Using an improved estimator in the loop-cluster algorithm, we investigate the constraint effective potential of the magnetization in the spin $tfrac{1}{2}$ quantum XY model. The numerical results are in excellent agreement with the predictions of the corresponding low-energy effective field theory. After its low-energy parameters have been determined with better than permille precision, the effective theory makes accurate predictions for the constraint effective potential which are in excellent agreement with the Monte Carlo data. This shows that the effective theory indeed describes the physics in the low-energy regime quantitatively correctly.
The coupling between fermionic matter and gauge fields plays a fundamental role in our understanding of nature, while at the same time posing a challenging problem for theoretical modeling. In this situation, controlled information can be gained by combining different complementary approaches. Here, we study a confinement transition in a system of $N_f$ flavors of interacting Dirac fermions charged under a U(1) gauge field in 2+1 dimensions. Using Quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate a lattice model that exhibits a continuous transition at zero temperature between a gapless deconfined phase, described by three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics, and a gapped confined phase, in which the system develops valence-bond-solid order. We argue that the quantum critical point is in the universality class of the QED$_3$-Gross-Neveu-XY model. We study this field theory within a $1/N_f$ expansion in fixed dimension as well as a renormalization group analysis in $4-epsilon$ space-time dimensions. The consistency between numerical and analytical results is revealed from large to intermediate flavor number.
Earlier Monte-Carlo calculations on the dissipative two-dimensional XY model are extended in several directions. We study the phase diagram and the correlation functions when dissipation is very small, where it has properties of the classical 3D-XY transition, i.e. one with a dynamical critical exponent $z=1$. The transition changes from $z=1$ to the class of criticality with $z to infty$ driven by topological defects, discovered earlier, beyond a critical dissipation. We also find that the critical correlations have power-law singularities as a function of tuning the ratio of the kinetic energy to the potential energy for fixed large dissipation, as opposed to essential singularities on tuning dissipation keeping the former fixed. A phase with temporal disorder but spatial order of the Kosterlitz-Thouless form is also further investigated. We also present results for the transition when the allowed Caldeira-Leggett form of dissipation and the allowed form of dissipation coupling to the compact rotor variables are both included. The nature of the transition is then determined by the Caldeira-Leggett form.
We determine analytically the phase diagram of the toric code model in a parallel magnetic field which displays three distinct regions. Our study relies on two high-order perturbative expansions in the strong- and weak-field limit, as well as a large-spin analysis. Calculations in the topological phase establish a quasiparticle picture for the anyonic excitations. We obtain two second-order transition lines that merge with a first-order line giving rise to a multicritical point as recently suggested by numerical simulations. We compute the values of the corresponding critical fields and exponents that drive the closure of the gap. We also give the one-particle dispersions of the anyonic quasiparticles inside the topological phase.
Elucidating the phase diagram of lattice gauge theories with fermionic matter in 2+1 dimensions has become a problem of considerable interest in recent years, motivated by physical problems ranging from chiral symmetry breaking in high-energy physics to fractionalized phases of strongly correlated materials in condensed matter physics. For a sufficiently large number $N_f$ of flavors of four-component Dirac fermions, recent sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo studies of lattice quantum electrodynamics (QED$_3$) on the square lattice have found evidence for a continuous quantum phase transition between a power-law correlated conformal QED$_3$ phase and a confining valence-bond-solid phase with spontaneously broken point-group symmetries. The critical continuum theory of this transition was shown to be the $O(2)$ QED$_3$-Gross-Neveu model, equivalent to the gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model, and critical exponents were computed to first order in the large-$N_f$ expansion and the $epsilon$ expansion. We extend these studies by computing critical exponents to second order in the large-$N_f$ expansion and to four-loop order in the $epsilon$ expansion below four spacetime dimensions. In the latter context, we also explicitly demonstrate that the discrete $mathbb{Z}_4$ symmetry of the valence-bond-solid order parameter is dynamically enlarged to a continuous $O(2)$ symmetry at criticality for all values of $N_f$.
Recent sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations of (2+1)-dimensional lattice quantum electrodynamics (QED$_3$) with $N_f$ flavors of fermions on the square lattice have found evidence of continuous quantum phase transitions between a critical phase and a gapped valence-bond-solid (VBS) phase for flavor numbers $N_f=4$, $6$, and $8$. We derive the critical theory for these transitions, the chiral $O(2)$ QED$_3$-Gross-Neveu model, and show that the latter is equivalent to the gauged Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. Using known large-$N_f$ results for the latter, we estimate the order parameter anomalous dimension and the correlation length exponent for the transitions mentioned above. We obtain large-$N_f$ results for the dimensions of fermion bilinear operators, in both the gauged and ungauged chiral $O(2)$ Gross-Neveu models, which respectively describe the long-distance power-law decay of two-particle correlation functions at the VBS transition in lattice QED$_3$ and the Kekule-VBS transition for correlated fermions on the honeycomb lattice.