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arXiv:cond-mat/0004318

Dirac Fermions on a Two-Dimensional Lattice and the Intermediate Metallic Phase

K. Ziegler

Published Apr 18, 2000• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Consequences of different discretizations of the two-dimensional Dirac operator on low energy properties (e.g., the number of nodes) and their relations to gauge properties are discussed. Breaking of the gauge invariance was suggested in a recent work by M. Bocquet, D. Serban, and M.R. Zirnbauer [cond-mat/9910480] in order to destroy an intermediate metallic phase of lattice Dirac fermions with random mass. It is explained that such a procedure is inconsistent with the underlying lattice physics. Previous results point out that the logarithmic growth of the slope of the average density of states with the system size, obtained in the field-theoretical calculation of M. Bocquet et al., could be a precursor for the appearence of an intermediate metallic phase.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0004318

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Consequences of different discretizations of the two-dimensional Dirac operator on low energy properties (e.g., the number of nodes) and their relations to gauge properties are discussed. Breaking of the gauge invariance was suggested in a recent work by M. Bocquet, D. Serban, and M.R. Zirnbauer [cond-mat/9910480] in order to destroy an intermediate metallic phase of lattice Dirac fermions with random mass. It is explained that such a procedure is inconsistent with the underlying lattice physics. Previous results point out that the logarithmic growth of the slope of the average density of states with the system size, obtained in the field-theoretical calculation of M. Bocquet et al., could be a precursor for the appearence of an intermediate metallic phase.
The density of states of Dirac fermions with a random mass on a two-dimensional lattice is considered. We give the explicit asymptotic form of the single-electron density of states as a function of both energy and (average) Dirac mass, in the regime where all states are localized. We make use of a weak-disorder expansion in the parameter g/m^2, where g is the strength of disorder and m the average Dirac mass for the case in which the evaluation of the (supersymmetric) integrals corresponds to non-uniform solutions of the saddle point equation. The resulting density of states has tails which deviate from the typical pure Gaussian form by an analytic prefactor.
We obtain the disorder averaged (critical) four-point correlation functions for N species of (two-dimensional Euclidean) Dirac fermions subject to a (Gaussian) random su(N) gauge field. The replica approach and the strong disorder approach yield identical results, as one might expect in the light of recent developments in the N=2 case [1]. We establish a connection with `dressed' Z_N twist fields in the c=-2 logarithmic conformal field theory (LCFT), thereby extending the recent connection to `dressed' Z_2 twists [1,2]. We draw attention to the fact that `dressed' Z_2 twist operators have previously appeared in the description of half flux-quantum quasiholes in the bulk excitations of the Haldane--Rezayi Quantum Hall state [3].
Gauge theories and topological phases play a fundamental role in different areas of physics. The first ones are at the basis of the Standard Model in the field of particle physics, describing the electroweak and strong interactions through a non-Abelian gauge theory. In condensed matter and statistical physics, gauge theories arise as low-energy effective descriptions of strongly correlated phenomena, such as quantum spin liquids and quantum Hall effect. In this realm there is a strong connection with topological phases and order, as emergent gauge fermions and bosons often describe collective excitations of new exotic states of matter of spin models. The discretization on a lattice is a possible way of dealing with the strongly coupled nature of these theories, due to the fact that this formulation at finite volume provides natural regularizing cut-offs, i.e. the lattice size and spacing. This allows for the investigation of different non-perturbative properties both numerically and analytically. Despite the success of these methods, there are various aspects which remain intractable due to the sign or complex action problems, like the out of equilibrium real time evolution or the analysis of quantum chromodynamics with finite chemical potential. In this respect, quantum simulators of many-body systems to simulate high energy physics arise as promising alternatives to face these problems in the near future. They are quantum systems that can be controlled and used to simulate more complicated systems, whose properties could not be analysed with classical computational, experimental or theoretical tools. In the last decades, there has been a huge development in the fields of quantum optics and atomic physics, allowing for the realization highly precise and controllable platforms by means of trapped ions, superconducting circuits, Rydberg atoms and ultracold atoms in optical lattices. This work of Thesis is part of these fields and has different purposes, all of them connected with the study of gauge theories and topological