First-order transitions in spin chains coupled to quantum baths

Abstract

We show that tailoring the dissipative environment allows to change the features of continuous quantum phase transitions and, even, induce first order transitions in ferromagnetic spin chains. In particular, using a numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo method for the paradigmatic Ising chain of one-half spins in a transverse magnetic field, we find that spin couplings to local quantum boson baths in the Ohmic regime can drive the transition from the second to the first order even for a low dissipation strength. Moreover, using a variational mean-field approach for the treatment of spin-spin and spin-boson interactions, we point out that phase discontinuities are ascribable to a dissipation induced effective magnetic field which is intrinsically related to the bath quantum fluctuations and vanishes for classical baths. The effective field is able to switch the sign of the magnetization along the direction of spin-spin interactions. The results can be potentially tested in recent quantum simulators and are relevant for quantum sensing since the spin system could not only detect the properties of non-classical baths, but also the effects of weak magnetic fields.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Bath-engineering magnetic order in quantum spin chains: An analytic mapping approach
• Numerical variational simulations of quantum phase transitions in the sub-Ohmic spin-boson model with multiple polaron ansatz
• Quantum criticality in sub-Ohmic systems with three competing terms: beyond conventional spin-boson physics