arXiv subjects

Zi Yang Meng

Publications and source records attributed to Zi Yang Meng.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Thermodynamic characteristic for correlated flat-band system with quantum anomalous Hall ground state

While the ground state phase diagram of the correlated flat-band systems have been intensively investigated, the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of such lattice models are less explored, but it is the latter which is most relevant to the experimental probes (transport, quantum capacitance and spectroscopy) of the quantum moiré materials such as twisted bilayer graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides. Here we show, by means of momentum-space quantum Monte Carlo and exact diagonalization, there exists a unique thermodynamic characteristic for the correlated flat-band models with interaction-driven quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) ground state, namely, the transition from the QAH insulator to the metallic state takes place at a much lower temperature compared with the zero-temperature single-particle gap generated by the long-range Coulomb interaction. Such low transition temperature comes from the proliferation of excitonic particle-hole excitations, which "quantum teleport" the electrons across the gap between different topological bands to restore the broken time-reversal symmetry and give rise to a pronounced enhancement in the charge compressibility. Future experiments, to verify such generic thermodynamic characteristics, are proposed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Fermion sign bounds theory in quantum Monte Carlo simulation

Sign problem in fermion quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulation appears to be an extremely hard problem. Traditional lore passing around for years tells people that when there is a sign problem, the average sign in QMC simulation approaches zero exponentially fast with the space-time volume of the configurational space. We, however, analytically show this is not always the case and manage to find physical bounds for the average sign. Our understanding is based on a direct connection between the sign bounds and a well-defined partition function of reference system and could distinguish when the bounds have the usual exponential scaling, and when they are bestowed on an algebraic scaling at low temperature limit. We analytically explain such algebraic sign problems found in flat band moiré lattice models at low temperature limit. At finite temperature, a domain size argument based on sign bounds also explains the connection between sign behavior and finite temperature phase transition. Sign bounds, as a well-defined observable, may have ability to ease or even make use of the sign problem.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Measuring Rényi entanglement entropy with high efficiency and precision in quantum Monte Carlo simulations

We develop a nonequilibrium increment method in quantum Monte Carlo simulations to obtain the Rényi entanglement entropy of various quantum many-body systems with high efficiency and precision. To demonstrate its power, we show the results on a few important yet difficult $(2+1)d$ quantum lattice models, ranging from the Heisenberg quantum antiferromagnet with spontaneous symmetry breaking, the quantum critical point with O(3) conformal field theory (CFT) to the toric code $\Z_2$ topological ordered state and the Kagome $\Z_2$ quantum spin liquid model with frustration and multi-spin interactions. In all these cases, our method either reveals the precise CFT data from the logarithmic correction or extracts the quantum dimension in topological order, from the dominant area law in finite-size scaling, with very large system sizes, controlled errorbars and minimal computational costs. Our method therefore establishes a controlled and practical computation paradigm to obtain the difficult yet important universal properties in highly entangled quantum matter.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Scaling of disorder operator at deconfined quantum criticality

We study scaling behavior of the disorder parameter, defined as the expectation value of a symmetry transformation applied to a finite region, at the deconfined quantum critical point in (2+1)$d$ in the $J$-$Q_3$ model via large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We show that the disorder parameter for U(1) spin rotation symmetry exhibits perimeter scaling with a logarithmic correction associated with sharp corners of the region, as generally expected for a conformally-invariant critical point. However, for large rotation angle the universal coefficient of the logarithmic corner correction becomes negative, which is not allowed in any unitary conformal field theory. We also extract the current central charge from the small rotation angle scaling, whose value is much smaller than that of the free theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Exciton Proliferation and Fate of the Topological Mott Insulator in a Twisted Bilayer Graphene Lattice Model

