Spin-dimer systems are a versatile playground for the detailed study of quantum phase transitions. Using the magnetic field as the tuning parameter, it is possible to observe a crossover from the characteristic scaling near critical points to the behavior of a finite-temperature phase transition. In this work we study two-dimensional coupled spin-dimer systems by comparing numerical quantum Monte Carlo simulations with analytical calculations of the susceptibility, the magnetocaloric effect, and the helicity modulus. The magnetocaloric behavior of the magnetization with temperature can be used to determine the critical fields with high accuracy, but the critical scaling does not show the expected logarithmic corrections. The zeros of the cooling rate are an excellent indicator of the competition between quantum criticality and vortex physics, but they are not directly associated with the quantum phase transition or the finite-temperature Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. The results give a unified picture of the full quantum and finite-temperature phase diagram.
We investigate the quantum phase transition in an
S=1/2 dimerized Heisenberg antiferromagnet in three spatial dimensions. By performing large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations and detailed finite-size scaling analyses, we obtain high-precision results for the quantum critical properties at the transition from the magnetically disordered dimer-singlet phase to the antiferromagnetically ordered N\'eel phase. This transition breaks
O(N) symmetry with
N=3 in
D=3+1 dimensions. This is the upper critical dimension, where multiplicative logarithmic corrections to the leading mean-field critical properties are expected; we extract these corrections, establishing their precise forms for both the zero-temperature staggered magnetization
ms and the N\'eel temperature
TN. We present a scaling ansatz for
TN, including logarithmic corrections, which agrees with our data and indicates exact linearity with
ms, implying a complete decoupling of quantum and thermal fluctuation effects even arbitrarily close to the quantum critical point. We also demonstrate the predicted
N-independent leading and subleading logarithmic corrections in the size dependence of the staggered magnetic susceptibility. These logarithmic scaling forms have not previously been identified or verified by unbiased numerical methods, and we discuss their relevance to experimental studies of dimerized quantum antiferromagnets such as
TlCuCl3.
In the study of strongly interacting condensed-matter systems controlled microscopic theories hold a key position. Spin-wave theory, large-N expansion, and
epsilon-expansion are some of the few successful cornerstones. In this doctoral thesis work, we have developed a novel large-
d expansion method,
d being the spatial dimension, to study model Hamiltonians hosting a quantum phase transition between a paramagnet and a magnetically ordered phase. A highlight of this technique is that it can consistently describe the entire phase diagram of the above mentioned models, including the quantum critical point. Note that most analytical techniques either efficiently describe only one of the phases or suffer from divergences near the critical point. The idea of large-
d formalism is that in this limit, non-local fluctuations become unimportant and that a suitable product state delivers exact expectation values for local observables, with corrections being suppressed in powers of
1/d. It turns out that, due to momentum summation properties of the interaction structure factor, all diagrams are suppressed in powers of
1/d leading to an analytic expansion. We have demonstrated this method in two important systems namely, the coupled-dimer magnets and the transverse-field Ising model. Coupled-dimer magnets are Heisenberg spin systems with two spins, coupled by intra-dimer antiferromagnetic interaction, per crystallographic unit cell (dimer). In turn, spins from neighboring dimers interact via some inter-dimer interaction. A quantum paramagnet is realized for a dominant intra-dimer interaction, while a magnetically ordered phase exists for a dominant (or of the same order as intra-dimer interaction) inter-dimer interaction. These two phases are connected by a quantum phase transition, which is in the Heisenberg O(3) universality class. Microscopic analytical theories to study such systems have been restricted to either only one of the phases or involve uncontrolled approximations. Using a non-linear bond-operator theory for spins with S=
1/2, we have calculated the
1/d expansion of static and dynamic observables for coupled dimers on a hypercubic lattice at zero temperature. Analyticity of the
1/d expansion, even at the critical point, is ensured by correctly identifying suitable observables using the mean-field critical exponents. This method yields gapless excitation modes in the continuous symmetry broken phase, as required by Goldstone\'s theorem. In appropriate limits, our results match with perturbation expansion in small ratio of inter-dimer and intra-dimer coupling, performed using continuous unitary transformations, as well as the spin-wave theory for spin-
1/2 in arbitrary dimensions. We also discuss the Brueckner approach, which relies on small quasiparticle density, and derive the same
1/d expansion for the dispersion relation in the disordered phase. Another success of our work is in describing the amplitude (Higgs) mode in coupled-dimer magnets. Our novel method establishes the popular bond-operator theory as a controlled approach. In
d=2, the results from our calculations are in qualitative agreement with the quantum Monte Carlo study of the square-lattice bilayer Heisenberg AF spin-
1/2 model. In particular, our results are useful to identify the amplitude (Higgs) mode in the QMC data. The ideas of large-
d are also successfully applied to the transverse-field Ising model on a hypercubic lattice. Similar to bond operators, we have introduced auxiliary Bosonsic operators to set up our method in this case. We have also discussed briefly the bilayer Kitaev model, constructed by antiferromagnetically coupling two layers of the Kitaev model on a honeycomb lattice. In this case, we investigate the dimer quantum paramagnetic phase, realized in the strong inter-layer coupling limit. Using bond-operator theory, we calculate the mode dispersion in this phase, within the harmonic approximation. We also conjecture a zero-temperature phase diagram for this model.
In certain Mott-insulating dimerized antiferromagnets, triplet excitations of the paramagnetic phase display both three-particle and four-particle interactions. When such a magnet undergoes a quantum phase transition into a magnetically ordered state, the three-particle interaction becomes part of the critical theory provided that the lattice ordering wave vector is zero. One microscopic example is the staggered-dimer antiferromagnet on the square lattice, for which deviations from O(3) universality have been reported in numerical studies. Using both symmetry arguments and microscopic calculations, we show that a nontrivial cubic term arises in the relevant order-parameter quantum field theory, and we assess its consequences using a combination of analytical and numerical methods. We also present finite-temperature quantum Monte Carlo data for the staggered-dimer antiferromagnet which complement recently published results. The data can be consistently interpreted in terms of critical exponents identical to that of the standard O(3) universality class, but with anomalously large corrections to scaling. We argue that the cubic interaction of critical triplons, although irrelevant in two spatial dimensions, is responsible for the leading corrections to scaling due to its small scaling dimension.
We study magnetic-field-induced three-dimensional ordering transitions in low-dimensional quantum spin liquids, such as weakly coupled, antiferromagnetic spin- 1/2 Heisenberg dimers and ladders. Using stochastic series expansion quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we obtain the critical scaling exponents which dictate the power-law dependence of the transition temperature on the magnetic field. These are compared with recent experiments on candidate materials and with predictions for the Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons. The critical exponents deviate from isotropic mean-field theory and exhibit different scaling behavior at the lower and upper critical magnetic fields.