arXiv subjects

Fakher F. Assaad

Publications and source records attributed to Fakher F. Assaad.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Dynamical Generation of Topological Masses in Dirac Fermions

We report discovery of a topological Mott insulator in strongly-correlated Dirac semimetals. Such an interaction-driven topological state has been theoretically proposed but not yet observed with unbiased large scale numerical simulations. In our model, interactions between electrons are mediated by Ising spins in a transverse field. The results indicate that the topological mass term is dynamically generated and the resulting quantum phase transition belongs to the (2+1)D $N=8$ chiral Ising universality class. These conclusions stem from large scale sign free quantum Monte Carlo simulations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Critical behavior in the presence of an order-parameter pinning field

We apply a recently advocated simulation scheme that employs a local order-parameter pinning field to study quantum critical phenomena in the two-dimensional square-lattice bilayer quantum Heisenberg model. Using a world-line quantum Monte Carlo approach, we show that for this model, the pinning-field approach allows to locate the quantum critical point over a wide range of pinning-field strengths. However, the identification of the quantum critical scaling behavior is found to be hard since the pinning field introduces strong corrections to scaling. In order to further elucidate the scaling behavior in this situation, we also study an improved classical lattice model in the three-dimensional Ising universality class by means of Monte Carlo simulations on large lattice sizes, which allow us to employ refined finite-size scaling considerations. A renormalization group analysis exhibits the presence of an important crossover effect from the zero pinning-field to a critical adsorption fixed point. In line with field-theoretical results, we find that at the critical adsorption fixed point the short-distance expansion of the order-parameter profile exhibits a new universal critical exponent. This result also implies the presence of slowly decaying scaling corrections, which we analyze in detail.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2017

Spontaneous particle-hole symmetry breaking of correlated fermions on the Lieb lattice

We study spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions ($t$-$V$ model) on the two-dimensional three-band Lieb lattice. At half-filling, the free electronic band structure consists of a flat band at zero energy and a single cone with linear dispersion. The flat band is expected to be unstable upon inclusion of electronic correlations, and a natural channel is charge order. However, due to the three-orbital unit cell, commensurate charge order implies an imbalance of electron and hole densities and therefore doping away from half-filling. Our numerical results show that below a finite-temperature Ising transition a charge density wave with one electron and two holes per unit cell and its partner under particle-hole transformation are spontaneously generated. Our calculations are based on recent advances in auxiliary-field and continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulations that allow sign-free simulations of spinless fermions at half-filling. It is argued that particle-hole symmetry breaking provides a route to access levels of finite doping, without introducing a sign problem.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo for fermion-boson lattice models: Improved bosonic estimators and application to the Holstein model

We extend the continuous-time interaction-expansion quantum Monte Carlo method with respect to measuring observables for fermion-boson lattice models. Using generating functionals, we express expectation values involving boson operators, which are not directly accessible because simulations are done in terms of a purely fermionic action, as integrals over fermionic correlation functions. We also demonstrate that certain observables can be inferred directly from the vertex distribution, and present efficient estimators for the total energy and the phonon propagator of the Holstein model. Furthermore, we generalize the covariance estimator of the fidelity susceptibility, an unbiased diagnostic for phase transitions, to the case of retarded interactions. The new estimators are applied to half-filled spinless and spinful Holstein models in one dimension. The observed renormalization of the phonon mode across the Peierls transition in the spinless model suggests a soft-mode transition in the adiabatic regime. The critical point is associated with a minimum in the phonon kinetic energy and a maximum in the fidelity susceptibility.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Thermodynamic and spectral properties of adiabatic Peierls chains

