Quantum cluster kink and ring frustration

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of quantum cluster kinks in cluster models, explores their types and interactions, and investigates how ring frustration affects ground states and phase transitions, revealing novel quantum phenomena.

Contribution

It establishes the concept of quantum cluster kinks, classifies their types, and analyzes the effects of ring frustration on ground states and phase transitions in cluster models.

Findings

Two types of cluster kinks identified with different orderings.

Ring frustration induces ground-state degeneracy and extended-kink phases.

Unusual ground states and properties uncovered in extended-kink phase.

Abstract

In this paper, we work on the pure and mixed cluster models with periodic boundary condition. The first purpose is to establish the concept of quantum cluster kink. We clarify that there are two types of cluster kinks since there are two types of ground states depending on the choice of cluster length, of which the first type exhibits symmetry breaking order and the second one string order. Simple pictures are constructed according to the pure cluster model, which facilitates us to introduce the quantity, cluster kink number. As we demonstrate, cluster kinks deriving from different sources can coexist, compete with each other, and lead to quantum phase transition in a mixed cluster model. The second purpose is to elucidate that the effect of ring frustration can be realized in the cluster model with symmetry breaking order, instead of the one with string order. The reason lies in that ring frustration can induce a huge ground-state degeneracy or a special extended-kink phase with gapless excitations in the former case. And, although ring frustration does not change the phase transition point, it can produce unusual ground state in the extended-kink phase, whose special properties are uncovered by the nonlocal scaling factor in the correlation function and the doubled degeneracies of the eigenvalues of the entanglement spectrum.