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arXiv:nucl-th/0501041 · AIP conference proceedings

Thermodynamic Analogy for Structural Phase Transitions

Pavel Cejnar

Published Jan 1, 2005• 0 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the relationship between ground‐state (zero‐temperature) quantum phase transitions in systems with variable Hamiltonian parameters and classical (temperature‐driven) phase transitions in standard thermodynamics. An analogy is found between (i) phase‐transitional distributions of the ground‐state related branch points of quantum Hamiltonians in the complex parameter plane and (ii) distributions of zeros of classical partition functions in complex temperatures. Our approach properly describes the first‐ and second‐order quantum phase transitions in the interacting boson model and can be generalized to finite temperatures.

DOI
10.1063/1.1996885

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We investigate the relationship between ground‐state (zero‐temperature) quantum phase transitions in systems with variable Hamiltonian parameters and classical (temperature‐driven) phase transitions in standard thermodynamics. An analogy is found between (i) phase‐transitional distributions of the ground‐state related branch points of quantum Hamiltonians in the complex parameter plane and (ii) distributions of zeros of classical partition functions in complex temperatures. Our approach properly describes the first‐ and second‐order quantum phase transitions in the interacting boson model and can be generalized to finite temperatures.
Abstract. We investigate the relationship between ground-state (zero-temperature) quantum phase transitions in systems with variable Hamiltonian parameters and classical (temperature-driven) phase transitions in standard thermodynamics. An analogy is found between (i) phase-transitional distributions of the ground-state related branch points of quantum Hamiltonians in the complex parameter plane and (ii) distributions of zeros of classical partition functions in complex temperatures. Our approach properly describes the first- and second-order quantum phase transitions in the interacting boson model and can be generalized to finite temperatures.
At low temperature, a thermodynamic system undergoes a phase transition when a physical parameter passes through a singularity point of the free energy. This corresponds to the formation of a new order. At high temperature, thermal fluctuations destroy the order. Correspondingly, the free energy is a smooth function of the physical parameter and singularities only occur at complex values of the parameter. Since a complex valued parameter is unphysical, no phase transitions are expected when the physical parameter is varied. Here we show that the quantum evolution of a system, initially in thermal equilibrium and driven by a designed interaction, is equivalent to the partition function of a complex parameter. Therefore, we can access the complex singularity points of thermodynamic functions and observe phase transitions even at high temperature. We further show that such phase transitions in the complex plane are related to topological properties of the renormalization group flows of the complex parameters. This result makes it possible to study thermodynamics in the complex plane of physical parameters.
Introduction In the limit of zero temperature, the partition function is dominated by the ground state of the system, the free energy becomes equivalent to the ground state energy, and the central object of interest is the Hamiltonian of the system H (λ), dependent in general on one or more parameters λ. A ‘quantum’ Hamiltonian, as noted previously, is one which contains non-commuting operators. Here we concentrate on quantum spin Hamiltonians, of which the prime example is the Heisenberg model. Of particular interest is the possibility of a quantum phase transition , i.e. nonanalytic behaviour as a function of coupling λ. A quantum phase transition may exert a dominating influence on the system over a range of low temperatures above T = 0. Such phenomena have figured prominently in theoretical discussions of experiments on the cuprate superconductors, the heavy fermion materials, organic conductors, and related materials (e.g. Sachdev, 1999). In some cases, a correspondence can be found between a quantum system at zero temperature in 1 time and ( d – 1) space dimensions, and an equivalent classical system at finite temperature in d space dimensions, based on the Feynman path integral formalism – see Chapter 9 and Appendix 8 for further discussions. Under this mapping, the temperature kT in the classical system corresponds to a coupling λ in the equivalent quantum system. If a phase transition occurs, the same universal critical exponents are expected to apply in both cases.
Aim and Scope of this Book A plethora of systems exhibit phase transitions as the temperature or some other parameter is changed. Examples range from the ice-water phase transition observed in our daily life to the loss of ferromagnetism in iron or to the more sophisticated Mott insulator-superfluid phase transition observed in optical lattices [343]. The last five decades have witnessed a tremendous upsurge in the studies of phase transitions at finite temperature [727, 149, 333, 136, 494, 541, 556]. The success of Landau-Ginzburg theories and the concepts of spontaneous symmetry breaking and the renormalization group [27, 410, 821, 578] in explaining many of the finite temperature phase transitions occurring in nature has been spectacular. In this book, we will consider only a subclass of phase transitions called quantum phase transitions (QPTs) [154, 658, 725, 799, 185, 63, 62, 66, 141, 744] and we will discuss these mainly from the view point of recent studies of information and dynamics. QPTs are zero temperature phase transitions which are driven by quantum fluctuations and are usually associated with a non-analyticity in the ground state energy density of a quantum many-body Hamiltonian. We will focus on continuous QPTs where the order parameter vanishes continuously at the quantum critical point (QCP) at some value of the parameters which characterize the Hamiltonian. We will not discuss first order quantum phase transitions associated with an abrupt change in the order parameter. Usually, a first order phase transition is characterized by a finite discontinuity in the first derivative of the ground state energy density. A continuous QPT is similarly characterized by a finite discontinuity, or divergence, in the second derivative of the ground state energy density, assuming that the first derivative is continuous. This is of course the classical definition; we will later mention some QPTs where the ground state energy density is not necessarily singular.
We study quantum phase transitions between spherical, prolate, and oblate nuclear ground-state shapes using the interacting sd\mathrm{sd}sd-boson model (sd(sd(sd-IBM) and demonstrate the analogy between the IBM results (also results of any axially symmetric quadrupole collective model) and predictions of the Landau theory of phase transitions in classical thermodynamics. A detailed comparison of the two frameworks is performed exploiting the concept of ``specific heat,'' introduced in four alternative ways in the quantum case. All these definitions (two of them based on spectroscopic features of the ground state, the others on a randomized version of the model) lead to similar peaked forms of the ``specific heat'' at the point of the quantum phase transition. We analyze the effect of an increasing boson number on these curves and observe convergence to the singular phase-transitional behavior in the classical limit. Other observable signatures of the IBM structural phase transitions are also discussed with the aim to facilitate the location of a particular nucleus in the parameter space (extended Casten triangle) near the transitions.