Impurity spin textures across conventional and deconfined quantum critical points of two-dimensional antiferromagnets

We describe the spin distribution in the vicinity of a non-magnetic impurity in a two-dimensional antiferromagnet undergoing a transition from a magnetically ordered Neel state to a paramagnet with a spin gap. The quantum critical ground state in a finite system has total spin S=1/2 (if the system without the impurity had an even number of S=1/2 spins), and recent numerical studies in a double layer antiferromagnet (K. H.Hoglund et al., cond-mat/0611418) have shown that the spin has a universal spatial form delocalized across the entire sample. We present the field theory describing the uniform and staggered magnetizations in this spin texture for two classes of antiferromagnets: (i) the transition from a Neel state to a paramagnet with local spin singlets, in models with an even number of S=1/2 spins per unit cell, which are described by a O(3) Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson field theory; and (ii) the transition from a Neel state to a valence bond solid, in antiferromagnets with a single S=1/2 spin per unit cell, which are described by a deconfined field theory of spinons.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figure

Anomalous Axion Interactions and Topological Currents in Dense Matter

Recently an effective Lagrangian for the interactions of photons, Nambu-Goldstone bosons and superfluid phonons in dense quark matter has been derived using anomaly matching arguments. In this paper we illuminate the nature of certain anomalous terms in this Lagrangian by an explicit microscopic calculation. We also generalize the corresponding construction to introduce the axion field. We derive an anomalous axion effective Lagrangian describing the interactions of axions with photons and superfluid phonons in the dense matter background. This effective Lagrangian, among other things, implies that an axion current will be induced in the presence of magnetic field. We speculate that this current may be responsible for the explanation of neutron star kicks.Comment: 10 page

Antiferromagnetism in metals: from the cuprate superconductors to the heavy fermion materials

The critical theory of the onset of antiferromagnetism in metals, with concomitant Fermi surface reconstruction, has recently been shown to be strongly coupled in two spatial dimensions. The onset of unconventional superconductivity near this critical point is reviewed: it involves a subtle interplay between the breakdown of fermionic quasiparticle excitations on the Fermi surface, and the strong pairing glue provided by the antiferromagnetic fluctuations. The net result is a logarithm-squared enhancement of the pairing vertex for generic Fermi surfaces, with a universal dimensionless co-efficient independent of the strength of interactions, which is expected to lead to superconductivity at the scale of the Fermi energy. We also discuss the possibility that the antiferromagnetic critical point can be replaced by an intermediate `fractionalized Fermi liquid' phase, in which there is Fermi surface reconstruction but no long-range antiferromagnetic order. We discuss the relevance of this phase to the underdoped cuprates and the heavy-fermion materials.Comment: Talk at SCES 2011; 19 pages, 12 figures; (v2) corrected typo

Sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo of the onset of antiferromagnetism in metals

The quantum theory of antiferromagnetism in metals is necessary for our understanding of numerous intermetallic compounds of widespread interest. In these systems, a quantum critical point emerges as external parameters (such as chemical doping) are varied. Because of the strong coupling nature of this critical point, and the "sign problem" plaguing numerical quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods, its theoretical understanding is still incomplete. Here, we show that the universal low-energy theory for the onset of antiferromagnetism in a metal can be realized in lattice models, which are free from the sign problem and hence can be simulated efficiently with QMC. Our simulations show Fermi surface reconstruction and unconventional spin-singlet superconductivity across the critical point.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures; (v2) revised presentatio

Topological Objects in Two-component Bose-Einstein Condensates

We study the topological objects in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. We compare two competing theories of two-component Bose-Einstein condensate, the popular Gross-Pitaevskii theory and the recently proposed gauge theory of two-component Bose-Einstein condensate which has an induced vorticity interaction. We show that two theories produce very similar topological objects, in spite of the obvious differences in dynamics. Furthermore we show that the gauge theory of two-component Bose-Einstein condensate, with the U(1) gauge symmetry, is remarkably similar to the Skyrme theory. Just like the Skyrme theory the theory admits the non-Abelian vortex, the helical vortex, and the vorticity knot. We construct the lightest knot solution in two-component Bose-Einstein condensate numerically, and discuss how the knot can be constructed in the spin-1/2 condensate of $^{87}{\rm Rb}$ atoms.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, Phys. Rev. A in pres

Hidden Fermi surfaces in compressible states of gauge-gravity duality

General scaling arguments, and the behavior of the thermal entropy density, are shown to lead to an infrared metric holographically representing a compressible state with hidden Fermi surfaces. This metric is characterized by a general dynamic critical exponent, z, and a specific hyperscaling violation exponent, \theta. The same metric exhibits a logarithmic violation of the area law of entanglement entropy, as shown recently by Ogawa et al. (arXiv:1111.1023). We study the dependence of the entanglement entropy on the shape of the entangling region(s), on the total charge density, on temperature, and on the presence of additional visible Fermi surfaces of gauge-neutral fermions; for the latter computations, we realize the needed metric in an Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory. All our results support the proposal that the holographic theory describes a metallic state with hidden Fermi surfaces of fermions carrying gauge charges of deconfined gauge fields.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures; (v2) added refs, corrected typos, and modified figure; (v3) added table summarizing result

Stellar spectroscopy: Fermions and holographic Lifshitz criticality

Electron stars are fluids of charged fermions in Anti-de Sitter spacetime. They are candidate holographic duals for gauge theories at finite charge density and exhibit emergent Lifshitz scaling at low energies. This paper computes in detail the field theory Green's function G^R(w,k) of the gauge-invariant fermionic operators making up the star. The Green's function contains a large number of closely spaced Fermi surfaces, the volumes of which add up to the total charge density in accordance with the Luttinger count. Excitations of the Fermi surfaces are long lived for w <~ k^z. Beyond w ~ k^z the fermionic quasiparticles dissipate strongly into the critical Lifshitz sector. Fermions near this critical dispersion relation give interesting contributions to the optical conductivity.Comment: 38 pages + appendices. 9 figure

Entanglement spectra of critical and near-critical systems in one dimension

The entanglement spectrum of a pure state of a bipartite system is the full set of eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix obtained from tracing out one part. Such spectra are known in several cases to contain important information beyond that in the entanglement entropy. This paper studies the entanglement spectrum for a variety of critical and near-critical quantum lattice models in one dimension, chiefly by the iTEBD numerical method, which enables both integrable and non-integrable models to be studied. We find that the distribution of eigenvalues in the entanglement spectra agrees with an approximate result derived by Calabrese and Lefevre to an accuracy of a few percent for all models studied. This result applies whether the correlation length is intrinsic or generated by the finite matrix size accessible in iTEBD. For the transverse Ising model, the known exact results for the entanglement spectrum are used to confirm the validity of the iTEBD approach. For more general models, no exact result is available but the iTEBD results directly test the hypothesis that all moments of the reduced density matrix are determined by a single parameter.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Quantum Criticality

This is a review of the basic theoretical ideas of quantum criticality, and of their connection to numerous experiments on correlated electron compounds. A shortened, modified, and edited version appeared in Physics Today. This arxiv version has additional citations to the literature.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures; (v2) added ref