arXiv subjects

R. N. Bhatt

Publications and source records attributed to R. N. Bhatt.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

High-spin magnetic ground states of neutral dopant clusters in semiconductors

High-spin states hold significant promise for classical and quantum information storage and emerging magnetic memory technologies. Here, we present a systematic framework for engineering such high-spin magnetic states in dopant clusters formed from substitutional impurities in semiconductors. In single-valley materials such as gallium arsenide, impurity states are hydrogenic and exchange interactions generally favor low-spin configurations, except in special geometries. In contrast, multivalley semiconductors exhibit oscillatory form factors in their exchange couplings, enabling the controlled suppression of selected hopping processes and exchange couplings. Exploiting this feature, we demonstrate how carefully arranged impurities in aluminum arsenide, germanium, and silicon can stabilize ground states with a net spin that scale extensively with system size. Within effective mass theory and the tight-binding approximation for hopping, we construct explicit examples ranging from finite clusters to extended lattices and fractal-like tilings. In two dimensions, we identify several favorable dopant geometries supporting a net spin equal to around half of the fully polarized value in the thermodynamic limit, including one which achieves over $70\%$ polarization. Our results provide a general design principle for harnessing valley degeneracy in semiconductors to construct robust high-spin states and outline a pathway for their experimental realization via precision implantation of dopants.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Nagaoka ferromagnetism in doped Hubbard models in optical lattices

The search for ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model has been a problem of outstanding interest since Nagaoka's original proposal in 1966. Recent advances in quantum simulation have today enabled the study of tunable doped Hubbard models in ultracold atomic systems. Employing large-scale density-matrix renormalization group calculations, we establish the existence of high-spin ground states of the Hubbard model on finite-sized triangular lattices, analyze the microscopic mechanisms behind their origin, and investigate the interplay between ferromagnetism and other competing orders, such as stripes. These results explain$\unicode{x2014}$and shed new light on$\unicode{x2014}$the intriguing observations of ferromagnetic correlations in recent optical-lattice experiments. Additionally, we examine a generalized variant of the Hubbard model, wherein any second electron on a single lattice site is weakly bound compared to the first one, and demonstrate how this modification can lead to enhanced ferromagnetism, at intermediate length scales, on the nonfrustrated square lattice as well.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Polaronic mechanism of Nagaoka ferromagnetism in Hubbard models

The search for elusive Nagaoka-type ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model has recently enjoyed renewed attention with the advent of a variety of experimental platforms enabling its realization, including moiré materials, quantum dots, and ultracold atoms in optical lattices. Here, we demonstrate a universal mechanism for Nagaoka ferromagnetism (that applies to both bipartite and nonbipartite lattices) based on the formation of ferromagnetic polarons consisting of a dopant dressed with polarized spins. Using large-scale density-matrix renormalization group calculations, we present a comprehensive study of the ferromagnetic polaron in an electron-doped Hubbard model, establishing various polaronic properties such as its size and energetics. Moreover, we systematically probe the internal structure of the magnetic state$\unicode{x2014}$through the use of pinning fields and three-point spin-charge-spin correlation functions$\unicode{x2014}$for both the single-polaron limit and the high-density regime of interacting polarons. Our results highlight the crucial role of mobile polarons in the birth of global ferromagnetic order from local ferromagnetism and provide a unified framework to understand the development and demise of the Nagaoka-type ferromagnetic state across dopings.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Itinerant magnetism in Hubbard models with long-range interactions

A wide variety of experimental platforms, ranging from semiconductor quantum-dot arrays to moir\'e materials, have recently emerged as powerful quantum simulators for studying the Hubbard model and its variants. Motivated by these developments, here, we investigate a generalization of the Hubbard model which includes the effects of long-range Coulomb interactions. Working on finite-sized two-dimensional square and triangular lattices, we use exact diagonalization and density-matrix renormalization group calculations to probe the magnetic structure of the ground state in the strong-coupling regime, where $U$ (the onsite repulsion) $\gg$ $t$ (the nearest-neighbor hopping). For small electron dopings above the half-filled antiferromagnet, we numerically uncover a rich variety of magnetically ordered states, and in conjunction with theoretical arguments, infer the phase diagram of the system as a function of doping and interaction strengths. In particular, we find that the inclusion of long-range Coulomb interactions induces an instability of high-spin states$\unicode{x2014}$such as the saturated Nagaoka ferromagnet$\unicode{x2014}$towards phase separation and stripe ordering. We also present proposals for the observation of some of our key findings in experiments that would shed further light on this paradigmatic strongly correlated system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Scaling of entanglement entropy at quantum critical points in random spin chains

We study the scaling properties of the entanglement entropy (EE) near quantum critical points in interacting random antiferromagnetic (AF) spin chains. Using density-matrix renormalization group, we compute the half-chain EE near the topological phase transition between Haldane and Random Singlet phases in a disordered spin-1 chain. It is found to diverge logarithmically in system size with an effective central charge $c_{\rm eff} = 1.17(4)$ at the quantum critical point (QCP). Moreover, a scaling analysis of EE yields the correlation length exponent $ν=2.28(5)$. Our unbiased calculation establishes that the QCP is in the universality class of the infinite-randomness fixed point predicted by previous studies based on strong disorder renormalization group technique. However, in the disordered spin-1/2 Majumdar-Ghosh chain, where a valence bond solid phase is unstable to disorder, the crossover length exponent obtained from a scaling analysis of EE disagrees with the expectation based on Imry-Ma argument. We provide a possible explanation.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2022

Possible continuous transition from fractional quantum Hall to stripe phase at $ν_e=7/3$

We study the phase diagram of $ν_e=7/3$ state in the $N=1$ Landau level in the presence of band mass anisotropy. Using density matrix renormalization group on an infinite cylinder geometry, we find a continuous transition from the topologically ordered Laughlin fractional quantum Hall state to a stripe phase with a period of approximately five and a half magnetic lengths. The transition is driven by the condensation of the magnetoroton mode which becomes gapless at the critical point. We interpret the transition within the composite-boson theory as the onset of stripe order in a superfluid background, resulting from the roton mode going soft.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Anisotropic quantum Hall states in the presence of interactions with fourfold rotational symmetry

We study the effects of anisotropic interactions in the quantum Hall effect in the presence of a fourfold discrete rotational ($C_4$) symmetry. Employing the density matrix renormalization group technique on an infinite cylinder geometry (iDMRG), we calculate the anisotropy response of the Laughlin state at $ν=1/3$ and the composite-Fermi liquid (CFL) state at $ν=1/2$. We find that the anisotropy transferred from the interaction potential to the $ν=1/3$ state is stronger when compared to the complementary case of an anisotropic band. Further, the strength of anisotropy reduces as the interaction is made shorter ranged. Quite surprisingly, at $ν=1/2$, we find that the deformation in the CF Fermi-surface changes sign as the interaction range is reduced. Our results imply that the short-distance and long-distance parts of the interaction potential have opposite effects on the CFL state in the presence of $C_4$-symmetric anisotropy.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Beyond the universal Dyson singularity for 1-D chains with hopping disorder

We study a simple non-interacting nearest neighbor tight-binding model in one dimension with disorder, where the hopping terms are chosen randomly. This model exhibits a well-known singularity at the band center both in the density of states and localization length. If the probability distribution of the hopping terms is well-behaved, then the singularities exhibit universal behavior, the functional form of which was first discovered by Freeman Dyson in the context of a chain of classical harmonic oscillators. We show here that this universal form can be violated in a tunable manner if the hopping elements are chosen from a divergent probability distribution. We also demonstrate a connection between a breakdown of universality in this quantum problem and an analogous scenario in the classical domain - that of random walks and diffusion with anomalous exponents.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2021

Topology and many-body localization

We discuss the problem of localization in two dimensional electron systems in the quantum Hall (single Landau level) regime. After briefly summarizing the well-studied problem of Anderson localization in the non-interacting case, we concentrate on the problem of disorder induced many-body localization (MBL) in the presence of electron-electron interactions using numerical exact diagonalization and eigenvalue spacing statistics as a function of system size. We provide evidence showing that MBL is not attainable in a single Landau level with short range (white noise) disorder in the thermodynamic limit. We then study the interplay of topology and localization, by contrasting the behavior of topological and nontopological subbands arising from a single Landau level in two models - (i) a pair of extremely flat Hofstadter bands with an optimally chosen periodic potential, and (ii) a Landau level with a split-off nontopological impurity band. Both models provide convincing evidence for the strong effect of topology on the feasibility of many-body localization as well as slow dynamics starting from a nonequilibrium state with charge imbalance.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2020

Beyond universal behavior in the one-dimensional chain with random nearest neighbor hopping

