We determine the phase diagram of the Kane-Mele model with a long-range Coulomb interaction using an exact quantum Monte Carlo method. Long-range interactions are expected to play a role in honeycomb materials because the vanishing density of states
in the semimetallic weak-coupling phase suppresses screening. According to our results, the Kane-Mele-Coulomb model supports the same phases as the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model. The nonlocal part of the interaction promotes short-range sublattice charge fluctuations, which compete with antiferromagnetic order driven by the onsite repulsion. Consequently, the critical interaction for the magnetic transition is significantly larger than for the purely local Hubbard repulsion. Our numerical data are consistent with $SU(2)$ Gross-Neveu universality for the semimetal to antiferromagnet transition, and with 3D XY universality for the quantum spin Hall to antiferromagnet transition.
Topological insulators have become one of the most active research areas in condensed matter physics. This article reviews progress on the topic of electronic correlations effects in the two-dimensional case, with a focus on systems with intrinsic sp
in-orbit coupling and numerical results. Topics addressed include an introduction to the noninteracting case, an overview of theoretical models, correlated topological band insulators, interaction-driven phase transitions, topological Mott insulators and fractional topological states, correlation effects on helical edge states, and topological invariants of interacting systems.
The adiabatic insertion of a pi flux into a quantum spin Hall insulator gives rise to localized spin and charge fluxon states. We demonstrate that pi fluxes can be used in exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations to identify a correlated Z_2 topological
insulator using the example of the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model. In the presence of repulsive interactions, a pi flux gives rise to a Kramers doublet of spinon states with a Curie law signature in the magnetic susceptibility. Electronic correlations also provide a bosonic mode of magnetic excitons with tunable energy that act as exchange particles and mediate a dynamical interaction of adjustable range and strength between spinons. pi fluxes can therefore be used to build models of interacting spins. This idea is applied to a three-spin ring and to one-dimensional spin chains. Due to the freedom to create almost arbitrary spin lattices, correlated topological insulators with pi fluxes represent a novel kind of quantum simulator potentially useful for numerical simulations and experiments.
We study the two-dimensional Kane-Mele-Hubbard model at half filling by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We present a refined phase boundary for the quantum spin liquid. The topological insulator at finite Hubbard interaction strength is adi
abatically connected to the groundstate of the Kane-Mele model. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling, magnetic order at large Hubbard U is restricted to the transverse direction. The transition from the topological band insulator to the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator is in the universality class of the three-dimensional XY model. The numerical data suggest that the spin liquid to topological insulator and spin liquid to Mott insulator transitions are both continuous.
We investigate electronic correlation effects on edge states of quantum spin-Hall insulators within the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Given the U(1) spin symmetry and time-reversal invariance, the low-energy the
ory is the helical Tomanaga-Luttinger model, with forward scattering only. For weak to intermediate interactions, this model correctly describes equal-time spin and charge correlations, including their doping dependence. As apparent from the Drude weight, bulk states become relevant in the presence of electron-electron interactions, rendering the forward-scattering model incomplete. Strong correlations give rise to slowly decaying transverse spin fluctuations, and inelastic spin-flip scattering strongly modifies the single-particle spectrum, leading to graphene-like edge state signatures. The helical Tomanaga-Luttinger model is completely valid only asymptotically in the weak-coupling limit.
We consider variants of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model of lattice polaritons, taking into account next-nearest-neighbor, diagonal and long-range photon hopping in one and two dimensions. These models are relevant for potential experimental realiza
tions of polariton Mott insulators based on trapped ions or microwave stripline resonators. We obtain the Mott-superfluid phase boundary and calculate excitation spectra in the Mott phase using numerical and analytical methods. Including the additional hopping terms leads to a larger Mott phase in the case of trapped ions, and to a smaller Mott phase in the case of stripline resonators, compared to the original model with nearest-neighbor hopping only. The critical hopping for the transition changes by up to about 50 percent in one dimension, and by up to about 20 percent in two dimensions. In contrast, the excitation spectra remain largely unaffected.
An array of high-Q electromagnetic resonators coupled to qubits gives rise to the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model describing a superfluid to Mott insulator transition of lattice polaritons. From mean-field and strong coupling expansions, the critical p
roperties of the model are expected to be identical to the scalar Bose-Hubbard model. A recent Monte Carlo study of the superfluid density on the square lattice suggested that this does not hold for the fixed-density transition through the Mott lobe tip. Instead, mean-field behavior with a dynamical critical exponent z=2 was found. We perform large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the critical behavior of the superfluid density and the compressibility. We find z=1 at the tip of the insulating lobe. Hence the transition falls in the 3D XY universality class, analogous to the Bose-Hubbard model.
We explore the Mott insulating state of single-band bosonic pairing Hamiltonians using analytical approaches and large scale density matrix renormalization group calculations. We focus on the second Mott lobe which exhibits a magnetic quantum phase t
ransition in the Ising universality class. We use this feature to discuss the behavior of a range of physical observables within the framework of the 1D quantum Ising model and the strongly anisotropic Heisenberg model. This includes the properties of local expectation values and correlation functions both at and away from criticality. Depending on the microscopic interactions it is possible to achieve either antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic exchange interactions and we highlight the possibility of observing the E8 mass spectrum for the critical Ising model in a longitudinal magnetic field.
We explore the phase diagram of two-component bosons with Feshbach resonant pairing interactions in an optical lattice. It has been shown in previous work to exhibit a rich variety of phases and phase transitions, including a paradigmatic Ising quant
um phase transition within the second Mott lobe. We discuss the evolution of the phase diagram with system parameters and relate this to the predictions of Landau theory. We extend our exact diagonalization studies of the one-dimensional bosonic Hamiltonian and confirm additional Ising critical exponents for the longitudinal and transverse magnetic susceptibilities within the second Mott lobe. The numerical results for the ground state energy and transverse magnetization are in good agreement with exact solutions of the Ising model in the thermodynamic limit. We also provide details of the low-energy spectrum, as well as density fluctuations and superfluid fractions in the grand canonical ensemble.