Topological Mott insulator (TMI) with spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking and nonzero Chern number has been discovered in a real-space effective model for twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) at 3/4 filling in the strong coupling limit. However, the finite temperature properties of such a TMI state remain illusive. In this work, employing the state-of-the-art thermal tensor network and the perturbative field-theoretical approaches, we obtain the finite-$T$ phase diagram and the dynamical properties of the TBG model. The phase diagram includes the quantum anomalous Hall and charge density wave phases at low $T$, and a Ising transition separating them from the high-$T$ symmetric phases. Due to the proliferation of excitons -- particle-hole bound states -- the transitions take place at a significantly reduced temperature than the mean-field estimation. The exciton phase is accompanied with distinctive experimental signatures in such as charge compressibilities and optical conductivities close to the transition. Our work explains the smearing of the many-electron state topology by proliferating excitons and opens the avenue for controlled many-body investigations on finite-temperature states in the TBG and other quantum moiré systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Monte Carlo study of the pseudogap and superconductivity emerging from quantum magnetic fluctuations

The origin of the pseudogap behavior, found in many high-$T_c$ superconductors, remains one of the greatest puzzles in condensed matter physics. One possible mechanism is fermionic incoherence, which near a quantum critical point allows pair formation but suppresses superconductivity. Employing quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a model of itinerant fermions coupled to ferromagnetic spin fluctuations, represented by a quantum rotor, we report numerical evidence of pseudogap behavior, emerging from pairing fluctuations in a quantum-critical non-Fermi liquid. Specifically, we observe enhanced pairing fluctuations and a partial gap opening in the fermionic spectrum. However, the system remains non-superconducting until reaching a much lower temperature. In the pseudogap regime the system displays a "gap-filling" rather than "gap-closing" behavior, consistent with experimental observations. Our results provide the first unambiguous lattice model realization of a pseudogap state in a strongly correlated system, driven by superconducting fluctuations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Network-Initialized Monte Carlo Based on Generative Neural Networks

We design generative neural networks that generate Monte Carlo configurations with complete absence of autocorrelation from which only short Markov chains are needed before making measurements for physical observables, irrespective of the system locating at the classical critical point, fermionic Mott insulator, Dirac semimetal, or quantum critical point. We further propose a network-initialized Monte Carlo scheme based on such neural networks, which provides independent samplings and can accelerate the Monte Carlo simulations by significantly reducing the thermalization process. We demonstrate the performance of our approach on the two-dimensional Ising and fermion Hubbard models, and expect it can systematically speed up the Monte Carlo simulations especially for the very challenging many-electron problems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Sign Problem in Quantum Monte Carlo Simulation

Sign problem in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulation appears to be an extremely hard yet interesting problem. In this article, we present a pedagogical overview on the origin of the sign problem in various quantum Monte Carlo simulation techniques, ranging from the world-line and stochastic series expansion Monte Carlo for boson and spin systems to the determinant and momentum-space quantum Monte Carlo for interacting fermions. We point out the basis dependency of the sign problem and summarize the progresses to cure, ease and even make use of the sign problem over the years, such as symmetry analysis of the underlying Hamiltonian, basis optimization in writting down the partition functions and many others. Moreover, we state that although traditional lore saying that in case of sign problem, the average sign in QMC simulation approaches zero exponentially fast with the space-time volume of the configurational space, there are recent breakthroughs showing this is not always the case and based on the properties of the partition function for finite size systems, one could distinguish when the average sign has the usual exponential scaling and when it is bestowed with an algebraic scaling at the low temperature limit. Fermionic QMC simulations with such algebraic sign problems have been successfully carried out for extended Hubbard-type and quantum Moiré lattice models.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Nematic Quantum Criticality in Dirac Systems

We investigate nematic quantum phase transitions in two different Dirac fermion models. The models feature twofold and fourfold, respectively, lattice rotational symmetries that are spontaneously broken in the ordered phase. Using negative-sign-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations and an $ε$-expansion renormalization group analysis, we show that both models exhibit continuous phase transitions. In contrast to generic Gross-Neveu dynamical mass generation, the quantum critical regime is characterized by large velocity anisotropies, with fixed-point values being approached very slowly. Hence both experimental and numerical investigations will not be representative of the infrared fixed point, but of a crossover regime characterized by drifting exponents.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Solving quantum rotor model with different Monte Carlo techniques

We systematically test the performance of several Monte Carlo update schemes for the $(2+1)$d XY phase transition of quantum rotor model. By comparing the local Metropolis (LM), LM plus over-relaxation (OR), Wolff-cluster (WC), hybrid Monte Carlo (HM), hybrid Monte Carlo with Fourier acceleration (FA) scheme, it is clear that among the five different update schemes, at the quantum critical point, the WC and FA schemes acquire the smallest autocorrelation time and cost the least amount of CPU hours in achieving the same level of relative error, and FA enjoys a further advantage of easily implementable for more complicated interactions such as the long-range ones. These results bestow one with the necessary knowledge of extending the quantum rotor model, which plays the role of ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic critical bosons or Z$_2$ topological order, to more realistic and yet challenging models such as Fermi surface Yukawa-coupled to quantum rotor models.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Height-conserving quantum dimer models

We propose a height-conserving quantum dimer model (hQDM) such that the lattice sum of its associated height field is conserved, and that it admits a Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point. The hQDM with minimal interaction range on the square lattice exhibits Hilbert space fragmentation and maps exactly to the XXZ spin model on the square lattice in certain Krylov subspaces. We obtain the ground-state phase diagram of hQDM via quantum Monte Carlo simulations, and demonstrate that a large portion of it is within the Krylov subspaces which admit the exact mapping to the XXZ model, with dimer ordered phases corresponding to easy-axis and easy-plane spin orders. At the RK point, the apparent dynamical exponents obtained from the single mode approximation and the height correlation function show drastically different behavior across the Krylov subspaces, exemplifying Hilbert space fragmentation and emergent glassy phenomena.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Dynamical properties of collective excitations in twisted bilayer Graphene

Employing the recently developed momentum-space quantum Monte Carlo scheme, we study the dynamic response of single-particle and collective excitations in realistic continuum models of twisted bilayer graphene. At charge neutrality, this unbiased numerical method reveals strong competition between different symmetry breaking channels with a leading instability towards the intervalley coherent state. Single-particle spectra indicate that repulsive interactions push the fermion spectral weight away from the Fermi energy and open up an insulating gap. The spectra of collective excitations suggest an approximate valley $SU(2)$ symmetry. At low-energy, long-lived valley waves are observed, which resemble spin waves of Heisenberg ferromagnetism. At high-energy, these sharp modes quickly become over-damped, when their energy reaches the fermion particle-hole continuum.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Possible Dirac quantum spin liquid in a kagome quantum antiferromagnet YCu$_3$(OH)$_6$Br$_2$[Br$_{x}$(OH)$_{1-x}$]

We studied the magnetic properties of YCu$_3$(OH)$_6$Br$_2$[Br$_{1-x}$(OH)$_{x}$] ($x$ = 0.33), where Cu$^{2+}$ ions form two-dimensional kagome layers. There is no magnetic order down to 50 mK while the Curie-Weiss temperature is on the order of -100 K. At zero magnetic field, the low-temperature specific heat shows a $T^2$ dependence. Above 2 T, a linear temperature dependence term in specific heat emerges, and the value of $γ= C/T$ increases linearly with the field. Furthermore, the magnetic susceptibility tends to a constant value at $T = 0$. Our results suggest that the magnetic ground state of YCu$_3$(OH)$_6$Br$_2$[Br$_{1-x}$(OH)$_{x}$] is consistent with a Dirac quantum-spin-liquid state with a linearly dispersing spinon strongly coupled to an emergent gauge field, which has long been theoretically proposed as a candidate ground state in the two-dimensional kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnetic system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Quantum Simulation of Lattice Gauge Theories on Superconducting Circuits: Quantum Phase Transition and Quench Dynamics

Recently, quantum simulation of low-dimensional lattice gauge theories (LGTs) has attracted many interests, which may improve our understanding of strongly correlated quantum many-body systems. Here, we propose an implementation to approximate $\mathbb{Z}_2$ LGT on superconducting quantum circuits, where the effective theory is a mixture of a LGT and a gauge-broken term. Using matrix product state based methods, both the ground state properties and quench dynamics are systematically investigated. With an increase of the transverse (electric) field, the system displays a quantum phase transition from a disordered phase to a translational symmetry breaking phase. In the ordered phase, an approximate Gauss law of the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ LGT emerges in the ground state. Moreover, to shed light on the experiments, we also study the quench dynamics, where there is a dynamical signature of the spontaneous translational symmetry breaking. The spreading of the single particle of matter degree is diffusive under the weak transverse field, while it is ballistic with small velocity for the strong field. Furthermore, due to the emergent Gauss law under the strong transverse field, the matter degree can also exhibit confinement dynamics which leads to a strong suppression of the nearest-neighbor hopping. Our results pave the way for simulating the LGT on superconducting circuits, including the quantum phase transition and quench dynamics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

