Christopher Varney

Kaleidoscope of exotic quantum phases in a frustrated XY model

The existence of quantum spin liquids was first conjectured by Pomeranchuk some 70 years ago, who argued that frustration in simple antiferromagnetic theories could result in a Fermi-liquid-like state for spinon excitations. Here we show that a simple quantum spin model on a honeycomb lattice hosts the long sought for Bose metal with a clearly identifiable Bose surface. The complete phase diagram of the model is determined via exact diagonalization and is shown to include four distinct phases separated by three quantum phase transitions.

Interaction effects and quantum phase transitions in topological insulators

We study strong correlation effects in topological insulators via the Lanczos algorithm, which we utilize to calculate the exact many-particle ground-state wave function and its topological properties. We analyze the simple, noninteracting Haldane model on a honeycomb lattice with known topological properties and demonstrate that these properties are already evident in small clusters. Next, we consider interacting fermions by introducing repulsive nearest-neighbor interactions. A first-order quantum phase transition was discovered at finite interaction strength between the topological band insulator and a topologically trivial Mott insulating phase by use of the fidelity metric and the charge-density-wave structure factor. We construct the phase diagram at T=0 as a function of the interaction strength and the complex phase for the next-nearest-neighbor hoppings. Finally, we consider the Haldane model with interacting hard-core bosons, where no evidence for a topological phase is observed. An important general conclusion of our work is that despite the intrinsic nonlocality of topological phases their key topological properties manifest themselves already in small systems and therefore can be studied numerically via exact diagonalization and observed experimentally, e.g., with trapped ions and cold atoms in optical lattices.

Magnetism and pairing of two-dimensional trapped fermions.

The emergence of local phases in a trapped two-component Fermi gas in an optical lattice is studied using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We treat temperatures that are comparable to or lower than those presently achievable in experiments and large enough systems that both magnetic and paired phases can be detected by inspection of the behavior of suitable short-range correlations. We use the latter to suggest the interaction strength and temperature range at which experimental observation of incipient magnetism and d-wave pairing are more likely and evaluate the relation between entropy and temperature in two-dimensional confined fermionic systems.

Bold Diagrammatic Monte Carlo Method Applied to Fermionized Frustrated Spins

We demonstrate, by considering the triangular lattice spin-1/2 Heisenberg model, that Monte Carlo sampling of skeleton Feynman diagrams within the fermionization framework offers a universal first-principles tool for strongly correlated lattice quantum systems. We observe the fermionic sign blessing--cancellation of higher order diagrams leading to a finite convergence radius of the series. We calculate the magnetic susceptibility of the triangular-lattice quantum antiferromagnet in the correlated paramagnet regime and reveal a surprisingly accurate microscopic correspondence with its classical counterpart at all accessible temperatures. The extrapolation of the observed relation to zero temperature suggests the absence of the magnetic order in the ground state. We critically examine the implications of this unusual scenario.

Hierarchical structure formation in layered superconducting systems with multi-scale inter-vortex interactions

We demonstrate the formation of hierarchical structures in two-dimensional systems with multiple length scales in the inter-particle interaction. These include states such as clusters of clusters, concentric rings, clusters inside a ring, and stripes in a cluster. We propose to realize such systems in vortex matter (where a vortex is mapped onto a particle with multi-scale interactions) in layered superconducting systems with varying inter-layer thicknesses and different layer materials.

Topological phase transitions for interacting finite systems

In this paper, we investigate signatures of topological phase transitions in interacting systems. We show that the key signature is the existence of a topologically protected level crossing, which is robust and sharply defines the topological transition, even in finite-size systems. Spatial symmetries are argued to play a fundamental role in the selection of the boundary conditions to be used to locate topological transitions in finite systems. We discuss the theoretical implications of this result, and utilize exact diagonalization to demonstrate its manifestations in the Haldane-Fermi-Hubbard model. Our findings provide an efficient way to detect topological transitions in experiments and in numerical calculations that cannot access the ground-state wave function.

Bold Diagrammatic Monte Carlo technique for frustrated spin systems

Using fermionic representation of spin degrees of freedom within the Popov-Fedotov approach, we develop an algorithm for Monte Carlo sampling of skeleton Feynman diagrams for Heisenberg-type models. Our scheme works without modifications for any dimension of space, lattice geometry, and interaction range, i.e., it is suitable for dealing with frustrated magnetic systems at finite temperature. As a practical application, we compute uniform magnetic susceptibility of the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice and compare our results with the best available high-temperature expansions. We also report results for the momentum dependence of the static magnetic susceptibility throughout the Brillouin zone.

Quantum Monte Carlo study of the visibility of one-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures

It has been widely suggested that the strong correlations responsible for magnetism, superconductivity, and the metalinsulator transition in the solid state can be studied via ultracold optically trapped atoms. Indeed, this idea has been successfully realized in the context of both bosonic and fermionic atoms. In the former case, the transition between condensed superfluid and insulating phases was demonstrated through the evolution of the interference pattern after the release and expansion of the gas 1. Initial studies focused on the height 1 and width 2 of the central interference peak, with later work looking at the visibility V, which measures the difference between the maxima and minima of the momentum distribution function Sk3‐5. Interesting “kinks” are observed in V which are associated with the re

Honeycomb, square, and kagome vortex lattices in superconducting systems with multiscale intervortex interactions

The recent proposal of Romero-Isart et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 145304 (2013)] to utilize the vortex lattice phases of superconducting materials to prepare a lattice for ultracold-atom-based quantum emulators raises the need to create and control vortex lattices of different symmetries. Here we propose a mechanism by which honeycomb, hexagonal, square, and kagome vortex lattices could be created in superconducting systems with multiscale intervortex interactions. Multiple scales of the intervortex interaction can be created and controlled in layered systems made of different superconducting materials or with differing interlayer spacings.

Quantum phases of hard-core bosons in a frustrated honeycomb lattice

Using exact diagonalization calculations, we investigate the ground- state phase diagram of the hard-core Bose-Hubbard-Haldane model on the honeycomb lattice. This allows us to probe the stability of the Bose-metal phase proposed in Varney et al (2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 077201), against various changes in the originally studied Hamiltonian.