Quantum critical phase with infinite projected entangled paired states

A classification of SU(2)-invariant Projected Entangled Paired States (PEPS) on the square lattice, based on a unique site tensor, has been recently introduced by Mambrini et al.~\cite{Mambrini2016}. It is not clear whether such SU(2)-invariant PEPS can either i) exhibit long-range magnetic order (like in the N\'eel phase) or ii) describe a genuine quantum critical point (QCP) or quantum critical phase (QCPh) separating two ordered phases. Here, we identify a specific family of SU(2)-invariant PEPS of the classification which provides excellent variational energies for the $J_1-J_2$ frustrated Heisenberg model, especially at $J_2=0.5$, corresponding to the approximate location of the QCP or QCPh separating the N\'eel phase from a dimerized phase. The PEPS are build from virtual states belonging to the $\frac{1}{2}^{\otimes N} \oplus 0$ SU(2)-representation, i.e. with $N$ "colors" of virtual \hbox{spin-$\frac{1}{2}$}. Using a full update infinite-PEPS approach directly in the thermodynamic limit, based on the Corner Transfer Matrix renormalization algorithm supplemented by a Conjugate Gradient optimization scheme, we provide evidence of i) the absence of magnetic order and of ii) diverging correlation lengths (i.e. showing no sign of saturation with increasing environment dimension) in both the singlet and triplet channels, when the number of colors $N\ge 3$. We argue that such a PEPS gives a qualitative description of the QCP or QCPh of the $J_1-J_2$ model.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, supplementary material as a zip file in source package, v4: minor adds to text + Table I and Appendix D (with 1 figure) adde

Systematic construction of spin liquids on the square lattice from tensor networks with SU(2) symmetry

We elaborate a simple classification scheme of all rank-5 SU(2)-spin rotational symmetric tensors according to i) the on-site physical spin-$S$, (ii) the local Hilbert space $V^{\otimes 4}$ of the four virtual (composite) spins attached to each site and (iii) the irreducible representations of the $C_{4v}$ point group of the square lattice. We apply our scheme to draw a complete list of all SU(2)-symmetric translationally and rotationally-invariant Projected Entangled Pair States (PEPS) with bond dimension $D\leqslant 6$. All known SU(2)-symmetric PEPS on the square lattice are recovered and simple generalizations are provided in some cases. More generally, to each of our symmetry class can be associated a $({\cal D}-1)$-dimensional manifold of spin liquids (potentially) preserving lattice symmetries and defined in terms of ${\cal D}$ independent tensors of a given bond dimension $D$. In addition, generic (low-dimensional) families of PEPS explicitly breaking either (i) particular point-group lattice symmetries (lattice nematics) or (ii) time reversal symmetry (chiral spin liquids) or (iii) SU(2)-spin rotation symmetry down to $U(1)$ (spin nematics or N\'eel antiferromagnets) can also be constructed. We apply this framework to search for new topological chiral spin liquids characterized by well-defined chiral edge modes, as revealed by their entanglement spectrum. In particular, we show how the symmetrization of a double-layer PEPS leads to a chiral topological state with a gapless edge described by a SU(2)$_2$ Wess-Zumino-Witten model.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures, 3 Appendices, revised version. Supplementary material with classification up to D=6 in the source file, and exact tensor expressions available as a Supplementary Material in the PRB published articl

Effective Quantum Dimer Model for the Kagome Heisenberg Antiferromagnet: Nearby Quantum Critical Point and Hidden Degeneracy

The low-energy singlet dynamics of the Quantum Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on the Kagome lattice is described by a quantitative Quantum Dimer Model. Using advanced numerical tools, the latter is shown to exhibit Valence Bond Crystal order with a large 36-site unit cell and hidden degeneracy between even and odd parities. Evidences are given that this groundstate lies in the vicinity of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ dimer liquid region separated by a Quantum Critical Point. Implications regarding numerical analysis and experiments are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, deep revision of manuscript including new data, revised figures, new Fig. 2(c) and new reference

Generalized Hardcore Dimer Models approach to low-energy Heisenberg frustrated antiferromagnets: general properties and application to the kagome antiferromagnet

We propose a general non-perturbative scheme that quantitatively maps the low-energy sector of spin-1/2 frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnets to effective Generalized Quantum Dimer Models. We develop the formal lattice independent frame and establish some important results on (i) the locality of the generated Hamiltonians (ii) how full resummations can be performed in this renormalization scheme. The method is then applied to the much debated kagome antiferromagnet for which a fully resummed effective Hamiltonian - shown to capture the essential properties and provide deep insights on the microscopic model [D. Poilblanc, M. Mambrini and D. Schwandt, arXiv:0912.0724] - is derived.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, EPAPS inlined, manuscript revised, corrected minor typos (notably figure 2)

Engineering SU(2) invariant spin models to mimic quantum dimer physics on the square lattice