The dynamical exponent of a quantum critical itinerant ferromagnet: a Monte Carlo study

We consider the effect of the coupling between 2D quantum rotors near an XY ferromagnetic quantum critical point and spins of itinerant fermions. We analyze how this coupling affects the dynamics of rotors and the self-energy of fermions.A common belief is that near a $q=0$ ferromagnetic transition, fermions induce an $Ω/q$ Landau damping of rotors (i.e., the dynamical critical exponent is $z=3$) and Landau overdamped rotors give rise to non-Fermi liquid fermionic self-energy $Σ\propto ω^{2/3}$. This behavior has been confirmed in previous quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) studies.Here we show that for the XY case the behavior is different.We report the results of large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations,which show that at small frequencies $z=2$ and $Σ\propto ω^{1/2}$. We argue that the new behavior is associated with the fact that a fermionic spin is by itself not a conserved quantity due to spin-spin coupling to rotors, and a combination of self-energy and vertex corrections replaces $1/q$ in the Landau damping by a constant. We discuss the implication of these results to experiments.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Scaling of entanglement entropy at deconfined quantum criticality

We develop a nonequilibrium increment method to compute the Rényi entanglement entropy and investigate its scaling behavior at the deconfined critical (DQC) point via large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. To benchmark the method, we first show that at an conformally-invariant critical point of O(3) transition, the entanglement entropy exhibits universal scaling behavior of area law with logarithmic corner corrections and the obtained correction exponent represents the current central charge of the critical theory. Then we move on to the deconfined quantum critical point, where although we still observe similar scaling behavior but with a very different exponent. Namely, the corner correction exponent is found to be negative. Such a negative exponent is in sharp contrast with positivity condition of the Rényi entanglement entropy, which holds for unitary conformal field theories(CFT). Our results unambiguously reveal fundamental differences between DQC and quantum critical points(QCPs) described by unitary CFTs.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Realization of Topological Mott Insulator in a Twisted Bilayer Graphene Lattice Model

Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene has recently become a thriving material platform realizing correlated electron phenomena taking place within its topological flat bands. Several numerical and analytical methods have been applied to understand the correlated phases therein, revealing some similarity with the quantum Hall physics. In this work, we provide a Mott-Hubbard perspective for the TBG system. Employing the large-scale density matrix renormalization group on the lattice model containing the projected Coulomb interactions only, we identify a first-order quantum phase transition between the insulating stripe phase and the quantum anomalous Hall state with the Chern number of $\pm 1$. Our results not only shed light on the mechanism of the quantum anomalous Hall state discovered at three-quarters filling, but also provide an example of the topological Mott insulator, i.e., the quantum anomalous Hall state in the strong coupling limit.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions

The experimental discovery of the fractional Hall conductivity in two-dimensional electron gases revealed new types of quantum particles, called anyons, which are beyond bosons and fermions as they possess fractionalized exchange statistics. These anyons are usually studied deep inside an insulating topological phase. It is natural to ask whether such fractionalization can be detected more broadly, say near a phase transition from a conventional to a topological phase. To answer this question, we study a strongly correlated quantum phase transition between a topological state, called a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ quantum spin liquid, and a conventional superfluid using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that the universal conductivity at the quantum critical point becomes a simple fraction of its value at the conventional insulator-to-superfluid transition. Moreover, a dynamically self-dual optical conductivity emerges at low temperatures above the transition point, indicating the presence of the elusive vison particles. Our study opens the door for the experimental detection of anyons in a broader regime, and has ramifications in the study of quantum materials, programmable quantum simulators, and ultra-cold atomic gases. In the latter case, we discuss the feasibility of measurements in optical lattices using current techniques.

cond-mat.str-el↗