phases. Firstly, we want to develop a reformulation of lattice gauge theories in terms of gauge invariant fields, in a way to deal solely with physical variables directly in the action. Among several possible advantages, a crucial point is that this can be particularly helpful for the construction of consistent approximation schemes, such as mean-field theories, in order to understand and capture some of the physical features of the theory and make the mean-field approximation consistent with the Elitzur theorem, stating that a local gauge symmetry can not be spontaneously broken. As a second point, we face the problem of simulating higher dimensional gauge theories with ultracold atoms. One of the challenges in more than one dimension is indeed the realization of plaquette interaction terms in the Hamiltonian of lattice gauge theories: these can be engineered through four correlated hoppings in perturbation theory, or by means of constrained hoppings in the dual formulation. In this respect, our main target is to set up an ultracold atomic platform generating the plaquette term in two dimensions using only two correlated hoppings, and protecting gauge invariance through angular momentum conservation. The last point we address in the Thesis is related to the analysis of particles moving in static background gauge potentials, i.e. when the considered gauge field has no dynamical term in the action of the system. Indeed, the dynamics of quantum particles in the presence of static gauge fields gives rise to intriguing physical phenomena. In particular, using ultracold atom setups, the realization of artificial gauge potentials can be used to investigate the physics of topological semimetals, such as Weyl or Dirac type. In the last ten years, a lot of attention has been paid to their characterization, due to the appearence of clear theoretical predictions and very well-controlled experimental techniques. We investigate here the relation between topological phase transitions and van Hove singularities, i.e. the discontinuities in the energy derivative of the density of states, in three-dimensional gapless systems. In such materials, topological phase transitions can be defined by changes of the topological invariants of the Fermi sheets, happening at specific singular points. Moreover, Fermi surface singularities result in the presence of the so-called van Hove points. We then present a general argument to relate topological phase transitions and van Hove singularities, and show observable consequences that are related to the transport properties of the system. We exemplify our argument in Weyl systems by analyzing the three-dimensional Hofstadter model for various commensurate fluxes, which offers the opportunity to consider different kinds of Weyl metals and to understand the features of their density of states.
Metallic phases have been observed in several disordered two-dimensional (2D) systems, including thin films near superconductor-insulator transitions and quantum Hall systems near plateau transitions. The existence of 2D metallic phases at zero temperature generally requires an interplay of disorder and interaction effects. Consequently, experimental observations of 2D metallic behavior have largely defied explanation. We formulate a general stability criterion for strongly interacting, massless Dirac fermions against disorder, which describe metallic ground states with vanishing density of states. We show that (2+1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED3{\mathrm{QED}}_{3}QED3​) with a large, even number of fermion flavors remains metallic in the presence of weak scalar potential disorder due to the dynamic screening of disorder by gauge fluctuations. We also show that QED3{\mathrm{QED}}_{3}QED3​ with weak mass disorder exhibits a stable, dirty metallic phase in which both interactions and disorder play important roles.
We consider spontaneous symmetry-breaking transitions of strongly interacting two-dimensional Dirac fermions minimally coupled to mass and emergent gauge field order parameters. Using a renormalization group analysis, we show that the presence of gauge fields leads to fermion-induced quantum (multi)criticality where the putative emergent Lorentz invariance is violated. We illustrate this with the example of translational symmetry breaking due to charge-density wave order on the honeycomb lattice. Finally, we identify that topological phase transitions are well described by this effective field theory.
In this article, we review our recent work on quantum phase transition in two-dimensional strongly correlated fermion systems. We discuss the metal–insulator transition properties of these systems by calculating the density of states, double occupancy, and Fermi surface evolution using a combination of the cellular dynamical mean-field theory (CDMFT) and the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. Furthermore, we explore the magnetic properties of each state by defining magnetic order parameters. Rich phase diagrams with many intriguing quantum states, including antiferromagnetic metal, paramagnetic metal, Kondo metal, and ferromagnetic insulator, were found for the two-dimensional lattices with strongly correlated fermions. We believe that our results would lead to a better understanding of the properties of real materials.