Floating phase versus chiral transition in a 1D hard-boson model

TL;DR

This paper uses advanced numerical methods to analyze phase transitions in a 1D hard-boson model, revealing an intermediate floating phase and characterizing the universality class of the transition.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale numerical evidence for an intermediate floating phase in a 1D hard-boson model and clarifies the nature of the phase transition near the Potts point.

Findings

Evidence for an intermediate floating phase.

Transition near Potts point is consistent with chiral universality.

Correlation length and wave-vector are computed with high precision.

Abstract

We investigate the nature of the phase transition between the period-three charge-density wave and the disordered phase of a hard-boson model proposed in the context of cold-atom experiments. Building on a density-matrix renormalization group algorithm that takes full advantage of the hard-boson constraints, we study systems with up to 9'000 sites and calculate the correlation length and the wave-vector of the incommensurate short-range correlations with unprecedented accuracy. We provide strong numerical evidence that there is an intermediate floating phase far enough from the integrable Potts point, while in its vicinity, our numerical data are consistent with a unique transition in the Huse-Fisher chiral universality class.