2018/07/31 by Chris N. Self, Johannes Knolle, S. Iblisdir +2
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Condensed matter physics #Lattice (music) #Mathematics #Monte Carlo method #Parity (physics) #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum #Quantum Monte Carlo #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Quantum spin liquid #Spin model #Spin polarization #Statistical physics #Thermalisation #cond-mat.str-el #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.99.045142
published as Phys. Rev. B 99, 045142 (2019) · some content rearranged, small text changes
arxiv created 2018/09/12 · openalex publication_date 2019/01/25 · arxiv updated 2019/01/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Thermalization is a probabilistic process. As such, it is generally expected that when we increase the temperature of a system, its classical behavior dominates its quantum coherences. By employing the Gibbs state of a translationally invariant quantum spin liquid---Kitaev's honeycomb lattice model---we demonstrate that an insulating phase at T=0 becomes metallic purely by increasing temperature. In particular, we compute the finite-temperature distribution of energies and show that it diverges logarithmically, as we move to small energies. The corresponding wave functions become critical like at Anderson transitions. These characteristics are obtained within an exact Monte Carlo method that simulates the finite-temperature behavior of the Kitaev model. In particular, we take into account the projection onto the physical parity sectors, required for identifying the topological degeneracy of the model. Our work opens the possibility to detect thermal metal behavior in spin liquid experiments.