2020/03/31 by C. Klöckner, Christian Klöckner, Christoph Karrasch +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Electric field #Ising model #Lattice (music) #Non-equilibrium thermodynamics #Phase (matter) #Phase boundary #Phase diagram #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Renormalization group #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.125.147601
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 147601 (2020)
openalex publication_date 2020/10/01 · arxiv created 2020/11/16 · arxiv updated 2020/11/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We employ a novel, unbiased renormalization-group approach to investigate nonequilibrium phase transitions in infinite lattice models. This allows us to address the delicate interplay of fluctuations and ordering tendencies in low dimensions out of equilibrium. We study a prototypical model for the metal to insulator transition of spinless interacting fermions coupled to electronic baths and driven out of equilibrium by a longitudinal static electric field. The closed system features a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition between a metallic and a charge-ordered phase in the equilibrium limit. We compute the nonequilibrium phase diagram and illustrate a highly nonmonotonic dependence of the phase boundary on the strength of the electric field: for small fields, the induced currents destroy the charge order, while at higher electric fields it reemerges due to many-body Wannier-Stark localization physics. Finally, we show that the current in such an interacting nonequilibrium system can counter-intuitively flow opposite to the direction of the electric field. This nonequilibrium steady state is reminiscent of an equilibrium distribution function with an effective negative temperature.