We study the one-dimensional nearest neighbor tight binding model of electrons with independently distributed random hopping and no on-site potential (i.e. off-diagonal disorder with particle-hole symmetry, leading to sub-lattice symmetry, for each realization). For non-singular distributions of the hopping, it is known that the model exhibits a universal, singular behavior of the density of states $ρ(E) \sim 1/|E \ln^3|E||$ and of the localization length $ξ(E) \sim |\ln|E||$, near the band center $E = 0$. (This singular behavior is also applicable to random XY and Heisenberg spin chains; it was first obtained by Dyson for a specific random harmonic oscillator chain). Simultaneously, the state at $E = 0$ shows a universal, sub-exponential decay at large distances $\sim \exp [ -\sqrt{r/r_0} ]$. In this study, we consider singular, but normalizable, distributions of hopping, whose behavior at small $t$ is of the form $\sim 1/ [t \ln^{λ+1}(1/t) ]$, characterized by a single, continuously tunable parameter $λ> 0$. We find, using a combination of analytic and numerical methods, that while the universal result applies for $λ> 2$, it no longer holds in the interval $0 < λ< 2$. In particular, we find that the form of the density of states singularity is enhanced (relative to the Dyson result) in a continuous manner depending on the non-universal parameter $λ$; simultaneously, the localization length shows a less divergent form at low energies, and ceases to diverge below $λ= 1$. For $λ< 2$, the fall-off of the $E = 0$ state at large distances also deviates from the universal result, and is of the form $\sim \exp [-(r/r_0)^{1/λ}]$, which decays faster than an exponential for $λ< 1$.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2020

Dimensional crossover of the integer quantum Hall plateau transition and disordered topological pumping

We study the quantum Hall plateau transition on rectangular tori. As the aspect ratio of the torus is increased, the two-dimensional critical behavior, characterized by a subthermodynamic number of topological states in a vanishing energy window around a critical energy, changes drastically. In the thin-torus limit, the entire spectrum is Anderson-localized; however, an extensive number of states retain a Chern number $C\neq 0$. We resolve this apparent paradox by mapping the thin-torus quantum Hall system onto a disordered Thouless pump, where the Chern number corresponds to the winding number of an electron's path in real space during a pump cycle. We then characterize quantitatively the crossover between the one- and two-dimensional regimes for large but finite aspect ratio, where the average Thouless conductance also shows anomalous scaling.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2020

Quadrupolar interactions between acceptor pairs in p-doped semiconductors

We consider the interaction between acceptor pairs in doped semiconductors in the limit of large inter-acceptor separation relevant for low doping densities. Modeling individual acceptors via the spherical model of Baldereschi and Lipari, we calculate matrix elements of the quadrupole tensor between the four degenerate ground states and show that the acceptor has a nonzero quadrupole moment. As a result, the dominant contribution to the large-separation acceptor-acceptor interaction comes from direct (charge-density) terms rather than exchange terms. The quadrupole is the leading nonzero moment, so the electric quadrupole-quadrupole interaction dominates for large separation. We calculate the matrix elements of the quadrupole-quadrupole interaction Hamiltonian in a product-state basis and diagonalize, obtaining a closed-form expression for the energies and degeneracies of the sixteen-state energy spectrum. All dependence on material parameters enters via an overall prefactor, resulting in surprisingly simple and universal results. This simplicity is due, in part, to a mathematical happenstance, the nontrivial vanishing of a particular Wigner 6-j symbol. Results are relevant to the control of two-qubit interactions in quantum computing implementations based on acceptor spins, as well as calculations of the thermodynamic properties of insulating p-type semiconductors.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Fermi surfaces of composite fermions

The fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effect was discovered in two-dimensional electron systems subject to a large perpendicular magnetic field nearly four decades ago. It helped launch the field of topological phases, and in addition, because of the quenching of the kinetic energy, gave new meaning to the phrase "correlated matter". Most FQH phases are gapped like insulators and superconductors; however, a small subset with even denominator fractional fillings nu of the Landau level, typified by nu = 1/2, are found to be gapless, with a Fermi surface akin to metals. We discuss our results, obtained numerically using the infinite Density Matrix Renormalization Group (iDMRG) scheme, on the effect of non-isotropic distortions with discrete N-fold rotational symmetry of the Fermi surface at zero magnetic field on the Fermi surface of the correlated nu = 1/2 state. We find that while the response for N = 2 (elliptical) distortions is significant (and in agreement with experimental observations with no adjustable parameters), it decreases very rapidly as N is increased. Other anomalies, like resilience to breaking the Fermi surface into disjoint pieces, are also found. This highlights the difference between Fermi surfaces formed from the kinetic energy, and those formed of purely potential energy terms in the Hamiltonian.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Floquet dynamics of disordered bands with isolated critical energies

