Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions in classical and quantum long-range systems

In the past decades, considerable efforts have been made to understand the critical features of both classical and quantum long-range (LR) interacting models. The case of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) universality class, as in the two-dimensional (2D) classical XY model, is considerably complicated by the presence, for short-range interactions, of a line of renormalization group fixed points. In this paper, we discuss a field-theoretical treatment of the 2D XY model with LR couplings, and we compare it with results from the self-consistent harmonic approximation. These methods lead to a rich phase diagram, where both power law BKT scaling and spontaneous symmetry breaking appear for the same (intermediate) decay rates of LR interactions. We also discuss the Villain approximation for the 2D XY model with power law couplings, providing hints that, in the LR regime, it fails to reproduce the correct critical behavior. The obtained results are then applied to the LR quantum XXZ spin chain at zero temperature. We discuss the relation between the phase diagrams of the two models, and we give predictions about the scaling of the order parameter of the quantum chain close to the transition.

Automated summary

In this paper, a field-theoretical treatment of the 2D XY model with long-range couplings is discussed, and it is compared with results from the self-consistent harmonic approximation. The results show that both power law BKT scaling and spontaneous symmetry breaking occur for the same decay rates of long-range interactions. Meanwhile, the Villain approximation fails to reproduce the correct critical behavior in the long-range regime.