No Arabic abstract
We present a family of electron-based coupled-wire models of bosonic orbifold topological phases, referred to as twist liquids, in two spatial dimensions. All local fermion degrees of freedom are gapped and removed from the topological order by many-body interactions. Bosonic chiral spin liquids and anyonic superconductors are constructed on an array of interacting wires, each supports emergent massless Majorana fermions that are non-local (fractional) and constitute the $SO(N)$ Kac-Moody Wess-Zumino-Witten algebra at level 1. We focus on the dihedral $D_k$ symmetry of $SO(2n)_1$, and its promotion to a gauge symmetry by manipulating the locality of fermion pairs. Gauging the symmetry (sub)group generates the $mathcal{C}/G$ twist liquids, where $G=mathbb{Z}_2$ for $mathcal{C}=U(1)_l$, $SU(n)_1$, and $G=mathbb{Z}_2$, $mathbb{Z}_k$, $D_k$ for $mathcal{C}=SO(2n)_1$. We construct exactly solvable models for all of these topological states. We prove the presence of a bulk excitation energy gap and demonstrate the appearance of edge orbifold conformal field theories corresponding to the twist liquid topological orders. We analyze the statistical properties of the anyon excitations, including the non-Abelian metaplectic anyons and a new class of quasiparticles referred to as Ising-fluxons. We show an eight-fold periodic gauging pattern in $SO(2n)_1/G$ by identifying the non-chiral components of the twist liquids with discrete gauge theories.
We discuss quasi one-dimensional magnetic Mott insulators of the pyroxene family where spin and orbital degrees of freedom remain tightly bound. We analyze their excitation spectrum and outline the conditions under which the orbital degrees of freedom become liberated so that the excitations become dispersive and the spectral weight shifts to energies much smaller than the exchange integral.
Quantum spin liquids host novel emergent excitations, such as monopoles of an emergent gauge field. Here, we study the hierarchy of monopole operators that emerges at quantum critical points (QCPs) between a two-dimensional Dirac spin liquid and various ordered phases. This is described by a confinement transition of quantum electrodynamics in two spatial dimensions (QED3 Gross-Neveu theories). Focusing on a spin ordering transition, we get the scaling dimension of monopoles at leading order in a large-N expansion, where 2N is the number of Dirac fermions, as a function of the monopoles total magnetic spin. Monopoles with a maximal spin have the smallest scaling dimension while monopoles with a vanishing magnetic spin have the largest one, the same as in pure QED3. The organization of monopoles in multiplets of the QCPs symmetry group SU(2) x SU(N) is shown for general N.
The random matrix theory (RMT) can be used to classify both topological phases of matter and quantum chaos. We develop a systematic and transformative RMT to classify the quantum chaos in the colored Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model first introduced by Gross and Rosenhaus. Here we focus on the 2-colored case and 4-colored case with balanced number of Majorana fermion $N$. By identifying the maximal symmetries, the independent parity conservation sectors, the minimum (irreducible) Hilbert space, and especially the relevant anti-unitary and unitary operators, we show that the color degree of freedoms lead to novel quantum chaotic behaviours. When $N$ is odd, different symmetry operators need to be constructed to make the classifications complete. The 2-colored case only show 3-fold Wigner-Dyson way, and the 4-colored case show 10-fold generalized Wigner-Dyson way which may also have non-trivial edge exponents. We also study 2- and 4-colored hybrid SYK models which display many salient quantum chaotic features hidden in the corresponding pure SYK models. These features motivate us to develop a systematic RMT to study the energy level statistics of 2 or 4 un-correlated random matrix ensembles. The exact diagonalizations are performed to study both the bulk energy level statistics and the edge exponents and find excellent agreements with our exact maximal symmetry classifications. Our complete and systematic methods can be easily extended to study the generic imbalanced cases. They may be transferred to the classifications of colored tensor models, quantum chromodynamics with pairings across different colors, quantum black holes and interacting symmetry protected (or enriched) topological phases.
We develop a procedure for detecting Fermi liquid instabilities by extending the analysis of Pomeranchuk to two-dimensional lattice systems. The method is very general and straightforward to apply, thus providing a powerful tool for the search of exotic phases. We test it by applying it to a lattice electron model with interactions leading to $s$ and d-wave instabilities.
Frustrated quantum magnets are expected to host many exotic quantum spin states like quantum spin liquid (QSL), and have attracted numerous interest in modern condensed matter physics. The discovery of the triangular lattice spin liquid candidate YbMgGaO$_4$ stimulated an increasing attention on the rare-earth-based frustrated magnets with strong spin-orbit coupling. Here we report the synthesis and characterization of a large family of rare-earth chalcogenides AReCh$_2$ (A = alkali or monovalent ions, Re = rare earth, Ch = O, S, Se). The family compounds share the same structure (R$bar{3}$m) as YbMgGaO$_4$, and antiferromagnetically coupled rare-earth ions form perfect triangular layers that are well separated along the $c$-axis. Specific heat and magnetic susceptibility measurements on NaYbO$_2$, NaYbS$_2$ and NaYbSe$_2$ single crystals and polycrystals, reveal no structural or magnetic transition down to 50mK. The family, having the simplest structure and chemical formula among the known QSL candidates, removes the issue on possible exchange disorders in YbMgGaO$_4$. More excitingly, the rich diversity of the family members allows tunable charge gaps, variable exchange coupling, and many other advantages. This makes the family an ideal platform for fundamental research of QSLs and its promising applications.