38 research outputs found
Kibble-Zurek exponent and chiral transition of the period-4 phase of Rydberg chains
Chains of Rydberg atoms have emerged as an amazing playground to study
quantum physics in 1D. Playing with inter-atomic distances and laser detuning,
one can in particular explore the commensurate-incommensurate transition out of
charge-density waves through the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, and the possible
presence of a chiral transition with dynamical exponent . Here we address
this problem theoretically with effective blockade models where the
short-distance repulsions are replaced by a constraint of no double occupancy.
For the period-4 phase, we show there is an Ashkin-Teller transition point with
exponent surrounded by a direct chiral transition with a dynamical
exponent and a Kibble-Zurek exponent . For Rydberg atoms with
a van der Waals potential, we suggest that the experimental value is
due to a chiral transition with and surrounding
an Ashkin-Teller transition close to the 4-state Potts universality.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures + supplemental materia
Controlling the topological sector of magnetic solitons in exfoliated CrNbS crystals
We investigate manifestations of topological order in monoaxial helimagnet
CrNbS by performing transport measurements on ultra-thin crystals.
Upon sweeping the magnetic field perpendicularly to the helical axis, crystals
thicker than one helix pitch (48 nm) but much thinner than the magnetic domain
size (1 m) are found to exhibit sharp and hysteretic resistance
jumps. We show that these phenomena originate from transitions between
topological sectors with different number of magnetic solitons. This is
confirmed by measurements on crystals thinner than 48 nm --in which the
topological sector cannot change-- that do not exhibit any jump or hysteresis.
Our results show the ability to deterministically control the topological
sector of finite-size CrNbS and to detect inter-sector transitions
by transport measurements.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Ground-State Properties of the Hydrogen Chain: Dimerization, Insulator-to-Metal Transition, and Magnetic Phases
Accurate and predictive computations of the quantum-mechanical behavior of many interacting electrons in realistic atomic environments are critical for the theoretical design of materials with desired properties, and they require solving the grand-challenge problem of the many-electron Schr\uf6dinger equation. An infinite chain of equispaced hydrogen atoms is perhaps the simplest realistic model for a bulk material, embodying several central themes of modern condensed-matter physics and chemistry while retaining a connection to the paradigmatic Hubbard model. Here, we report a combined application of cutting-edge computational methods to determine the properties of the hydrogen chain in its quantum-mechanical ground state. Varying the separation between the nuclei leads to a rich phase diagram, including a Mott phase with quasi-long-range antiferromagnetic order, electron density dimerization with power-law correlations, an insulator-to-metal transition, and an intricate set of intertwined magnetic orders