase diagram of the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg antiferromagnetic model on a spatially anisotropic triangular lattice is discussed. This model, together with a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction, describes the magnetic properties of the layered Mott insulator Cs$_{2}$CuCl$_{4}$. Employing a real-space RG approach, it is found, in agreement with a previous similar study, that a fragile collinear antiferromagnetic (CAF) state can be stabilized at sufficiently strong anisotropies. The presented RG analysis only indicates the presence of the CAF and spiral states in the phase diagram, with no extended quantum-disordered state at strong anisotropies. Specifically, it reveals a fine-tuning of couplings that entails the persistence of ferromagnetic correlations between second-nearest chains over large length scales even in the CAF phase. This has important implications on how numerical studies on finite-size systems should be interpreted, and reconciles the presence of the CAF state with the observation of only ferromagnetic correlations in numerical studies. The effect of a weak DM interaction within this RG approach is examined. It is concluded that Cs$_{2}$CuCl$_{4}$ is well within the stability region of the spiral ordering. In the second part, the fate of a neck-narrowing Lifshitz transition in two-dimensions and in the presence of weak interactions is studied. Such a transition is a topological quantum phase transition, with no change in symmetry. At the critical point of this transition, the density of states at the Fermi energy is logarithmically divergent and a van Hove singularity appears. It is found that, at the critical point, the Wilsonian effective action is intrinsically non-local. This non-locality is attributed to integrating out an emergent soft degree of freedom. Away from the critical point, a local perturbative RG description is presented, and it is shown that weak attractive interactions grow as $\log^2L$ ($L$ is the physical length). However, this local description is restricted to a finite momentum range that shrinks as the critical point is approached.
This thesis presents renormalization group (RG) analyses of two strongly correlated condensed matter systems. In the first part, the phase diagram of the spin-21 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic model on a spatially anisotropic triangular lattice is discussed. This model, together with a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction, describes the magnetic properties of the layered Mott insulator Cs2CuCl4. Employing a real-space RG approach, it is found, in agreement with a previous similar study, that a fragile collinear antiferromagnetic (CAF) state can be stabilized at sufficiently strong anisotropies. The presented RG analysis only indicates the presence of the CAF and spiral states in the phase diagram, with no extended quantum-disordered state at strong anisotropies. Specifically, it reveals a fine-tuning of couplings that entails the persistence of ferromagnetic correlations between second-nearest chains over large length scales even in the CAF phase. This has important implications on how numerical studies on finite-size systems should be interpreted, and reconciles the presence of the CAF state with the observation of only ferromagnetic correlations in numerical studies. The effect of a weak DM interaction within this RG approach is examined. It is concluded that Cs2CuCl4 is well within the stability region of the spiral ordering. In the second part, the fate of a neck-narrowing Lifshitz transition in two-dimensions and in the presence of weak interactions is studied. Such a transition is a topological quantum phase transition, with no change in symmetry. At the critical point of this transition, the density of states at the Fermi energy is logarithmically divergent and a van Hove singularity appears. It is found that, at the critical point, the Wilsonian effective action is intrinsically non-local. This non-locality is attributed to integrating out an emergent soft degree of freedom. Away from the critical point, a local perturbative RG description is presented, and it is shown that weak attractive interactions grow as log2L (L is the physical length). However, this local description is restricted to a finite momentum range that shrinks as the critical point is approached.