We present exact numerical results for the effects of thermal fluctuations on the experimentally relevant thermodynamic and spectral properties of Peierls chains. To this end, a combination of classical Monte Carlo sampling and exact diagonalization is used to study adiabatic half-filled Holstein and Su-Schrieffer-Heeger models. The classical nature of the lattice displacements in combination with parallel tempering permit simulations on large system sizes and a direct calculation of spectral functions in the frequency domain. Most notably, the long-range order and the associated Peierls gap give rise to a distinct low-temperature peak in the specific heat. The closing of the gap and suppression of order by thermal fluctuations involves in-gap excitations in the form of soliton-antisoliton pairs, and is also reflected in the dynamic density and bond structure factors as well as in the optical conductivity. We compare our data to the widely used mean-field approximation, and highlight relations to symmetry-protected topological phases and disorder problems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Edge instabilities of topological superconductors

Nodal topological superconductors display zero-energy Majorana flat bands at generic edges. The flatness of these edge bands, which is protected by time-reversal and translation symmetry, gives rise to an extensive ground-state degeneracy. Therefore, even arbitrarily weak interactions lead to an instability of the flat-band edge states towards time-reversal and translation-symmetry-broken phases, which lift the ground-state degeneracy. We examine the instabilities of the flat-band edge states of d_{xy}-wave superconductors by performing a mean-field analysis in the Majorana basis of the edge states. The leading instabilities are Majorana mass terms, which correspond to coherent superpositions of particle-particle and particle-hole channels in the fermionic language. We find that attractive interactions induce three different mass terms. One is a coherent superposition of imaginary s-wave pairing and current order, and another combines a charge-density-wave and finite-momentum singlet pairing. Repulsive interactions, on the other hand, lead to ferromagnetism together with spin-triplet pairing at the edge. Our quantum Monte Carlo simulations confirm these findings and demonstrate that these instabilities occur even in the presence of strong quantum fluctuations. We discuss the implications of our results for experiments on cuprate high-temperature superconductors.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Mott Quantum Criticality in the Anisotropic 2D Hubbard Model

We present evidence for Mott quantum criticality in an anisotropic two-dimensional system of coupled Hubbard chains at half-filling. In this scenario emerging from variational cluster approximation and cluster dynamical mean-field theory, the interchain hopping $t_{\perp}$ acts as a control parameter driving the second-order critical end point $T_c$ of the metal-insulator transition down to zero at $t_{\perp}^{c}/t\simeq 0.2$. Below $t_{\perp}^{c}$, the volume of the hole and electron Fermi pockets of a compensated metal vanishes continuously at the Mott transition. Above $t_{\perp}^{c}$, the volume reduction of the pockets is cut off by a first-order transition. We discuss the relevance of our findings to a putative quantum critical point in layered organic conductors, whose location remains elusive so far.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Dynamical mean-field study of partial Kondo screening in the periodic Anderson model on the triangular lattice

The competition between Kondo screening and indirect magnetic exchange is studied for a system with geometrical frustration using dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). We systematically scan the weak- to strong-coupling regime of the periodic Anderson model on the triangular lattice for a wide range of fillings n. The magnetic phase diagram is derived using a site-dependent DMFT approach by self-consistent mapping onto three independent single-impurity models corresponding to the three correlated f orbitals in the unit cell. At half-filling, the system is a non-magnetic Kondo insulator for all considered interaction strengths U>0 which immediately develops into a non-magnetic metallic Kondo-singlet phase for fillings slightly below half-filling. On the other hand, indirect magnetic exchange between the f moments results in antiferromagnetic order at lower fillings. The antiferromagnetic and the Kondo-singlet phases are separated in the U-n phase diagram by an extended region of partial Kondo screening, i.e., a phase where the magnetic moment at one site in the unit cell is Kondo screened while the remaining two are coupled antiferromagnetically. At even lower fillings the system crosses over from a local-moment to a mixed-valence regime where the minimization of the kinetic energy in a strongly correlated system gives rise to a metallic and partially polarized ferromagnetic state.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Phonon spectral function of the one-dimensional Holstein-Hubbard model