We investigate the localization properties of driven models that exhibit a sub-extensive number of extended states in the static setting. We consider instances where the extended modes are or are not protected by topological considerations. To this end, we contrast the strongly driven disordered lowest Landau level, which we refer to as the random Landau model (RLM), with the random dimer model (RDM); the latter also has a sub-extensive set of delocalized modes in the middle of the spectrum whose origin is not topological. We map the driven models on to a higher dimensional effective model and numerically compute the localization length as a function of disorder strength, drive amplitude and frequency using the recursive Green's function method. Our numerical results indicate that in the presence of a strong drive (low frequency and/or large drive amplitude), the topologically protected RLM continues to exhibit a spectrum with both localized and delocalized (or critical) modes, but the spectral range of delocalized modes is enhanced by the driving. This occurs due to an admixture of the localized modes with extended modes arising due to the topologically protected critical energy in the middle of the spectrum. On the other hand, in the RDM, a weak drive immediately localizes the entire spectrum. This occurs in contrast to the naive expectation from perturbation theory that mixing between localized and delocalized modes generically enhances the delocalization of all modes. Our work highlights the importance of the origin of the delocalized modes in the localization properties of the corresponding Floquet model.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2019

Interaction-dependent anisotropy of fractional quantum Hall states

A fractional quantum Hall (FQH) system with broken rotational symmetry exploits its geometric degree of freedom to minimize its ground state energy. The mass anisotropy of bare particles interacting isotropically is partially inherited by the many-body FQH state, and the extent to which it does so depends on the type of interaction, filling fraction and ground state phase. Using numerical infinite density matrix renormalization group simulations, we investigate the transference of elliptical ($C_2$-symmetric) anisotropy from the band mass of the bare particles to the FQH states, for various power law interactions. We map out the response of FQH states to small anisotropy as a function of power law exponent, filling, and statistics (bosonic or fermionic) of the constituents. Interestingly, we find a non-analyticity in the linear response of the FQH state at a special filling-dependent value of the power law exponent, above which the interaction effectively becomes zero-range (point-like). We also investigate the the effect of $C_4$-symmetric band distortions, where we observe a strikingly different dependence on filling.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Localization and interactions in topological and non-topological bands in two dimensions

A two-dimensional electron gas in a high magnetic field displays macroscopically degenerate Landau levels, which can be split into Hofstadter subbands by means of a weak periodic potential. By carefully engineering such a potential, one can precisely tune the number, bandwidths, bandgaps and Chern character of these subbands. This allows a detailed study of the interplay of disorder, interaction and topology in two dimensional systems. We first explore the physics of disorder and single-particle localization in subbands derived from the lowest Landau level, that nevertheless may have a topological nature different from that of the entire lowest Landau level. By projecting the Hamiltonian onto subbands of interest, we systematically explore the localization properties of single-particle eigenstates in the presence of quenched disorder. We then introduce electron-electron interactions and investigate the fate of many-body localization in subbands of varying topological character.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2018

Localization length exponent in two models of quantum Hall plateau transitions

Motivated by the recent numerical studies on the Chalker-Coddington network model that found a larger-than-expected critical exponent of the localization length characterizing the integer quantum Hall plateau transitions, we revisited the exponent calculation in the continuum model and in the lattice model, both projected to the lowest Landau level or subband. Combining scaling results with or without the corrections of an irrelevant length scale, we obtain $ν= 2.48 \pm 0.02$, which is larger but still consistent with the earlier results in the two models, unlike what was found recently in the network model. The scaling of the total number of conducting states, as determined by the Chern number calculation, is accompanied by an effective irrelevant length scale exponent $y = 4.3$ in the lattice model, indicating that the irrelevant perturbations are insignificant in the topology number calculation.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2018

Many-body localization in Landau level subbands

We explore the problem of localization in topological and non-topological nearly-flat subbands derived from the lowest Landau level, in the presence of quenched disorder and short-range interactions. We consider two models: a suitably engineered periodic potential, and randomly distributed point-like impurities. We perform numerical exact diagonalization on a torus geometry and use the mean level spacing ratio $\langle r \rangle$ as a diagnostic of ergodicity. For topological subbands, we find there is no ergodicity breaking in both the one and two dimensional thermodynamic limits. For non-topological subbands, in constrast, we find evidence of an ergodicity breaking transition at finite disorder strength in the one-dimensional thermodynamic limit. Intriguingly, indications of similar behavior in the two-dimensional thermodynamic limit are found, as well. This constitutes a novel, $\textit{continuum}$ setting for the study of the many-body localization transition in one and two dimensions.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