Materials with strongly correlated electrons show a multitude of unconventional phenomena, such as superconductivity or magnetism, that cannot be explained in a single-particle picture and necessitate to take many-body effects into account. A route to explain the origin of these phenomena consists in constructing effective models for these materials that are then solved, often using numerical techniques. Paradigmatic models for two different classes of strongly correlated electron systems are investigated in this thesis: The Hubbard model is a paradigmatic model to describe the Mott metal-insulator transition (MIT) and the Kondo lattice model describes the low-energy physics in heavy fermion compounds. Both models are analyzed numerically using different variations of a quantum cluster technique, the variational cluster approximation (VCA). The first part focuses on the MIT, as it is investigated experimentally in quasi-two-dimensional charge-transfer salts. Its nature and associated universality class are still heavily discussed and both experiments and theoretical approaches come to different conclusions. In this thesis, the Mott transition is investigated on an anisotropic two-dimensional Hubbard model at half-filling. By using a control parameter, which induces this anisotropy, strong evidence for Mott quantum criticality is found in weakly coupled Hubbard chains. The results at zero temperature show that the second-order critical end point Tc of the interaction-driven metal-insulator transition can be tuned down to zero at strong anisotropy. Further results for the antiferromagnetic phase suggest a similar picture and motivate adding the anisotropy as a new axis in the phase diagram to account for a low-temperature critical end point of the Mott transition. The second part of this thesis focuses on unconventional phases that emerge in a paradigmatic model for heavy fermion systems, the Kondo lattice model. Using the VCA, the two-dimensional Kondo lattice model is investigated in the paramagnetic phase as well as in phases with broken symmetry. An antiferromagnetic phase at weak coupling and a phase with Kondo-singlet formation at strong coupling are analyzed. Within the antiferromagnetically ordered region, two phases with different Fermi-surface topology, which are separated by a discontinuous transition, are identified. The model is also tested for s-wave superconductivity as found recently using dynamical mean-field theory, but no indications for robust local pairing are seen within VCA. Instead, nodal d-wave superconductivity is found and analyzed in a large range of couplings and electron fillings, and its interplay with antiferromagnetic order at weak coupling is discussed. This motivates further studies on extended models that might allow for a close comparison with experiments on heavy fermion systems. Understanding the formation of unconventional phases in strongly correlated electron systems is not only of fundamental interest, but it is also essential for designing new functional materials. Although the results of approximate cluster techniques have to be handled with care, the new aspects presented in this thesis pave the way for further investigations in this direction.
The Kato-Bloch perturbation formalism is used to present a density-matrix renormalization-group method for strongly anisotropic two-dimensional systems. This method is used to study Heisenberg chains weakly coupled by the transverse couplings ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$ and Jd (along the diagonals). An extensive comparison of the renormalization group and quantum Monte Carlo results for parameters where the simulations by the latter method are possible shows a very good agreement between the two methods. It is found, by analyzing ground state energies and spin-spin correlation functions, that there is a transition between two ordered magnetic states. When ${J}_{d}∕{J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.5$, the ground state displays a N\'eel order. When ${J}_{d}∕{J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.5$, a collinear magnetic ground state in which interchain spin correlations are ferromagnetic becomes stable. In the vicinity of the transition point, ${J}_{d}∕{J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}\ensuremath{\approx}0.5$, the ground state is disordered. But, the nature of this disordered ground state is unclear. While the numerical data seem to show that the chains are disconnected, the possibility of a genuine disordered two-dimensional state, hidden by finite size effects, cannot be excluded.
In this thesis, we investigate strongly correlated phenomena in quantum spin systems. In the first part of this work, we study geometrically frustrated antiferromagnets (AFMs). Generalizing the SU(2) Heisenberg Hamiltonian to Sp(N) symmetry, we obtain, in the large-N limit, the mean-field phase diagrams for the planar pyrochlore and cubic AFMs. We then use gauge theories to consider fluctuation effects about their respective mean-field configurations. We find, in addition to conventional Neel states, a plethora of novel magnetically disordered phases: two kinds of spin liquids, Z2 in 2+1D and U(1)in 3+1D, and several valence bond solids such as two and three-dimensional plaquette and columnar singlet states. We use the same approach to study the diamond lattice AFM which possesses extended classical ground state degeneracy. We demonstrate that quantum and entropic fluctuations lift this degeneracy in different ways. In the second part of the thesis, we study ultracold spinor atoms confined in optical lattices. We first demonstrate the feasibility of experimental realization of rotor models using ultracold spin-one Bose atoms in a spin-dependent and disordered optical lattice. We show that the ground state of such disordered rotor models with quadrupolar interactions can exhibit biaxial nematic ordering in the disorder-averaged sense, and suggest an imaging experiment to detect the biaxial nematicity in such systems. Finally, using variational wavefunction methods, we study the Mott phases and superfluid-insulator transition of spin-three bosons in an optical lattice with an anisotropic two dimensional optical trap. We chart out the phase diagrams for Mott states with n = 1 and n = 2 atoms per lattice site. We show that the long-range dipolar interaction stabilizes a state characterized by antiferromagnetic chains made of ferromagnetically aligned spins. We also obtain the mean-field phase boundary for the superfluid-insulator transition, and show that inside the superfluid phase and near the superfluid-insulator phase boundary, the system undergoes a first order antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic spin ordering transition.
