Cargando…

Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions

The experimental discovery of the fractional Hall conductivity in two-dimensional electron gases revealed new types of quantum particles, called anyons, which are beyond bosons and fermions as they possess fractionalized exchange statistics. These anyons are usually studied deep inside an insulating...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wang, Yan-Cheng, Cheng, Meng, Witczak-Krempa, William, Meng, Zi Yang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8429463/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34504099
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25707-z
_version_ 1783750536326021120
author Wang, Yan-Cheng
Cheng, Meng
Witczak-Krempa, William
Meng, Zi Yang
author_facet Wang, Yan-Cheng
Cheng, Meng
Witczak-Krempa, William
Meng, Zi Yang
author_sort Wang, Yan-Cheng
collection PubMed
description The experimental discovery of the fractional Hall conductivity in two-dimensional electron gases revealed new types of quantum particles, called anyons, which are beyond bosons and fermions as they possess fractionalized exchange statistics. These anyons are usually studied deep inside an insulating topological phase. It is natural to ask whether such fractionalization can be detected more broadly, say near a phase transition from a conventional to a topological phase. To answer this question, we study a strongly correlated quantum phase transition between a topological state, called a [Formula: see text] quantum spin liquid, and a conventional superfluid using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that the universal conductivity at the quantum critical point becomes a simple fraction of its value at the conventional insulator-to-superfluid transition. Moreover, a dynamically self-dual optical conductivity emerges at low temperatures above the transition point, indicating the presence of the elusive vison particles. Our study opens the door for the experimental detection of anyons in a broader regime, and has ramifications in the study of quantum materials, programmable quantum simulators, and ultra-cold atomic gases. In the latter case, we discuss the feasibility of measurements in optical lattices using current techniques.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8429463
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-84294632021-09-22 Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions Wang, Yan-Cheng Cheng, Meng Witczak-Krempa, William Meng, Zi Yang Nat Commun Article The experimental discovery of the fractional Hall conductivity in two-dimensional electron gases revealed new types of quantum particles, called anyons, which are beyond bosons and fermions as they possess fractionalized exchange statistics. These anyons are usually studied deep inside an insulating topological phase. It is natural to ask whether such fractionalization can be detected more broadly, say near a phase transition from a conventional to a topological phase. To answer this question, we study a strongly correlated quantum phase transition between a topological state, called a [Formula: see text] quantum spin liquid, and a conventional superfluid using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that the universal conductivity at the quantum critical point becomes a simple fraction of its value at the conventional insulator-to-superfluid transition. Moreover, a dynamically self-dual optical conductivity emerges at low temperatures above the transition point, indicating the presence of the elusive vison particles. Our study opens the door for the experimental detection of anyons in a broader regime, and has ramifications in the study of quantum materials, programmable quantum simulators, and ultra-cold atomic gases. In the latter case, we discuss the feasibility of measurements in optical lattices using current techniques. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8429463/ /pubmed/34504099 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25707-z Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Wang, Yan-Cheng
Cheng, Meng
Witczak-Krempa, William
Meng, Zi Yang
Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
title Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
title_full Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
title_fullStr Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
title_full_unstemmed Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
title_short Fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
title_sort fractionalized conductivity and emergent self-duality near topological phase transitions
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8429463/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34504099
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25707-z
work_keys_str_mv AT wangyancheng fractionalizedconductivityandemergentselfdualityneartopologicalphasetransitions
AT chengmeng fractionalizedconductivityandemergentselfdualityneartopologicalphasetransitions
AT witczakkrempawilliam fractionalizedconductivityandemergentselfdualityneartopologicalphasetransitions
AT mengziyang fractionalizedconductivityandemergentselfdualityneartopologicalphasetransitions