Quantum Spin Torque Driven Transmutation of an Antiferromagnetic Mott Insulator.

The standard model of spin-transfer torque (STT) in antiferromagnetic spintronics considers the exchange of angular momentum between quantum spins of flowing electrons and noncollinear-to-them localized spins treated as classical vectors. These vectors are assumed to realize Néel order in equilibrium, ↑↓⋯↑↓, and their STT-driven dynamics is described by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation. However, many experimentally employed materials (such as archetypal NiO) are strongly electron-correlated antiferromagnetic Mott insulators (AFMIs) whose localized spins form a ground state quite different from the unentangled Néel state |↑↓⋯↑↓⟩. The true ground state is entangled by quantum spin fluctuations, leading to the expectation value of all localized spins being zero, so that LLG dynamics of classical vectors of fixed length rotating due to STT cannot even be initiated. Instead, a fully quantum treatment of both conduction electrons and localized spins is necessary to capture the exchange of spin angular momentum between them, denoted as quantum STT. We use a recently developed time-dependent density matrix renormalization group approach to quantum STT to predict how injection of a spin-polarized current pulse into a normal metal layer coupled to an AFMI overlayer via exchange interaction and possibly small interlayer hopping-mimicking, e.g., topological-insulator/NiO bilayer employed experimentally-will induce a nonzero expectation value of AFMI localized spins. This new nonequilibrium phase is a spatially inhomogeneous ferromagnet with a zigzag profile of localized spins. The total spin absorbed by AFMI increases with electron-electron repulsion in AFMIs, as well as when the two layers do not exchange any charge.

Anyonic liquids in nearly saturated spin chains.

Most Heisenberg-like spin chains flow to a universal free-fermion fixed point near the magnetic-field induced saturation point. Here, we show that an exotic fixed point, characterized by two species of low-energy excitations with mutual anyonic statistics, may also emerge in such spin chains if the dispersion relation has two minima. By using bosonization, two-magnon exact calculations, and numerical density-matrix-renormalization-group calculations, we demonstrate the existence of this anyonic-liquid fixed point in an xxz spin chain with up to second-neighbor interactions. We also identify a range of microscopic parameters, which support this phase.

Competing topological orders in the ν=12/5 quantum Hall state.

We provide numerical evidence that a p(x)-ip(y) paired Bonderson-Slingerland (BS) non-Abelian hierarchy state is a strong candidate for the observed ν=12/5 quantum Hall plateau. We confirm the existence of a gapped incompressible ν=12/5 quantum Hall state with shift S=2 on the sphere, matching that of the BS state. The exact ground state of the Coulomb interaction at S=2 is shown to have a large overlap with the BS trial wave function. Larger overlaps are obtained with BS-type wave functions that are hierarchical descendants of general p(x)-ip(y) weakly paired states at ν=5/2. We perform a finite-size scaling analysis of the ground-state energies for ν=12/5 states at shifts corresponding to the BS (S=2) and 3-clustered Read-Rezayi (S=-2) universality classes. This analysis reveals very tight competition between these two non-Abelian topological orders.

Numerical calculation of the neutral fermion gap at the ν=5/2 fractional quantum Hall state.

We present the first numerical computation of the neutral fermion gap, Δ(F), in the ν=5/2 quantum Hall state, which is analogous to the energy gap for a Bogoliubov-de Gennes quasiparticle in a superconductor. We find Δ(F)≈0.027e(2)/εℓ(0), comparable to the charge gap. We also deduce an effective Fermi velocity v(F) for neutral fermions from the low-energy spectra for odd numbers of electrons, and thereby obtain a correlation length ξ(F)=v(F)/Δ(F)≈1.3ℓ(0). We comment on implications for experiments, topological quantum information processing, and electronic mechanisms of superconductivity.

Spin-incoherent behavior in the ground state of strongly correlated systems.

It is commonly believed that strongly interacting one-dimensional Fermi systems with gapless excitations are effectively described by Luttinger liquid theory. However, when the temperature of the system is high compared to the spin energy, but small compared to the charge energy, the system becomes "spin incoherent." We present numerical evidence showing that the one-dimensional "t-J-Kondo" lattice, consisting of a t-J chain interacting with localized spins, displays all the characteristic signatures of spin-incoherent physics, but in the ground state. We argue that similar physics may be present in a wide range of strongly interacting systems.

Exotic paired states with anisotropic spin-dependent Fermi surfaces.

We propose a model for realizing exotic paired states in cold Fermi gases by using a spin-dependent optical lattice to engineer mismatched Fermi surfaces for each hyperfine species. The BCS phase diagram shows a stable paired superfluid state with coexisting pockets of momentum space with gapless unpaired carriers, similar to the Sarma state in polarized mixtures, but in our case the system is unpolarized. We propose the possible existence of an exotic "Cooper-pair Bose-metal" phase, which has a gap for single fermion excitations but gapless and uncondensed "Cooper-pair" excitations residing on a "Bose surface" in momentum space.

Real-time evolution using the density matrix renormalization group.

We describe an extension to the density matrix renormalization group method incorporating real-time evolution. Its application to transport problems in systems out of equilibrium and frequency dependent correlation functions is discussed and illustrated in several examples. We simulate a scattering process in a spin chain which generates a spatially nonlocal entangled wave function.