Symmetry-Enriched Criticality in a Coupled Spin-Ladder

Abstract

We study a one-dimensional ladder of two coupled XXZ spin chains and identify several distinct gapless symmetry-enriched critical phases. These have the same unbroken symmetries and long-wavelength description, but cannot be connected without encountering either a phase transition or other intermediate phases. Using bosonizaion, we analyze the nature of their distinction by determining how microscopic symmetries are manifested in the long-wavelength fields, the behavior of charged local and nonlocal operators, and identify the universality class of all direct continuous phase transitions between them. One of these phases is a gapless topological phase with protected edge modes. We characterize its precise nature and place it within the broader classification. We also find the occurrence of `multiversality' in the phase diagram, wherein two fixed phases are separated by continuous transitions with different universality classes in different parameter regimes. We determine the phase diagram and all its aspects, as well as verify our predictions numerically using density matrix renormalization group and a mapping onto an effective spin-1 model.

v2: minor improvements, added references; 26 pages, 16 figures, 7 tables

References in corpus (5)

• The density-matrix renormalization group in the age of matrix product states
• Dirac materials
• A Gapless Symmetry-Protected Topological Phase of Fermions in One Dimension
• Ground-state phase diagram of a spin-1/2 frustrated ferromagnetic XXZ chain: Haldane dimer phase and gapped/gapless chiral phases
• The Prediction of a Gapless Topological "Haldane Liquid" Phase in a One-Dimensional Cold Polar Molecular Lattice

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Universal entanglement spectrum in gapless symmetry protected topological states
• Quantum phase transition and critical behavior between the gapless topological phases
• Quantum phase transition between topologically distinct quantum critical points
• Entanglement swapping in critical quantum spin chains
• Interaction driven topological phase transitions of hardcore bosons on a two-leg ladder
• Pivoting through the chiral-clock family
• Classical origins of Landau-incompatible transitions
• Spectral Form Factors of Topological Phases
• Incommensurate gapless ferromagnetism connecting competing symmetry-enriched deconfined quantum phase transitions
• Charge pumps, boundary modes, and the necessity of unnecessary criticality
• Generalized Li-Haldane Correspondence in Critical Dirac-Fermion Systems
• Emergent gapless spiral phases and conformal Lifshitz criticality in the cluster Ising model with off-diagonal interactions
• Anomalous Dynamical Scaling at Topological Quantum Criticality
• Topology and edge modes surviving criticality in non-Hermitian Floquet systems