arXiv subjects

Cenke Xu

Publications and source records attributed to Cenke Xu.

173 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

arXiv2007

Gauge symmetry and non-abelian topological sectors in a geometrically constrained model on the honeycomb lattice

We study a constrained statistical-mechanical model in two dimensions that has three useful descriptions. They are 1) the Ising model on the honeycomb lattice, constrained to have three up spins and three down spins on every hexagon, 2) the three-color/fully-packed-loop model on the links of the honeycomb lattice, with loops around a single hexagon forbidden, and 3) three Ising models on interleaved triangular lattices, with domain walls of the different Ising models not allowed to cross. Unlike the three-color model, the configuration space on the sphere or plane is connected under local moves. On higher-genus surfaces there are infinitely many dynamical sectors, labeled by a noncontractible set of nonintersecting loops. We demonstrate that at infinite temperature the transfer matrix admits an unusual structure related to a gauge symmetry for the same model on an anisotropic lattice. This enables us to diagonalize the original transfer matrix for up to 36 sites, finding an entropy per plaquette ~ 0.3661 and substantial evidence that the model is not critical. We also find the striking property that the eigenvalues of the transfer matrix on an anisotropic lattice are given in terms of Fibonacci numbers. We comment on the possibility of a topological phase, with infinite topological degeneracy, in an associated two-dimensional quantum model.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

Bond algebraic liquid phase in strongly correlated multiflavor cold atom systems

When cold atoms are trapped in a square or cubic optical lattice, it should be possible to pump the atoms into excited $p-$level orbitals within each well. Following earlier work, we explore the metastable equilibrium that can be established before the atoms decay into the $s-$wave orbital ground state. We will discuss the situation with integer number of bosons on every site, and consider the strong correlation "insulating" regime. By employing a spin-wave analysis together with a new duality transformation, we establish the existence and stability of a novel gapless "critical phase", which we refer to as a "bond algebraic liquid". The gapless nature of this phase is stabilized due to the emergence of symmetries which lead to a quasi-one dimensional behavior. Within the algebraic liquid phase, both bond operators and particle flavor occupation number operators have correlations which decay algebraically in space and time. Upon varying parameters, the algebraic bond liquid can be unstable to either a Mott insulator phase which spontaneously breaks lattice symmetries, or a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ phase. The possibility of detecting the algebraic liquid phase in cold atom experiments is addressed. Although the momentum distribution function is insufficient to distinguish the algebraic bond liquid from other phases, the density correlation function can in principle be used to detect this new phase of matter.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2006

Novel Algebraic Boson Liquid phase with soft Graviton excitations

A bosonic model on a 3 dimensional fcc lattice with emergent low energy excitations, with the same polarization and gauge symmetries as gravitons is constructed. The novel phase obtained is a stable gapless boson liquid phase, with algebraic boson density correlations. The stability of this phase is protected against the instanton effect and superfluidity by self-duality and large gauge symmetries. The gapless collective excitation of this phase closely resembles gravitons, although they have a soft $ω\sim k^2$ dispersion relation. The dynamics of this novel phase is described by new set of Maxwell equations. This phase also possesses an intricate topological order, requiring 18 winding numbers to specify each topological sector.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2006

Topological defects and the superfluid transition of the $s=1$ spinor condensate in two dimensions

The $s=1$ spinor Bose condensate at zero temperature supports ferromagnetic and polar phases that combine magnetic and superfluid ordering. We analyze the topological defects of the polar condensate, correcting previous studies, and show that the polar condensate in two dimensions is unstable at any finite temperature; instead there is a nematic or paired superfluid phase with algebraic order in $\exp(2 i θ)$, where $θ$ is the superfluid phase, and no magnetic order. The Kosterlitz-Thouless transition out of this phase is driven by unbinding of half-vortices (the spin-disordered version of the combined spin and phase defects found by Zhou), and the anomalous universal $8 T_c / π$ stiffness jump at the transition is confirmed in numerical simulations. The anomalous stiffness jump is a clear experimental signature of this phase and the corresponding phase transition.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2006

Gapless Bosonic Excitation without symmetry breaking: Novel Algebraic Spin liquid with soft Gravitons

A novel quantum ground state of matter is realized in a bosonic model on three dimensional fcc lattice with emergent low energy excitations. The novel phase obtained is a stable gapless boson liquid phase, with algebraic boson density correlations. The stability of this phase is protected against the instanton effect and superfluidity by self-duality and large gauge symmetries on both sides of the duality. The gapless collective excitations of this phase closely resemble the graviton, although they have a soft $ω\sim k^2$ dispersion relation. There are three branches of gapless excitations in this phase, one of which is gapless scalar trace mode, the other two have the same polarization and gauge symmetries as the gravitons. The dynamics of this novel phase is described by a new set of Maxwell's equations. The defects carrying gauge charges can drive the system into the superfluid order when the defects are condensed; also the topological defects are coupled to the dual gauge field in the same manner as the charge defects couple to the original gauge field, after the condensation of the topological defects, the system is driven into the Mott Insulator phase. In the 2 dimensional case, the gapless soft graviton as well as the algebraic liquid phase are destroyed by the vertex operators in the dual theory, and the stripe order is most likely to take place close to the 2 dimensional quantum critical point at which the vertex operators are tuned to zero.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2006

Edge states generated by spin-orbit coupling at domain walls in magnetic semiconductors

Electronic states localized at domain walls between ferromagnetically ordered phases in two-dimensional electron systems are generated by moderate spin-orbit coupling. The spin carried by these states depends on the slope of the magnetic background at the domain wall. The number of localized states is determined by a real space topological number, and spin perpendicular to the ferromagnetic order accumulates in these localized states at domain walls. These trapped states may be observed in experiments that probe either spin density or conduction paths in quantum wells.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Stability of the quantum spin Hall effect: effects of interactions, disorder, and Z_2 topology

The stability to interactions and disorder of the quantum spin Hall effect (QSHE) proposed for time-reversal-invariant 2D systems is discussed. The QSHE requires an energy gap in the bulk and gapless edge modes that conduct spin-up and spin-down excitations in opposite directions. When the number of Kramers pairs of edge modes is odd, certain one-particle scattering processes are forbidden due to a topological $\mathbb{Z}_2$ index. We show that in a many-body description, there are other scattering processes that can localize the edge modes and destroy the QSHE: the region of stability for both classes of models (even or odd number of Kramers pairs) is obtained explicitly in the chiral boson theory. For a single Kramers pair the QSHE is stable to weak interactions and disorder, while for two Kramers pairs it is not; however, the two-pair case can be stabilized by {\it either} finite attractive or repulsive interactions. For the simplest case of a single pair of edge modes, it is shown that changing the screening length in an edge with screened Coulomb interactions can be used to drive a phase transition between the QSHE state and the ordinary insulator.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Geometric criticality between plaquette phases in integer-spin kagome XXZ antiferromagnets

The phase diagram of the uniaxially anisotropic $s=1$ antiferromagnet on the kagomé lattice includes a critical line exactly described by the classical three-color model. This line is distinct from the standard geometric classical criticality that appears in the classical limit ($s \to \infty$) of the 2D XY model; the $s=1$ geometric T=0 critical line separates two unconventional plaquette-ordered phases that survive to nonzero temperature. The experimentally important correlations at finite temperature and the nature of the transitions into these ordered phases are obtained using the mapping to the three-color model and a combination of perturbation theory and a variational ansatz for the ordered phases. The ordered phases show sixfold symmetry breaking and are similar to phases proposed for the honeycomb lattice dimer model and $s=1/2$ $XXZ$ model. The same mapping and phase transition can be realized also for integer spins $s \geq 2$ but then require strong on-site anisotropy in the Hamiltonian.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2005

Nonequilibrium charge density wave ordering from anomalous velocity in itinerant helical magnets

The Karplus-Luttinger anomalous velocity is shown to lead to electric-field-induced charge accumulation in nearly ferromagnetic noncollinear magnets with itinerant electrons, like $MnSi$. For helical magnetic ordering, the balance between this accumulation and the Coulomb interaction leads to a nonequilibrium charge density wave state with the period of the helix, even when such accumulation is forbidden by an approximate gauge-like symmetry in the absence of electric field. We compute the strength of such charge accumulation as an example of how unexpected many-electron physics is induced by the inclusion of the one-electron Karplus-Luttinger term whenever the local exchange field felt by conduction electrons does not satisfy the current-free Maxwell equations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2004

Dimensional reduction in superconducting arrays and frustrated magnets

Some frustrated magnets and superconducting arrays possess unusual symmetries that cause the free energy or other physics of a $D$-dimensional quantum or classical problem to be that of a different problem in a reduced dimension $d<D$. Examples in two spatial dimensions include the square-lattice $p+ip$ superconducting array, the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the checkerboard lattice (studied by a combination of 1/S expansion and numerical transfer matrix), and the ring-exchange superconducting array. Physical consequences are discussed both for ``weak'' dimensional reduction, which appears only in the ground state degeneracy, and ``strong'' dimensional reduction, which applies throughout the phase diagram. The ``strong'' dimensional reduction cases have the full lattice symmetry and do not decouple into independent chains, but their phase diagrams, self-dualities, and correlation functions indicate a reduced effective dimensionality. We find a general phase diagram for quantum dimensional reduction models in two quantum dimensions with $N$-fold anisotropy, and obtain the Kosterlitz-Thouless-like phase transition as a deconfinement of dipoles of 3D solitons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2004

Strong-weak coupling self-duality in the two-dimensional quantum phase transition of $p+ip$ superconducting arrays

The 2D quantum phase transition that occurs in a square lattice of $p+ip$ superconductors is used to show how four-body interactions in $d=2$ reproduce nonperturbative effects familiar from the study of two-body interactions in $d=1$. This model can be analyzed using an exact lattice self-duality of the associated 3D classical model; this duality is the 3D generalization of the Kramers-Wannier duality of the 2D Ising model, and there are similar exact dualities for certain many-spin interactions in dimensions $d \geq 3$. We also discuss the excitation spectrum in the ordered and disordered phases, and the relationship between our model and previously studied metallic behavior of boson models with four-boson interactions.

cond-mat.str-el↗