We consider the spin-1/2 hamiltonians proposed by Cano and Fendley [J. Cano and P. Fendley, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 067205 (2010)] which were built to promote the well-known Rokshar-Kivelson (RK) point of quantum dimer models to spin-1/2 wavefunctions. We first show that these models, besides the exact degeneracy of RK point, support gapless spinless excitations as well as a spin gap in the thermodynamic limit, signatures of an unusual spin liquid. We then extend the original construction to create a continuous family of SU(2) invariant spin models that reproduces the phase diagram of the quantum dimer model, and in particular show explicit evidences for existence of columnar and staggered phases. The original models thus appear as multicritical points in an extended phase diagram. Our results are based on the use of a combination of numerical exact simulations and analytical mapping to effective generalized quantum dimer models.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Hardcore dimer aspects of the SU(2) Singlet wavefunction

We demonstrate that any SU(2) singlet wavefunction can be characterized by a set of Valence Bond occupation numbers, testing dimer presence/vacancy on pairs of sites. This genuine quantum property of singlet states (i) shows that SU(2) singlets share some of the intuitive features of hardcore quantum dimers, (ii) gives rigorous basis for interesting albeit apparently ill-defined quantities introduced recently in the context of Quantum Magnetism or Quantum Information to measure respectively spin correlations and bipartite entanglement and, (iii) suggests a scheme to define consistently a wide family of quantities analogous to high order spin correlation. This result is demonstrated in the framework of a general functional mapping between the Hilbert space generated by an arbitrary number of spins and a set of algebraic functions found to be an efficient analytical tool for the description of quantum spins or qubits systems.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Entanglement of quantum spin systems: a valence-bond approach

In order to quantify entanglement between two parts of a quantum system, one of the most used estimator is the Von Neumann entropy. Unfortunately, computing this quantity for large interacting quantum spin systems remains an open issue. Faced with this difficulty, other estimators have been proposed to measure entanglement efficiently, mostly by using simulations in the valence-bond basis. We review the different proposals and try to clarify the connections between their geometric definitions and proper observables. We illustrate this analysis with new results of entanglement properties of spin 1 chains.Comment: Proceedings of StatPhys 24 satellite conference in Hanoi; submitted for a special issue of Modern Physics Letters

Valence bond entanglement entropy of frustrated spin chains

We extend the definition of the recently introduced valence bond entanglement entropy to arbitrary SU(2) wave functions of S=1/2 spin systems. Thanks to a reformulation of this entanglement measure in terms of a projection, we are able to compute it with various numerical techniques for frustrated spin models. We provide extensive numerical data for the one-dimensional J1-J2 spin chain where we are able to locate the quantum phase transition by using the scaling of this entropy with the block size. We also systematically compare with the scaling of the von Neumann entanglement entropy. We finally underline that the valence-bond entropy definition does depend on the choice of bipartition so that, for frustrated models, a "good" bipartition should be chosen, for instance according to the Marshall sign.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures; v2: published versio

Numerical Contractor Renormalization Method for Quantum Spin Models

We demonstrate the utility of the numerical Contractor Renormalization (CORE) method for quantum spin systems by studying one and two dimensional model cases. Our approach consists of two steps: (i) building an effective Hamiltonian with longer ranged interactions using the CORE algorithm and (ii) solving this new model numerically on finite clusters by exact diagonalization. This approach, giving complementary information to analytical treatments of the CORE Hamiltonian, can be used as a semi-quantitative numerical method. For ladder type geometries, we explicitely check the accuracy of the effective models by increasing the range of the effective interactions. In two dimensions we consider the plaquette lattice and the kagome lattice as non-trivial test cases for the numerical CORE method. On the plaquette lattice we have an excellent description of the system in both the disordered and the ordered phases, thereby showing that the CORE method is able to resolve quantum phase transitions. On the kagome lattice we find that the previously proposed twofold degenerate S=1/2 basis can account for a large number of phenomena of the spin 1/2 kagome system. For spin 3/2 however this basis does not seem to be sufficient anymore. In general we are able to simulate system sizes which correspond to an 8x8 lattice for the plaquette lattice or a 48-site kagome lattice, which are beyond the possibilities of a standard exact diagonalization approach.Comment: 15 page

Finite-temperature symmetric tensor network for spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets on the square lattice

Within the tensor network framework, the (positive) thermal density operator can be approximated by a double layer of infinite Projected Entangled Pair Operator (iPEPO) coupled via ancilla degrees of freedom. To investigate the thermal properties of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the square lattice, we introduce a family of fully spin-$SU(2)$ and lattice-$C_{4v}$ symmetric on-site tensors (of bond dimensions $D=4$ or $D=7$) and a plaquette-based Trotter-Suzuki decomposition of the imaginary-time evolution operator. A variational optimization is performed on the plaquettes, using a full (for $D=4$) or simple (for $D=7$) environment obtained from the single-site Corner Transfer Matrix Renormalization Group fixed point. The method is benchmarked by a comparison to quantum Monte Carlo in the thermodynamic limit. Although the iPEPO spin correlation length starts to deviate from the exact exponential growth for inverse-temperature $\beta \gtrsim 2$, the behavior of various observables turns out to be quite accurate once plotted w.r.t the inverse correlation length. We also find that a direct $T=0$ variational energy optimization provides results in full agreement with the $\beta\rightarrow\infty$ limit of finite-temperature data, hence validating the imaginary-time evolution procedure. Extension of the method to frustrated models is described and preliminary results are shown.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure