Quantum phase transitions

Thomas Vojta
Department of Physics, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Phase transitions and critical points Quantum phase transitions: How important is quantum mechanics? Quantum phase transitions in metallic systems

Chennai, October 13, 2009

Acknowledgements
at Missouri S&T Chetan Kotabage Man Young Lee Adam Farquhar Jason Mast former group members Mark Dickison (Boston U.) Bernard Fendler (Florida State U.) Jose Hoyos (Florida State U.) Shellie Huether (Missouri S&T) Ryan Kinney (US Navy) Rastko Sknepnek (Iowa State U.) external collaboration Dietrich Belitz (U. of Oregon) Manuel Brando (MPI Dresden) Adrian DelMaestro (UBC) Philipp Gegenwart (U. of Goettingen) Ted Kirkpatrick (U. of Maryland) Wouter Montfrooij (U. of Missouri) Rajesh Narayanan (IIT Madras) Bernd Rosenow (MPI Stuttgart) Jrg Schmalian (Iowa State U.) o Matthias Vojta (U. of Cologne)

Funding: National Science Foundation Research Corporation University of Missouri Research Board

Phase diagram of water

10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

liquid solid

critical point Tc=647 K Pc=2.2*108 Pa

tripel point Tt=273 K Pt=6000 Pa

200 300 400 500

gaseous

100

600

700

T(K)

Phase transition: singularity in thermodynamic quantities as functions of external parameters

Phase transitions: 1st order vs. continuous

1st order phase transition: phase coexistence, latent heat, short range spatial and time correlations Continuous transition (critical point): no phase coexistence, no latent heat, innite range correlations of uctuations
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
9

liquid solid

critical point Tc=647 K Pc=2.2*108 Pa

tripel point Tt=273 K Pt=6000 Pa

200 300 400 500

gaseous

100

600

700

T(K)

Critical behavior at continuous transitions: diverging correlation length |T Tc| and time z |T Tc|z power-laws in thermodynamic observables: |T Tc| , |T Tc| Manifestation: critical opalescence (Andrews 1869) Universality: critical exponents are independent of microscopic details

Critical opalescence
Binary liquid system: e.g. hexane and methanol T > Tc 36C: uids are miscible T < Tc: uids separate into two phases T Tc: length scale of uctuations grows When reaches the scale of a fraction of a micron (wavelength of light): strong light scattering uid appears milky 39C 46C

Pictures taken from http://www.physicsofmatter.com

18C

 Phase transitions and critical points Quantum phase transitions: How important is quantum mechanics? Quantum phase transitions in metallic systems

How important is quantum mechanics close to a critical point?

Two types of uctuations: thermal uctuations, energy scale kB T quantum uctuations, energy scale c Quantum eects are unimportant if c kB T .

Critical slowing down: c 1/ |T Tc|z 0 at the critical point For any nonzero temperature, quantum uctuations do not play a role close to the critical point Quantum uctuations do play a role a zero temperature

Thermal continuous phase transitions can be explained entirely in terms of classical physics

Quantum phase transitions

occur at zero temperature as function of pressure, magnetic eld, chemical composition, ... driven by quantum rather than thermal uctuations
2.0

paramagnet
1.5

LiHoF4

Non-Fermi liquid

1.0

0.5

ferromagnet

Pseudo gap AFM SC

0.2

Fermi liquid

0.0 0

20

40

Bc

60

80

transversal magnetic field (kOe)

Doping level (holes per CuO2)

Phase diagrams of LiHoF4 and a typical high-Tc superconductor such as YBa2Cu3O6+x

If the critical behavior is classical at any nonzero temperature, why are quantum phase transitions more than an academic problem?

Phase diagrams close to quantum phase transition

Quantum critical point controls nonzero-temperature behavior in its vicinity: Path (a): crossover between classical and quantum critical behavior Path (b): temperature scaling of quantum critical point
T
T thermally disordered quantum critical

kT ~ $%c (b)

classical critical ordered 0 Bc QCP B

(a)

quantum disordered

quantum critical

(b)

kT -STc

thermally disordered 0 order at T=0

quantum disordered

(a)
Bc QCP B

Quantum to classical mapping

Classical partition function: statics and dynamics decouple Z = dpdq eH(p,q) = dp eT (p) dq eU (q) dq eU (q) Quantum partition function: statics and dynamics are coupled Z = Tre H = limN (e T /N e U /N )N = D[q( )] eS[q( )] imaginary time acts as additional dimension, at zero temperature ( = ) the extension in this direction becomes innite Quantum phase transition in d dimensions is equivalent to classical transition in (d + 1) dimensions Caveats: mapping holds for thermodynamics only resulting classical system is anisotropic if space and time enter asymmetrically if quantum action is not real, extra complications may arise, e.g., Berry phases

Toy model: transverse eld Ising model

Quantum spins Si on a lattice: (c.f. LiHoF4) H = J
i

Sz Sz h i i+1
i

Sx i

= J
i

h z z Si Si+1 2
i

(S+ + S) i i

J: exchange energy, favors parallel spins, i.e., ferromagnetic state h: transverse magnetic eld, induces quantum uctuations between up and down states, favors paramagnetic state Limiting cases: |J| |h| ferromagnetic ground state as in classical Ising magnet |J| |h| paramagnetic ground state as for independent spins in a eld Quantum phase transition at |J| |h| (in 1D, transition is at |J| = |h|) Quantum-to-classical mapping: QPT in transverse eld Ising model in d dimensions maps onto classical Ising transition in d + 1 dimensions

Magnetic quantum critical points of TlCuCl3

TlCuCl3 is magnetic insulator planar Cu2Cl6 dimers form innite double chains Cu2+ ions carry spin-1/2 moment

antiferromagnetic order can be induced by applying pressure applying a magnetic eld

Tc (K)

10 T 8 6 4 2 0 AFM Bc1 Bc2 B Paramagnet Paramagnet

canted AFM

a)
0 1 2 QCP 3 p (kBar) 4 5 0

b)
2 QCP 4 6 B (T) 8 10 12

Pressure-driven quantum phase transition in TlCuCl3

quantum Heisenberg model H=
ij

Jij Si Sj h
i

Si .

Jij =

J J

intra-dimer between dimers

intra-dimer interaction J inter-dimer interaction J

1 2 ordered spin singlet =

pressure changes ratio J/J Limiting cases: |J| |J | spins on each dimer form singlet no magnetic order low-energy excitations are triplons (single dimers in the triplet state) |J| |J | long-range antiferromagnetic order (Nel order) e low-energy excitations are long-wavelength spin waves quantum phase transition at some critical value of the ratio J/J

Field-driven quantum phase transition in TlCuCl3

E

Single dimer in eld: eld does not aect singlet ground state but splits the triplet states ground state: singlet for B < Bc and (fully polarized) triplet for B > Bc

triplet J/4 -3J/4 singlet 0 Bc B

Full Hamiltonian: singlet-triplet transition of isolated dimer splits into two transitions at Bc1, triplon gap closes, system is driven into ordered state (uniform magnetization || to eld and antiferromagnetic order to eld) canted antiferromagnet is Bose-Einstein condensate of triplons at Bc2 system enters fully polarized state

 Phase transitions and critical points Quantum phase transitions: How important is quantum mechanics? Quantum phase transitions in metallic systems

Quantum phase transitions in metallic systems

Ferromagnetic transitions: MnSi, UGe2, ZrZn2 pressure tuned NixPd1x, URu2xRexSi2 composition tuned Antiferromagnetic transitions: CeCu6xAux composition tuned YbRh2Si2 magnetic eld tuned dozens of other rare earth compounds, tuned by composition, eld or pressure Other transitions: metamagnetic transitions superconducting transitions Temperature-pressure phase diagram of MnSi (Peiderer et al, 1997)

Fermi liquids versus non-Fermi liquids

Fermi liquid concept (Landau 1950s): interacting Fermions behave like almost non-interacting quasi-particles with renormalized parameters (e.g. eective mass) universal predictions for low-temperature properties specic heat magnetic susceptibility electric resistivity CT = const = A + BT 2

