9 research outputs found
Quantum phase transition in the Frenkel-Kontorova chain: from pinned instanton glass to sliding phonon gas
We study analytically and numerically the one-dimensional quantum
Frenkel-Kontorova chain in the regime when the classical model is located in
the pinned phase characterized by the gaped phonon excitations and devil's
staircase. By extensive quantum Monte Carlo simulations we show that for the
effective Planck constant smaller than the critical value the
quantum chain is in the pinned instanton glass phase. In this phase the
elementary excitations have two branches: phonons, separated from zero energy
by a finite gap, and instantons which have an exponentially small excitation
energy. At the quantum phase transition takes place and for
the pinned instanton glass is transformed into the sliding
phonon gas with gapless phonon excitations. This transition is accompanied by
the divergence of the spatial correlation length and appearence of sliding
modes at .Comment: revtex 16 pages, 18 figure