Berry Phases, Quantum Phase Transitions and Chern Numbers
Strongly Correlated Electrons
2009-10-09 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We study the relation between Chern numbers and Quantum Phase Transitions (QPT) in the XY spin-chain model. By coupling the spin chain to a single spin, it is possible to study topological invariants associated to the coupling Hamiltonian. These invariants contain global information, in addition to the usual one (obtained by integrating the Berry connection around a closed loop). We compute these invariants (Chern numbers) and discuss their relation to QPT. In particular we show that Chern numbers can be used to label regions corresponding to different phases.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0710.0350,
title = {Berry Phases, Quantum Phase Transitions and Chern Numbers},
author = {H. A. Contreras and A. F. Reyes-Lega},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.0350},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Proceedings of The International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems (SCES'07). Accepted for publication in Physica B