Role of mixed permutation symmetry sectors in the thermodynamic limit of critical three-level Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick atom models

Abstract

We introduce the notion of Mixed Symmetry Quantum Phase Transition (MSQPT) as singularities in the transformation of the lowest-energy state properties of a system of identical particles inside each permutation symmetry sector $\mu$, when some Hamiltonian control parameters $\lambda$ are varied. We use a three-level Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model, with $U(3)$ dynamical symmetry, to exemplify our construction. After reviewing the construction of $U(3)$ unirreps using Young tableaux and Gelfand basis, we firstly study the case of a finite number $N$ of three-level atoms, showing that some precursors (fidelity-susceptibility, level population, etc.) of MSQPTs appear in all permutation symmetry sectors. Using coherent (quasi-classical) states of $U(3)$ as variational states, we compute the lowest-energy density for each sector $\mu$ in the thermodynamic $N\to \infty$ limit. Extending the control parameter space by $\mu$, the phase diagram exhibits four distinct quantum phases in the $\lambda$-$\mu$ plane that coexist at a quadruple point. The ground state of the whole system belongs to the fully symmetric sector $\mu =1$ and shows a four-fold degeneracy, due to the spontaneous breakdown of the parity symmetry of the Hamiltonian. The restoration of this discrete symmetry leads to the formation of four-component Schrödinger cat states.

15 pages, 9 figures

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Information diagrams in the study of entanglement in symmetric multi-quDit systems and applications to quantum phase transitions in Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick D-level atom models
• Localization measures of parity adapted U($D$)-spin coherent states applied to the phase space analysis of the $D$-level Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model
• Dissipative phase transition: from qubits to qudits
• Schmidt decomposition of parity adapted coherent states for symmetric multi-quDits
• Lieb-Mattis ordering theorem of electronic energy levels in the thermodynamic limit
• Entanglement and U(D)-spin squeezing in symmetric multi-quDit systems and applications to quantum phase transitions in Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick D-level atom models