Fermi liquid theory is extremely successful, describes vast majority of metals. In recent years: systematic search for violations of the Fermi liquid paradigm high-TC superconductors in normal phase heavy Fermion materials (rare earth compounds)

Non-Fermi liquid behavior in CeCu6xAux

specic heat coecient C/T at quantum critical point diverges logarithmically with T 0 cause by interaction between quasiparticles and critical uctuations functional form presently not fully understood (orthodox theories do not work) Phase diagram and specic heat of CeCu6xAux (v. Lhneysen, 1996) o

4 x=0 x=0.05 x=0.1 x=0.15 x=0.2 x=0.3

3 C/T (J/mol K )
2

1.0 T (K)

II

1
0.5 I

0.0

0.1

0.3 x

0.5

0 0.04

0.1 T (K)

1.0

Generic scale invariance

metallic systems at T = 0 contain many soft (gapless) excitations such as particle-hole excitations (even away from any critical point) soft modes lead to long-range spatial and temporal correlations quasi-particle dispersion: specic heat: static spin susceptibility: in real space: in general dimension: (p) |p pF |3 log |p pF | cV (T ) T 3 log T
1 (2)(q) = (2)(0) + c3|q|2 log |q| + O(|q|2)

(2)(r r ) |r r |5 (2)(q) = (2)(0) + cd|q|d1 + O(|q|2)

Long-range correlations due to coupling to soft particle-hole excitations

Generic scale invariance and the ferromagnetic transition

At critical point: critical modes and generic soft modes interact in a nontrivial way interplay greatly modies critical behavior of the quantum phase transition
(Belitz, Kirkpatrick, Vojta, Rev. Mod. Phys., 2005)

Example: Ferromagnetic quantum phase transition Long-range interaction due to generic scale invariance singular Landau theory = tm2 vm4 log(1/m) + um4 Ferromagnetic quantum phase transition turns 1st order general mechanism, leads to singular Landau theory for all zero wavenumber order parameters

Phase diagram of MnSi.

Quantum phase transitions and exotic superconductivity

Superconductivity in UGe2: phase diagram of UGe2 has pocket of superconductivity close to quantum phase transition in this pocket, UGe2 is ferromagnetic and superconducting at the same time superconductivity appears only in superclean samples

Phase diagram and resistivity of UGe2 (Saxena et al, Nature, 2000)

Character of superconductivity in UGe2

Conventional (BCS) superconductivity: Cooper pairs form spin singlets not compatible with ferromagnetism Theoretical ideas: phase separation (layering or disorder): NO! partially paired FFLO state: NO! spin triplet pairing with odd spatial symmetry (p-wave) magnetic uctuations are attractive for spin-triplet pairs Ferromagnetic quantum phase transition promotes magnetically mediated spin-triplet superconductivity

Ferromagnetic QPT in a disordered metal: CePd1xRhx

ferromagnetic phase shows pronounced tail evidence for smeared transition evidence for spin-glass like behavior in tail above tail: nonuniversal power-laws characteristic of quantum Griths eects Quantum phase transitions in disordered systems often lead to exotic critical behavior

Conclusions
quantum phase transitions occur at zero temperature as a function of a parameter like pressure, chemical composition, disorder, magnetic eld quantum phase transitions are driven by quantum uctuations rather than thermal uctuations quantum critical points control behavior in the quantum critical region at nonzero temperatures quantum phase transitions in metals have fascinating consequences: non-Fermi liquid behavior and exotic superconductivity quantum phase transitions in disordered systems lead to unconventional critical behavior

Quantum phase transitions provide a new ordering principle in condensed matter physics

Superconductor-metal QPT in ultrathin nanowires

ultrathin MoGe wires (width 10 nm) produced by molecular templating using a single carbon nanotube
[A. Bezryadin et al., Nature 404, 971 (2000)]

thicker wires are superconducting at low temperatures thinner wires remain metallic superconductor-metal QPT as function of wire thickness

Pairbreaking mechanism
pair breaking by surface magnetic impurities random impurity positions quenched disorder gapless excitations in metal phase Ohmic dissipation

weak eld enhances superconductivity

magnetic eld aligns the impurities and reduces magnetic scattering