Quantum Criticality of Antiferromagnetism and Superconductivity with Relativity

Hanqing Liu, Emilie Huffman, Shailesh Chandrasekharan, Ribhu K. Kaul

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study a quantum phase transition from a massless to massive Dirac fermion phase in a new two-dimensional bipartite lattice model of electrons that is amenable to sign-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Importantly, interactions in our model are not only invariant under SU(2) symmetries of spin and charge like the Hubbard model, but they also preserve an Ising-like electron spin-charge flip symmetry. From unbiased fermion bag Monte Carlo simulations with up to 2304 sites, we show that the massive fermion phase spontaneously breaks this Ising symmetry, picking either antiferromagnetism or superconductivity, and that the transition at which both orders are simultaneously quantum critical belongs to a new "chiral spin-charge symmetric"universality class. We explain our observations using effective potential and renormalization group calculations within the framework of a continuum field theory.

Original languageEnglish
Article number117202
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume128
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 18 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Physical Society.

Funding

R. K. K. acknowledges NSF DMR-2026947, the Aspen Center for Physics (NSF Grant No. PHY-1607611) and G. Murthy for discussions. S. C. and H. L. are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Nuclear Physics program under Award No. DE-FG02-05ER41368. Research of E. H. at the Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. The authors thank F. Assaad, I. Herbut, L. Janssen, and M. Scherer for comments on the Letter. This work used computational resources provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) , which is supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. ACI-1548562.

FundersFunder number
Ministry of Colleges and Universities
National Science Foundation (NSF)DMR-2026947, ACI-1548562
Michigan State University-U.S. Department of Energy (MSU-DOE) Plant Research Laboratory
Office of Science ProgramsDE-FG02-05ER41368
Aspen Center for PhysicsPHY-1607611
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
Canada Excellence Research Chairs, Government of Canada

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Physics and Astronomy

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