Related papers: Topological versus Landau-like phase transitions
During the past two decades, cosmologists turned to particle physics in order to explore the physics of the very early Universe. The main link between the physics of the smallest and largest structures in the Universe is the idea of…
A fundamental dichotomous classification for all physical systems is according to whether they are spinless or spinful. This is especially crucial for the study of symmetry-protected topological phases, as the two classes have distinct…
Topological phase transitions are typically associated with the formation of gapless states. Spontaneous symmetry breaking can lead to a gap opening thereby obliterating the topological nature of the system. Here we highlight a completely…
We consider the phase transition in a model which consists of a Ginzburg-Landau free energy for superconductors including a Chern-Simons term. The mean field theory of Halperin, Lubensky and Ma [Phys. Rev. Lett. 32, 292 (1974)] is applied…
Recently topological states of matter have witnessed a new physical phenomenon where both edge modes and gapless bulk coexist at topological quantum criticality. The presence and absence of edge modes on a critical line can lead to an…
Quantum walks are versatile simulators of topological phases and phase transitions as observed in condensed matter physics. Here, we utilize a step dependent coin in quantum walks and investigate what topological phases we can simulate with…
In this paper, starting from a lattice model of topological insulators, we study the quantum phase transitions among different quantum states, including quantum spin Hall state, quantum anomalous Hall state and normal band insulator state…
We study the relation between entanglement and quantum phase transition (QPT) from a new perspective. Motivated by one's intuition: QPT is characterized by the change of the ground-state structure, while entangled states belong to different…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking has revolutionized the understanding in numerous fields of modern physics. Here, we theoretically demonstrate the spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking in a cavity quantum electrodynamics system in which…
We argue that symmetry-broken phases proximate in phase space to symmetry-protected topological phases can exhibit dynamical signatures of topological physics. This dynamical, symmetry-protected "topological" regime is characterized by…
In this paper we review the theory of unconventional quantum critical points that are beyond the Landau's paradigm. Three types of unconventional quantum critical points will be discussed: (1). The transition between topological order and…
Topological phases of matter are ubiquitous in crystals, but less is known about their existence in amorphous systems, that lack long-range order. In this perspective, we review the recent progress made on theoretically defining amorphous…
Quantum walks are referred to as quantum analogs to random walks in mathematics. They have been studied as quantum algorithms in quantum information for quantum computers. There are two types of quantum walks. One is the discrete-time…
Study of symmetry, topology and geometric phase can reveal many new and interesting results on the topological states of matter. Here we present a completely new and interesting result of symmetry, topology and quantization of geometric…
Perhaps the most important aspect of symmetry in physics is the idea that a state does not need to have the same symmetries as the theory that describes it. This phenomenon is known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. In these lecture notes,…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a phenomenon of an alteration of a state symmetry without a change in the system symmetry. A transition from a state with unbroken symmetry to a state with broken symmetry leads to a qualitative change in…
We study the phase transition between a trivial and a time-reversal-invariant topological superconductor in a single-band system. By analyzing the interplay of symmetry, topology and energetics, we show that for a generic normal state band…
We investigate a two-parametric family of one-dimensional non-Hermitian complex potentials with parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry. We find that there exist two distinct types of phase transitions, from an unbroken phase (characterized…
The continuous phase transition, indicated by the macroscopic order parameter and the occurrence of the spontaneous symmetry breaking, is well illustrated based on the Ginzburg-Landau's paradigm. In systems described by one order parameter,…
As phenomena that necessarily emerge from the collective behavior of interacting particles, phase transitions continue to be difficult to predict using statistical thermodynamics. A recent proposal called the topological hypothesis suggests…