Persistence of phase boundaries between a topological and trivial Z2 insulator

When time reversal symmetry is present there is a sharp distinction between topological and trivial band insulators which ensures that, as parameters are varied, these phases are separated by a phase transition at which the bulk gap closes. Surprisingly we find that even in the absence of time reversal symmetry, gapless regions originating from the phase boundaries persist. Moreover the critical line generically opens up to enclose Chern insulating phases that are thin but of finite extent in the phase diagram. We explain the topological origin of this effect in terms of quantized charge pumping, showing in particular that it is robust to the effect of disorder and interactions

Solvable model for a dynamical quantum phase transition from fast to slow scrambling

We propose an extension of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model that exhibits a quantum phase transition from the previously identified non-Fermi liquid fixed point to a Fermi liquid like state, while still allowing an exact solution in a suitable large $N$ limit. The extended model involves coupling the interacting $N$-site SYK model to a new set of $pN$ peripheral sites with only quadratic hopping terms between them. The conformal fixed point of the SYK model remains a stable low energy phase below a critical ratio of peripheral sites $p<p_c(n)$ that depends on the fermion filling $n$. The scrambling dynamics throughout the non-Fermi liquid phase is characterized by a universal Lyapunov exponent $\lambda_L\to 2\pi T$ in the low temperature limit, however the temperature scale marking the crossover to the conformal regime vanishes continuously at the critical point $p_c$. The residual entropy at $T\to 0$, non zero in the NFL, also vanishes continuously at the critical point. For $p>p_c$ the quadratic sites effectively screen the SYK dynamics, leading to a quadratic fixed point in the low temperature and frequency limit. The interactions have a perturbative effect in this regime leading to scrambling with Lyapunov exponent $\lambda_L\propto T^2$.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, added the calculation for Lyapunov exponent away from the particle-hole symmetric situatio

Strong disorder renormalization group primer and the superfluid-insulator transition

This brief review introduces the method and application of real-space renormalization group to strongly disordered quantum systems. The focus is on recent applications of the strong disorder renormalization group to the physics of disordered-boson systems and the superfluid-insulator transition in one dimension. The fact that there is also a well understood weak disorder theory for this problem allows to illustrate what aspects of the physics change at strong disorder. In particular the strong disorder RG analysis suggests that the transitions at weak disorder and strong disorder belong to distinct universality classes, but this question remains under debate and is not fully resolved to date. Further applications of the strong disorder renormalization group to higher-dimensional Bose systems and to bosons coupled to dissipation are also briefly reviewed

The superfluid insulator transition of ultra-cold bosons in disordered 1d traps

We derive an effective quantum Josephson array model for a weakly interacting one-dimensional condensate that is fragmented into weakly coupled puddles by a disorder potential. The distribution of coupling constants, obtained from first principles, indicate that weakly interacting bosons in a disorder potential undergo a superfluid insulator transition controlled by a strong randomness fixed point [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 150402 (2004)]. We compute renormalization group flows for concrete realizations of the disorder potential to facilitate finite size scaling of experimental results and allow comparison to the behavior dictated by the strong randomness fixed point. The phase diagram of the system is obtained with corrections to mean-field results.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, expanded version including a calculation of a global phase diagra