Type-B Goldstone modes and a logarithmic spiral in the staggered $\mathrm{SU}(4)$ ferromagnetic spin-orbital model

Abstract

It is found that the staggered $\mathrm{SU}(4)$ ferromagnetic spin-orbital model accommodates highly degenerate ground states arising from spontaneous symmetry breaking with type-B Goldstone modes. The spontaneous symmetry breaking patterns are $\mathrm{SU}(4)\to \mathrm{U}(1)\times \mathrm{U}(1)\times \mathrm{U}(1)$, with three type-B Goldstone modes or $\mathrm{SO}(4)\sim \mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)\to \mathrm{U}(1)\times \mathrm{U}(1)$, with two type-B Goldstone modes, depending on the system size being even or odd. An abstract fractal constitutes the underlying structure of the ground-state subspace. For a sequence of atypical degenerate ground states the fractal dimension is identified with the number of type-B Goldstone modes. This connection is established by evaluating the entanglement entropy for these atypical degenerate ground states. The observed universal finite system-size scaling behavior of the entanglement entropy follows a logarithmic scaling relation with the block size in the thermodynamic limit. In addition, the ground state degeneracies, depending on the boundary conditions adopted, constitute the two Fibonacci-Lucas sequences. In the limit of large system size their asymptotic forms become a self-similar logarithmic spiral. As a result, the model has a non-zero residual entropy $S_r=-2\ln R$, where $R=(\sqrt{6}-\sqrt{2})/2$.

26 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Revised version with appendices and references added