English

Quantum Annealed Criticality: A Scaling Description

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2021-01-05 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Experimentally there exist many materials with first-order phase transitions at finite temperature that display quantum criticality. Classically, a strain-energy density coupling is known to drive first-order transitions in compressible systems, and here we generalize this Larkin-Pikin mechanism to the quantum case. We show that if the T=0 system lies above its upper critical dimension, the line of first-order transitions ends in a "quantum annealed critical point" where zero-point fluctuations restore the underlying criticality of the order parameter. The generalized Larkin-Pikin phase diagram is presented and experimental consequences are discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2012.01601,
  title  = {Quantum Annealed Criticality: A Scaling Description},
  author = {Premala Chandra and Piers Coleman and Mucio A. Continentino and Gilbert G. Lonzarich},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.01601},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

This paper contains a considerably expanded discussion of the material presented in arXiv:1805.11771

R2 v1 2026-06-23T20:41:23.697Z