2011/08/09 by Sergei V. Isakov, Roger G. Melko, Matthew B. Hastings · 95 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Boson #Charge (physics) #Mathematics #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum #Quantum critical point #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Quantum phase transition #Scaling #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Theoretical physics #cond-mat.str-el #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1212207
published in Science 335(6065), 193-195 (American Association for the Advancement of Science) · 12 pages, 3 figures (+ supplemental)
arxiv created 2011/08/09 · openalex publication_date 2012/01/12 · arxiv updated 2015/03/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Ground states of certain materials can support exotic excitations with a charge equal to a fraction of the fundamental electron charge. The condensation of these fractionalized particles has been predicted to drive unusual quantum phase transitions. Through numerical and theoretical analysis of a physical model of interacting lattice bosons, we establish the existence of such an exotic critical point, called XY*. We measure a highly nonclassical critical exponent η = 1.493 and construct a universal scaling function of winding number distributions that directly demonstrates the distinct topological sectors of an emergent Z(2) gauge field. The universal quantities used to establish this exotic transition can be used to detect other fractionalized quantum critical points in future model and material systems.