We present a nonperturbative renormalization-group approach to the Bose-Hubbard model. By taking as initial condition of the renormalization-group flow the (local) limit of decoupled sites, we take into account both local and long-distance fluctuations in a nontrivial way. This approach yields a phase diagram in very good quantitative agreement with quantum Monte Carlo simulations, and reproduces the two universality classes of the superfluid-Mott-insulator transition. The critical behavior near the multicritical points, where the transition takes place at constant density, agrees with the original predictions of Fisher et al. [Phys. Rev. B 40, 546 (1989)] based on simple scaling arguments. At a generic transition point, the critical behavior is mean-field like with logarithmic corrections in two dimensions. In the weakly correlated superfluid phase (far away from the Mott insulating phase), the renormalization-group flow is controlled by the Bogoliubov fixed point down to a characteristic (Ginzburg) momentum scale kG, which is much smaller than the inverse healing length kh. In the vicinity of the multicritical points, when the density is commensurate, we identify a sharp crossover from a weakly to a strongly correlated superfluid phase where the condensate density and the superfluid stiffness are strongly suppressed and both kG and kh are of the order of the inverse lattice spacing.
Strongly correlated systems, i.e., quantum materials for which the interactions between its constituents are strong, are good candidates for the development of applications based on quantum-mechanical principles, such as quantum computers. Two paradigmatic models of strongly correlated systems are heavy-fermionic systems and one-dimensional spin-12 systems, with and without quenched disorder. In the past decade, improvement in computational methods and a vast enhancement in computational power has made it possible to study these systems in a a non-perturbative manner. In this thesis we present state-of-the-art numerical methods to investigate the properties of strongly correlated systems, and we apply these methods to solve a couple of selected problems in quantum condensed matter theory. We start by revisiting the phase diagram of the Falicov-Kimball model on the square lattice which can be considered as a heavy-fermionic systems. This model describes an interplay between conduction electrons and heavy electrons and reveals several distinct metal-insulator phase transitions. Using a lattice Monte-Carlo method, we study the transport properties of the model. Our analysis describes the role of temperature and interaction strength on the metal-insulator phase transitions in the Falicov-Kimball model. The second part of the thesis investigate the spatial structure of the entanglement in ground and thermal statesof the transverse-field Ising chain. We use the logarithmic negativity as a measure for the entanglement between two disjoint blocks. We investigate how logarithmic negativity depends on the spatial separation between two blocks, which can be viewed as the entanglement analog of a spatial correlation function. We find sharp entanglement thresholds at a critical distance beyond which the logarithmic negativity vanishes exactly and thus the two blocks become unentangled. Our results hold even in the presence of long-ranged quantum correlations, i.e., at the system’s quantum critical point. Using Time-Evolving Block Decimation (TEBD), we explore this feature as a function of temperature and size of the two blocks. We present a simple model to describe our numerical observations. In the last part of this thesis, we introduce an order parameter for a many-body localized spin-glass (MBL-SG) phase. We show that many-body localized spin-glass order can also be detected from two-site reduced density matrices, which we use to construct an eigenstate spin-glass order parameter. We find that this eigenstate spin-glass order parameter captures spin-glass phases in random Ising chains, both in many-body eigenstates as well as in the nonequilibrium dynamics, from a local in time measurement. We discuss how our results can be used to observe MBL-SG order within current experiments in Rydberg atoms and trapped ion systems.
