Biomedical subjects

Leon Balents

Publications and source records attributed to Leon Balents.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Artificial electric field in fermi liquids.

Based on the Keldysh formalism, we derive an effective Boltzmann equation for a quasiparticle constrained within a particular Fermi surface in an interacting Fermi liquid. This provides a many-body derivation of Berry curvatures in electron dynamics with spin-orbit coupling, which has received much attention in recent years in noninteracting models. As is well known, the Berry curvature in momentum space modifies naïve band dynamics via an "artificial magnetic field" in momentum space. Our Fermi liquid formulation completes the reinvention of modified band dynamics by introducing in addition an artificial electric field, related to Berry curvature in frequency and momentum space. We show explicitly how the artificial electric field affects the renormalization factor and transverse conductivity of interacting U(1) Fermi liquids with nondegenerate bands.

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PubMed2006

Quantum effects in a half-polarized pyrochlore antiferromagnet.

We study quantum effects in a spin-3/2 antiferromagnet on the pyrochlore lattice in an external magnetic field, focusing on the vicinity of a plateau in the magnetization at half the saturation value, observed in CdCr2O4 and HgCr2O4. Our theory, based on quantum fluctuations, predicts the existence of a symmetry-broken state on the plateau, even with only nearest-neighbor microscopic exchange. This symmetry-broken state consists of a particular arrangement of spins polarized parallel and antiparallel to the field in a 3:1 ratio on each tetrahedron. It quadruples the lattice unit cell, and reduces the space group from Fd3m to P4(3)32. We also predict that for fields just above the plateau, the low-temperature phase has transverse spin order, describable as a Bose-Einstein condensate of magnons. Other comparisons to and suggestions for experiments are discussed.

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PubMed2005

Numerical evidences of fractionalization in an easy-axis two-spin heisenberg antiferromagnet.

Based on exact numerical calculations, we show that the generalized kagome spin model in the easy-axis limit exhibits a spin liquid, topologically degenerate ground state over a broad range of phase space, including a point at which the model is equivalent to a Heisenberg model with purely two-spin exchange interactions. We further present an explicit calculation of the gap (and dispersion) of "vison" excitations, and exponentially decaying spin and vison two-point correlators. These are hallmarks of deconfined, fractionalized, and gapped spinons. The nature of the phase transition from the spin-liquid state to a magnetic ordered state tuned by a negative four-spin "potential" term is also discussed in light of the low energy spectrum. These results greatly expand the range and the theoretical view of the spin-liquid phase in the vicinity of the Rokhsar and Kivelson exactly soluble point.

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PubMed2004

Green's function for magnetically incoherent interacting electrons in one dimension.

Using a path integral approach and bosonization, we calculate the low-energy asymptotics of the one particle Green's function for a "magnetically incoherent" one dimensional strongly interacting electron gas at temperatures much greater than the typical exchange energy but much lower than the Fermi energy. The Green's function exhibits features reminiscent of spin-charge separation, with exponential spatial decay and scaling behavior with interaction dependent anomalous exponents inconsistent with any unitary conformal field theory. We compute the tunneling density of states at low energies and find that it is a power law in energy with exponent 1/(4g)-1, where g is the Luttinger interaction parameter in the charge sector. The underlying physics is made transparent by the simplicity of the approach. Our results generalize those of Cheianov and Zvonarev [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 176401 (2004)]].

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PubMed2004

Dimerized phase and transitions in a spatially anisotropic square lattice antiferromagnet.

We investigate the spatially anisotropic square lattice quantum antiferromagnet. The model describes isotropic spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains (exchange constant J) coupled antiferromagnetically in the transverse (J( perpendicular )) and diagonal (J(x)), with respect to the chain, directions. Classically, the model admits two ordered ground states-with antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interchain spin correlations-separated by a first-order phase transition at J( perpendicular )=2J(x). We show that in the quantum model this transition splits into two, revealing an intermediate quantum-disordered columnar dimer phase, both in two dimensions and in a simpler two-leg ladder version. We describe quantum-critical points separating this spontaneously dimerized phase from classical ones.

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PubMed2004

Broad relaxation spectrum and the field theory of glassy dynamics for pinned elastic systems.

