Quantum criticality, lines of fixed points, and phase separation in doped two-dimensional quantum dimer models

Stefanos Papanikolaou, Erik Luijten, and Eduardo Fradkin
Phys. Rev. B 76, 134514 – Published 24 October 2007

Abstract

We study phase diagrams of a class of doped quantum dimer models on the square lattice with ground-state wave functions whose amplitudes have the form of the Gibbs weights of a classical doped dimer model. In this dimer model, parallel neighboring dimers have attractive interactions, whereas neighboring holes either do not interact or have a repulsive interaction. We investigate the behavior of this system via analytic methods and by Monte Carlo simulations. At zero doping, we confirm the existence of a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition from a quantum critical phase to a columnar phase. At low hole densities, we find a dimer-hole liquid phase and a columnar phase, separated by a phase boundary which is a line of critical points with varying exponents. We demonstrate that this line ends at a multicritical point where the transition becomes first order and the system phase separates. The first-order transition coexistence curve is shown to become unstable with respect to more complex inhomogeneous phases in the presence of direct hole-hole interactions. We also use a variational approach to determine the spectrum of low-lying density fluctuations in the dimer-hole fluid phase.

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  • Received 27 July 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.76.134514

©2007 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Stefanos Papanikolaou1, Erik Luijten2, and Eduardo Fradkin1

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA
  • 2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1304 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-2920, USA

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Issue

Vol. 76, Iss. 13 — 1 October 2007

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