Many of the most vexing phenomena observed in condensed matter physics involve strongly correlated systems near quantum critical points in two spatial dimensions. Examples range from the sharing of critical exponents (superuniversality) among quantum Hall plateau transitions to the emergence of a charge-vortex symmetry near the field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition in thin films to the appearance of “anomalous” metallic states which evade localization. These problems elude theoretical understanding because they lack small parameters; standard perturbative approaches constitute poor, often uncontrolled approximations. This thesis concerns itself with the development of techniques reaching beyond the perturbative paradigm, focusing especially on duality, the idea that two seemingly different theories are actually one and the same. While a duality is most useful when it relates a strongly interacting theory to a weakly interacting one, even dualities between strongly coupled theories can reveal emergent symmetries and exotic gapped phases that may be obscure in one theory but not its dual. Recently, starting from a relativistic analogue of flux attachment, an entire web of quantum field theory dualities was proposed connecting a wide variety of quantum critical states in two spatial dimensions. This web of dualities has led to a surge of progress on a wide variety of condensed matter problems, several examples of which are presented in this thesis. One of the major challenges that comes with the proposal of new dualities is to “derive” them. In Chapter 2, we construct simple, explicit derivations of many members of the web of dualities in (particle-hole symmetric) models of relativistic current loops. In relativistic theories, flux attachment necessarily involves transmutation of both statistics and spin, an operation which can be made precise in the context of loop models. We further show that while non-relativistic theories are invariant under attachment of even numbers of flux quanta due to the periodicity of statistics, this symmetry is completely lost in relativistic theories due to the presence of spin, clarifying the interpretation of earlier loop models in which this symmetry appeared to be present. Motivated in part by this lack of statistical periodicity in relativistic flux attachment, in Chapter 3 we turn our attention to the metallic, “composite Fermi liquid” states occuring in quantum Hall systems at filling fraction ν = 1/2n. Famously, the state at ν = 1/2 is known to display particle-hole symmetry, which has recently led to the proposal of a manifestly particle-hole symmetric theory of relativistic, or Dirac, composite fermions that features prominently in the web of dualities. Surprisingly, however, an analogous “reflection symmetry” has also been observed in transport experiments about ν = 1/4. To explain this symmetry, we propose a series of relativistic composite fermion theories for the compressible states at ν = 1/2n, in which the reflection symmetry is incorporated as a mean field time-reversal symmetry of the composite fermions. These theories consist of electrically neutral Dirac fermions attached to 2n flux quanta via an emergent Chern-Simons gauge field. While not possessing an explicit particle-hole symmetry, these theories reproduce the known Jain sequence states proximate to ν = 1/2n, and we show that such states can be related by the observed reflection symmetry, at least at mean field level. In Chapter 4, we describe how duality can be used to access exotic gapped phases, in particular non- Abelian quantum Hall states. Using proposed non-Abelian bosonization dualities in two spatial dimensions, which morally relate U(N)k and SU(k)−N Chern-Simons-matter theories, we present pairing scenarios for which non-Abelian quantum Hall states can be obtained starting from theories of Abelian composite particles. The advantage of these dualities is that regions of the phase diagram which may be obscure on one side of the duality can be accessed by condensing local operators on the other side. Starting from parent Abelian states, we use this approach to construct Landau-Ginzburg theories of non-Abelian states through a pairing mechanism. In particular, we obtain the bosonic Read-Rezayi sequence at fillings ν = k/(kM +2) by starting from k layers of bosons at ν = 1/2 with M Abelian fluxes attached and then condensing k-clusters of the dual non-Abelian bosons. We further extend this constructions to obtain generalizations of the Read-Rezayi states with emergent global symmetries. In Chapter 5, we describe a context in which non-perturbative ideas from duality and perturbative results in the language of the renormalization group (RG) can inform one another: the interplay of quenched disorder and strong interaction effects near quantum critical points. In particular, we focus on the problem of quenched disorder at the superfluid-insulator transition of the O(N) model in the large-N limit. While a random mass is strongly relevant at the free fixed point, its effect is screened by the strong interactions of the Wilson-Fisher fixed point in this model, enabling a perturbative RG study of the interplay of disorder and interactions about this fixed point. In contrast to the spiralling flows obtained in earlier double-ε expansions, we show that the theory flows directly to a quantum critical point characterized by finite disorder and interactions, with critical exponents in remarkable agreement with numerical studies of the superfluid-Mott glass transition. With these results in hand, we apply duality to discuss the possible implications of this result for the dual Abelian Higgs and Chern-Simons-Dirac fermion theories when N = 1.