We use the continuous-time interaction expansion (CT-INT) quantum Monte Carlo method to calculate the phonon spectral function of the one-dimensional Holstein-Hubbard model at half-filling. Our results are consistent with a soft-mode Peierls transition in the adiabatic regime, and the existence of a central peak related to long-range order in the Peierls phase. We explain a previously observed feature at small momenta in terms of a hybridization of charge and phonon excitations. Tuning the system from a Peierls to a metallic phase with a nonzero Hubbard interaction suppresses the central peak, but a significant renormalization of the phonon dispersion remains. In contrast, the dispersion is only weakly modified in the Mott phase. We discuss finite-size effects, the relation to the dynamic charge structure factor, as well as additional sum rules and their implications. Finally, we reveal the existence of a discrete symmetry in a continuum field theory of the Holstein model, which is spontaneously broken in the Peierls phase.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Excitation spectra and correlation functions of quantum Su-Schrieffer-Heeger models

We study one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) models with quantum phonons using a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method. Within statistical errors, we obtain identical results for the SSH model with acoustic phonons, and a related model with a coupling to an optical bond phonon mode. Based on this agreement, we first study the Peierls metal-insulator transition of the spinless SSH model, and relate it to the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition of a spinless Luttinger liquid. In the Peierls phase, the spectral functions reveal the single-particle and charge gap, and a central peak related to long-range order. For the spinful SSH model, which has a dimerized ground state for any nonzero coupling, we reveal a symmetry-related degeneracy of spin and charge excitations, and the expected spin and charge gaps as well as a central peak. Finally, we study the SSH-$UV$ model with electron-phonon and electron-electron interaction. We observe a Mott phase with critical spin and bond correlations at weak electron-phonon coupling, and a Peierls phase with gapped spin excitations at strong coupling. We relate our findings to the extended Hubbard model, and discuss the physical origin of the agreement between optical and acoustic phonons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Fermionic quantum criticality in honeycomb and $π$-flux Hubbard models: Finite-size scaling of renormalization-group-invariant observables from quantum Monte Carlo

We numerically investigate the critical behavior of the Hubbard model on the honeycomb and the $π$-flux lattice, which exhibits a direct transition from a Dirac semimetal to an antiferromagnetically ordered Mott insulator. We use projective auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo simulations and a careful finite-size scaling analysis that exploits approximately improved renormalization-group-invariant observables. This approach, which is successfully verified for the three-dimensional XY transition of the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model, allows us to extract estimates for the critical couplings and the critical exponents. The results confirm that the critical behavior for the semimetal to Mott insulator transition in the Hubbard model belongs to the Gross-Neveu-Heisenberg universality class on both lattices.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Ring-exchange periodic Anderson model for 3He bilayers

We present numerical results of a model calculation for the 3He bilayer system, which captures the interplay between fast and slow dynamics of the different layers and incorporates an independent scale for the three body ring exchange. By means of Cluster-DMFT+CTQMC, we find remarkable similarities with the experiments: a suppression of the coherence temperature upon approaching the solidification point of the first layer accompanied by the onset of strong ferromagnetic correlations within the first layer. Based on the consistent results for different cluster sizes we conjecture a first-order transition cutting short the Kondo breakdown, which allows us to interpret the experimental observation of an intervening phase preempting the quantum critical point in terms of a phase separation.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Spin and charge dynamics of a quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnetic metal

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study a finite-temperature dimensional-crossover-driven evolution of spin and charge dynamics in weakly coupled Hubbard chains with a half-filled band. The low-temperature behavior of the charge gap indicates a crossover between two distinct energy scales: a high-energy one-dimensional (1D) Mott gap due to the umklapp process and a low-energy gap which stems from long-range antiferromagnetic (AF) fluctuations. Away from the 1D regime and at temperature scales above the charge gap, the emergence of a zero-frequency Drude-like feature in the interchain optical conductivity $σ_{\perp}(ω)$ implies the onset of a higher-dimensional metal. In this metallic phase, enhanced quasiparticle scattering off finite-range AF fluctuations results in incoherent single-particle dynamics. The coupling between spin and charge fluctuations is also seen in the spin dynamical structure factor $S({\pmb q},ω)$ displaying damped spin excitations (paramagnons) close to the AF wave-vector ${\pmb q}=(π,π)$ and particle-hole continua near 1D momentum transfers spanning quasiparticles at the Fermi surface. We relate our results to the charge deconfinement in quasi-1D organic Bechgaard-Fabre salts.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Stable Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations for Entanglement Spectra of Interacting Fermions

