Search

By means of exact diagonalizations, the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang model at quarter-filling in the limit of strong Hubbard on-site repulsion is investigated. We find that the non-interacting metallic state will be turned into a Chern insulator with saturated magnetization under strong correlations. That is, at such a metal-insulator transition, both the topological and the magnetic properties of the system are changed due to spontaneous breaking of time reversal symmetry in the ground states. According to our findings, this topological phase transition seems to be of first order. Our results illustrate the interesting physics in topological Mott transitions and provide guidance to the search of more interaction-induced topological phases in similar systems., 6 pages, 4 figures

Quantum entanglement is one essential element to characterize many-body quantum systems. However, the entanglement measures are mostly discussed in Hermitian systems. Here, we propose a natural extension of entanglement and R\'enyi entropies to non-Hermitian quantum systems. There have been other proposals for the computation of these quantities, which are distinct from what is proposed in the current paper. We demonstrate the proposed entanglement quantities which are referred to as generic entanglement and R\'enyi entropies. These quantities capture the desired entanglement properties in non-Hermitian critical systems, where the low-energy properties are governed by the non-unitary conformal field theories (CFTs). We find excellent agreement between the numerical extrapolation of the negative central charges from the generic entanglement/R\'enyi entropy and the non-unitary CFT prediction. Furthermore, we apply the generic entanglement/R\'enyi entropy to symmetry-protected topological phases with non-Hermitian perturbations. We find the generic $n$-th R\'enyi entropy captures the expected entanglement property, whereas the traditional R\'enyi entropy can exhibit unnatural singularities due to its improper definition., Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, add the discussion about the XXZ model and the six-vertex model. Comments are welcome

The fidelity susceptibility is a tool for studying quantum phase transitions in the Hermitian condensed matter systems. Recently, it has been generalized with the biorthogonal basis for the non-Hermitian quantum systems. From the general perturbation description with the constraint of parity-time (PT) symmetry, we show that the fidelity $\mathcal{F}$ is always real for the PT-unbroken states. For the PT-broken states, the real part of the fidelity susceptibility $\mathrm{Re}[\mathcal{X}_F]$ is corresponding to considering both the PT partner states, and the negative infinity is explored by the perturbation theory when the parameter approaches the exceptional point (EP). Moreover, at the second-order EP, we prove that the real part of the fidelity between PT-unbroken and PT-broken states is $\mathrm{Re}\mathcal{F}=\frac{1}{2}$. Based on these general properties, we study the two-legged non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model and the non-Hermitian XXZ spin chain. We find that for both interacting and non-interacting systems, the real part of fidelity susceptibility density goes to negative infinity when the parameter approaches the EP, and verifies it is a second-order EP by $\mathrm{Re}\mathcal{F}=\frac{1}{2}$., To appear in journal

The fidelity susceptibility has been used to detect quantum phase transitions in the Hermitian quantum many-body systems over a decade, where the fidelity susceptibility density approaches $+\infty$ in the thermodynamic limits. Here the fidelity susceptibility $\chi$ is generalized to non-Hermitian quantum systems by taking the geometric structure of the Hilbert space into consideration. Instead of solving the metric equation of motion from scratch, we chose a gauge where the fidelities are composed of biorthogonal eigenstates and can be worked out algebraically or numerically when not on the exceptional point (EP). Due to the properties of the Hilbert space geometry at EP, we found that EP can be found when $\chi$ approaches $-\infty$. As examples, we investigate the simplest $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric $2\times2$ Hamiltonian with a single tuning parameter and the non-Hermitian Su-Schriffer-Heeger model., Comment: 2 figures

