Composite Pairings in Chirally Stabilized Critical Fluids

We study a one-dimensional electron gas in a special antiferromagnetic environment made by two spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains and the one-dimensional two-channel Kondo-Heisenberg lattice away from half-filling. These models flow to an intermediate fixed point which belongs to the universality class of chirally stabilized liquids. Using a Toulouse point approach, the universal properties of the models are determined as well as the identification of the leading instabilities. It is shown that these models exhibit a non-Fermi liquid behavior with strong enhanced composite pairing correlations.Comment: 4 page

Lattice spin models for non-Abelian Chiral Spin Liquids

We suggest a class of two-dimensional lattice spin Hamiltonians describing non-Abelian SU(2) chiral spin liquids - spin-analogues of fractional non-Abelian quantum Hall states- with gapped bulk and gapless chiral edge excitations described by the SU(2)$_n$ Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten conformal field theory. The models are constructed from an array of a generalized spin-$n/2$ ladders with multi-spin exchange interaction which are coupled by isolated spins. Such models allow a controllable analytic treatment starting from the one-dimensional limit and are characterized by a bulk gap and non-Abelian SU(2)$_n$ gapless edge excitations.Comment: 7 pages, one figure, replaced by an updated versio

Quantum phase transitions in multileg spin ladders with ring exchange

Four-spin exchange interaction has been raising intriguing questions regarding the exotic phase transitions it induces in two-dimensional quantum spin systems. In this context, we investigate the effects of a cyclic four-spin exchange in the quasi-1D limit by considering a general N-leg spin ladder. We show by means of a low-energy approach that, depending on its sign, this ring exchange interaction can engender either a staggered or a uniform dimerization from the conventional phases of spin ladders. The resulting quantum phase transition is found to be described by the SU(2)_N conformal field theory. This result, as well as the fractional value of the central charge at the transition, is further confirmed by a large-scale numerical study performed by means of Exact Diagonalization and Density Matrix Renormalization Group approaches for N \le 4

Gaplessness of the Gaffnian

We study the Gaffnian trial wavefunction proposed to describe fractional quantum Hall correlations at Bose filling factor $\nu=2/3$ and Fermi filling $\nu=2/5$. A family of Hamiltonians interpolating between a hard-core interaction for which the physics is known and a projector whose ground state is the Gaffnian is studied in detail. We give evidence for the absence of a gap by using large-scale exact diagonalizations in the spherical geometry. This is in agreement with recent arguments based on the fact that this wavefunction is constructed from a non-unitary conformal field theory. By using the cylinder geometry, we discuss in detail the nature of the underlying minimal model and we show the appearance of heterotic conformal towers in the edge energy spectrum where left and right movers are generated by distinct primary operators.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure