Quantum Phase Transition and Protected Ideal Transport in a Kondo Chain

Abstract

We study the low energy physics of a Kondo chain where electrons from a one-dimensional band interact with magnetic moments via an anisotropic exchange interaction. It is demonstrated that the anisotropy gives rise to two different phases which are separated by a quantum phase transition. In the phase with easy plane anisotropy, Z${}_2$ symmetry between sectors with different helicity of the electrons is broken. As a result, localization effects are suppressed and the dc transport acquires (partial) symmetry protection. This effect is similar to the protection of the edge transport in time-reversal invariant topological insulators. The phase with easy axis anisotropy corresponds to the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid with a pronounced spin-charge separation. The slow charge density wave modes have no protection against localizatioin.

revised version of the manuscript (accepted for publication in PRL): the detailed analysis of disorder effects has been added; the spacial scale, beyond which protection of the ideal transport is removed, has been calculated; several references have been added; 10 pages (including Supplemental Materials), 5 figure

References in corpus (9)

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• Conductance of a helical edge liquid coupled to a magnetic impurity
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Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Doped Kondo chain, a heavy Luttinger liquid
• Chiral Spin Order in Kondo-Heisenberg systems
• Independent geometrical control of spin and charge resistances in curved spintronics
• Transmission through a potential barrier in Luttinger liquids with a topological spin gap
• Physics of Arbitrary Doped Kondo Lattices: from a Commensurate Insulator to a Heavy Luttinger Liquid and a Protected Helical Metal
• Correlations and incipient antiferromagnetic order within the linear Mn chains of metallic Ti${}_4$MnBi${}_2$
• Symmetry-protected topological phase transition in one-dimensional Kondo lattice and its realization with ultracold atoms
• Low Energy Properties of the Kondo chain in the RKKY regime
• Transport in Magnetically Doped One-Dimensional Wires: Can the Helical Protection Emerge without the Global Helicity?
• Protected helical transport in magnetically doped quantum wires: Beyond the one-dimensional paradigm