We show that the two recently proposed methods to compute Renyi entanglement entropies in the realm of determinant quantum Monte Carlo methods for fermions are in principle equivalent, but differ in sampling strategies. The analogy allows to formulate a numerically stable calculation of the entanglement spectrum at strong coupling. We demonstrate the approach by studying static and dynamical properties of the entanglement hamiltonian across the interaction driven quantum phase transition between a topological insulator and quantum antiferromagnet in the Kane-Mele Hubbard model. The formulation is not limited to fermion systems and can readily be adapted to world-line based simulations of bosonic systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Rashba coupling and magnetic order in correlated helical liquids

We study strongly correlated helical liquids with and without Rashba coupling using quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the Kane-Mele model with a Hubbard interaction at the edge. Independent of the Rashba coupling, we find that interactions enhance spin correlations and suppress the spectral weight at the Fermi level. For sufficiently strong interactions, a gap can be observed in the single-particle spectral function. However, based on a finite-size scaling analysis and theoretical arguments, we argue that this gap is closed by order parameter fluctuations in the Luttinger liquid phase even at zero temperature, and filled in by thermally induced kinks in the order parameter in the Mott phase at finite temperatures. While the bosonization suggests an umklapp-driven Mott transition only in the presence of Rashba coupling and hence a significant impact of the latter, our numerical results are almost unaffected by Rashba coupling even at low temperatures.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Dynamically generated edge states in topological Kondo insulators

Kondo insulators combine strong electronic correlations with spin orbit coupling and thereby provide a potential realization of correlated topological insulators. We present model calculations which allow us to study the onset of bulk coherence and concomitant topological edge states from the mixed valence to local moment regimes. Our real-space dynamical mean-field results include the detailed temperature dependence of the single particle spectral function on slab geometries as well as the temperature dependence of the topological invariant. The relevance of our calculations for candidate materials like SmB6 is discussed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Kane-Mele-Hubbard model on the $π$-flux honeycomb lattice

We consider the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model with a magnetic $π$ flux threading each honeycomb plaquette. The resulting model has remarkably rich physical properties. In each spin sector, the noninteracting band structure is characterized by a total Chern number $C=\pm 2$. Fine-tuning of the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling $λ$ leads to a quadratic band crossing point associated with a topological phase transition. At this point, quantum Monte Carlo simulations reveal a magnetically ordered phase which extends to weak coupling. Although the spinful model has two Kramers doublets at each edge and is explicitly shown to be a $Z_{2}$ trivial insulator, the helical edge states are protected at the single-particle level by translation symmetry. Drawing on the bosonized low-energy Hamiltonian, we predict a correlation-induced gap as a result of umklapp scattering for half-filled bands. For strong interactions, this prediction is confirmed by quantum Monte Carlo simulations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Equivalence of Rashba-Hubbard and Hubbard chains

We review the fact that U(1) gauge symmetry enables the mapping of one-dimensional Hubbard chains with Rashba-type spin orbit coupling to renormalized Hubbard Hamiltonians. The existence of the mapping has important consequences for the interpretation of ARPES experiments on one-dimensional chains subject to Rashba spin orbit coupling and can be exploited to check for the applicability of the mapping. We show numerical applications of the mapping and consider the implications for bosonization as well as for the Heisenberg-limit of the Hubbard model. In addition we point out the consequences for various generalized Hubbard models.

cond-mat.str-el↗