For noninteracting Weyl semimetals (WSMs), Fermi-arc surface states can arise when there exist gapless Weyl nodes in the bulk single-particle spectrum. However, in the presence of electronic correlations, it is not clear whether this bulk-boundary correspondence still holds or not. Recently, novel correlated phases are predicted to appear in WSMs with long-ranged interactions, in which the bulk Weyl nodes can be gapped but without destroying their topological properties. Here, we explore the fate of the Fermi-arc states under the influence of such long-ranged interactions. After mapping the system onto a one-dimensional interacting Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model with two open ends, we employ numerical exact diagonalizations to address the issue whether the Fermi-arc states will be modified. By extrapolating our data to the thermodynamic limit, we find that the zero-energy edge states of the corresponding SSH model still exist for those momenta giving the noninteracting Fermi-arc states. Moreover, this observation applies to both the single-particle and the collective edge excitations. Since the locus of these edge states constitutes the Fermi arcs, the robustness of the Fermi-arc states against long-ranged interactions is thus demonstrated. In particular, the Fermi arcs of single-particle nature can survive even when the single-particle gaps at the Weyl nodes are opened by interactions. Our results illustrate the subtlety in identifying the topological phases of interacting WSMs and show the limitation of the approaches simply by examining the nodal structure of the single-particle spectrum., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures; version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B

The spin-1 Haldane chain is an example of the symmetry-protected-topological (SPT) phase in one dimension. Experimental realization of the spin chain materials usually involves both the uniaxial-type, $D(S^z)^2$, and the rhombic-type, $E[(S^x)^2-(S^y)^2]$, single-ion anisotropies. Here, we provide a precise ground-state phase diagram for spin-1 Haldane chain with these single-ion anisotropies. Using quantum numbers, we find that the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry breaking phase can be characterized by double degeneracy in the entanglement spectrum. Topological quantum phase transitions take place on particular paths in the phase diagram, from the Haldane phase to the Large-$E_x$, Large-$E_y$, or Large-$D$ phases. The topological critical points are determined by the level spectroscopy method with a newly developed parity technique in the density matrix renormalization group [Phys. Rev. B 86, 024403 (2012)], and the Haldane-Large-$D$ critical point is obtained with an unprecedentedly precision, $(D/J)_c=0.9684713(1)$. Close to this critical point, a small rhombic single-ion anisotropy $|E|/J\ll1$ can destroy the Haldane phase and bring the system into a $y$-N\'eel phase. We propose that the compound [Ni(HF$_2$)(3-Clpy)$_4$]BF$_4$ is a candidate system to search for the $y$-N\'eel phase., Comment: Supplemental Material is included

We study the entanglement structure and the topological edge states of the ground state of the spin-1/2 XXZ model with bond alternation. We employ parity-density matrix renormalization group with periodic boundary conditions. The finite-size scaling of R\'enyi entropies $S_2$ and $S_\infty$ are used to construct the phase diagram of the system. The phase diagram displays three possible phases: Haldane type (an example of symmetry protected topological ordered phases), Classical Dimer and N\'eel phases, the latter bounded by two continuous quantum phase transitions. The entanglement and non-locality in the ground state are studied and quantified by the entanglement convertibility. We found that, at small spatial scales, the ground state is not convertible within the topological Haldane dimer phase. The phenomenology we observe can be described in terms of correlations between edge states. We found that the entanglement spectrum also exhibits a distinctive response in the topological phase: the effective rank of the reduced density matrix displays a specifically large "susceptibility" in the topological phase. These findings support the idea that although the topological order in the ground state cannot be detected by local inspection, the ground state response at local scale can tell the topological phases apart from the non-topological phases., Comment: Final version

In strongly correlated systems, numerical algorithms taking parity quantum numbers into account are used not only for accelerating computation by reducing the Hilbert space but also for particular manipulations such as the Level Spectroscopy (LS) method. By comparing energy difference between different parity quantum numbers, the LS method is a crucial technique used in identifying quantum critical points of Gaussian and Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) type quantum phase transitions. These transitions that occur in many one-dimensional systems are usually difficult to study numerically. Although the LS method is an effective strategy to locate critical points, it has been lacked an algorithm that can manage large systems with parity quantum numbers. Here a new parity Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) algorithm is discussed. The LS method is the first time performed by DMRG in the S=2 XXZ spin chain with uniaxial anisotropy. Quantum critical points of BKT and Gaussian transitions can be located well. Thus, the LS method becomes a very powerful tool for BKT and Gaussian transitions. In addition, Oshikawa's conjecture in 1992 on the presence of an intermediate phase in the present model is the first time supported by DMRG., 7 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, to be published in Phys. Rev. B