We study thermally activated, low-temperature equilibrium dynamics of elastic systems pinned by disorder using one loop functional renormalization group (FRG). Through a series of increasingly complete approximations, we investigate how the field theory reveals the glassy nature of the dynamics, in particular divergent barriers and barrier distributions controling the spectrum of relaxation times. First, we naively assume a single relaxation time tau(k) for each wave vector k, leading to analytical expressions for equilibrium dynamical response and correlations. These exhibit two distinct scaling regimes (scaling variables T k(theta) ln t and t/ tau(k), respectively, with T the temperature, theta the energy fluctuation exponent, and tau(k) approximately e(c k(-theta) /T) ) and are easily extended to quasiequilibrium and aging regimes. A careful study of the dynamical operators encoding for fluctuations of the relaxation times shows that this first approach is unsatisfactory. A second stage of approximation including these fluctuations, based on a truncation of the dynamical effective action to a random friction model, yields a size (L) dependent log-normal distribution of relaxation times (effective barriers centered around Ltheta and of fluctuations approximately L(theta/2) ) and some procedure to estimate dynamical scaling functions. Finally, we study the full structure of the running dynamical effective action within the field theory. We find that relaxation time distributions are nontrivial (broad but not log normal) and encoded in a closed hierarchy of FRG equations divided into levels p=0,1, em leader, corresponding to vertices proportional to the pth power of frequency omega(p). We show how each level p can be solved independently of higher ones, the lowest one (p=0) comprising the statics. A thermal boundary layer ansatz (TBLA) appears as a consistent solution. It extends the one discovered in the statics which was shown to embody droplet thermal fluctuations. Although perturbative control remains a challenge, the structure of the dynamical TBLA which encodes barrier distributions opens the way for deeper understanding of the field theory approach to glasses.

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PubMed2004

Ground state phases of the half-filled one-dimensional extended hubbard model.

Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, results of a strong-coupling expansion, and Luttinger liquid theory, we determine quantitatively the ground state phase diagram of the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model with on-site and nearest-neighbor repulsions U and V. We show that spin frustration stabilizes a bond-ordered (dimerized) state for U approximately V/2 up to U/t approximately 9, where t is the nearest-neighbor hopping. The transition from the dimerized state to the staggered charge-density-wave state for large V/U is continuous for U < or approximately 5.5 and first order for higher U.

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PubMed2004

Deconfined quantum critical points.

The theory of second-order phase transitions is one of the foundations of modern statistical mechanics and condensed-matter theory. A central concept is the observable order parameter, whose nonzero average value characterizes one or more phases. At large distances and long times, fluctuations of the order parameter(s) are described by a continuum field theory, and these dominate the physics near such phase transitions. We show that near second-order quantum phase transitions, subtle quantum interference effects can invalidate this paradigm, and we present a theory of quantum critical points in a variety of experimentally relevant two-dimensional antiferromagnets. The critical points separate phases characterized by conventional "confining" order parameters. Nevertheless, the critical theory contains an emergent gauge field and "deconfined" degrees of freedom associated with fractionalization of the order parameters. We propose that this paradigm for quantum criticality may be the key to resolving a number of experimental puzzles in correlated electron systems and offer a new perspective on the properties of complex materials.

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PubMed2003

Phase diagram for quantum hall bilayers at nu=1.

We present a phase diagram for a double quantum well bilayer electron gas in the quantum Hall regime at a total filling factor nu=1, based on exact numerical calculations of the topological Chern number matrix and the (interlayer) superfluid density. We find three phases: a quantized Hall state with pseudospin superfluidity, a quantized Hall state with pseudospin "gauge-glass" order, and a decoupled composite Fermi liquid. Comparison with experiments provides a consistent explanation of the observed quantum Hall plateau, Hall drag plateau, and vanishing Hall drag resistance, as well as the zero-bias conductance peak effect, and suggests some interesting points to pursue experimentally.

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PubMed2003

Anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic semiconductors in the hopping transport regime.

We present a theory of the anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As in the regime when conduction is due to phonon-assisted hopping of holes between localized states in the impurity band. We show that the microscopic origin of the anomalous Hall conductivity in this system can be attributed to a phase that a hole gains when hopping around closed-loop paths in the presence of spin-orbit interactions and background magnetization of the localized Mn moments. Mapping the problem to a random resistor network, we derive an analytic expression for the macroscopic anomalous Hall conductivity sigma(AH)(xy). We show that sigma(AH)(xy) is proportional to the first derivative of the density of states varrho(epsilon) and thus can be expected to change sign as a function of impurity band filling. We also show that sigma(AH)(xy) depends on temperature as the longitudinal conductivity sigma(xx) within logarithmic accuracy.

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PubMed2002

Quantum entanglement in carbon nanotubes.

With the surge of research in quantum information, the issue of producing entangled states has gained prominence. Here, we show that judiciously bringing together two systems of strongly interacting electrons with vastly differing ground states-the gapped BCS superconductor and the Luttinger liquid-can result in quantum entanglement. We propose three sets of measurements involving single-walled metallic carbon nanotubes which have been shown to exhibit Luttinger liquid physics, to test our claim and as nanoscience experiments of interest in and of themselves.

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