Collective Modes at a Disordered Quantum Phase Transition.

We study the collective excitations, i.e., the Goldstone (phase) mode and the Higgs (amplitude) mode, near the superfluid-Mott glass quantum phase transition in a two-dimensional system of disordered bosons. Using Monte Carlo simulations as well as an inhomogeneous quantum mean-field theory with Gaussian fluctuations, we show that the Higgs mode is strongly localized for all energies, leading to a noncritical scalar response. In contrast, the lowest-energy Goldstone mode undergoes a striking delocalization transition as the system enters the superfluid phase. We discuss the generality of these findings and experimental consequences, and we point out potential relations to many-body localization.

Cluster-Glass Phase in Pyrochlore XY Antiferromagnets with Quenched Disorder.

We study the impact of quenched disorder (random exchange couplings or site dilution) on easy-plane pyrochlore antiferromagnets. In the clean system, order by disorder selects a magnetically ordered state from a classically degenerate manifold. In the presence of randomness, however, different orders can be chosen locally depending on details of the disorder configuration. Using a combination of analytical considerations and classical Monte Carlo simulations, we argue that any long-range-ordered magnetic state is destroyed beyond a critical level of randomness where the system breaks into magnetic domains due to random exchange anisotropies, becoming, therefore, a glass of spin clusters, in accordance with the available experimental data. These random anisotropies originate from off-diagonal exchange couplings in the microscopic Hamiltonian, establishing their relevance to other magnets with strong spin-orbit coupling.

Emergent SU(3) Symmetry in Random Spin-1 Chains.

We show that generic SU(2)-invariant random spin-1 chains have phases with an emergent SU(3) symmetry. We map out the full zero-temperature phase diagram and identify two different phases: (i) a conventional random-singlet phase (RSP) of strongly bound spin pairs [SU(3) "mesons"] and (ii) an unconventional RSP of bound SU(3) "baryons," which are formed, in the great majority, by spin trios located at random positions. The emergent SU(3) symmetry dictates that susceptibilities and correlation functions of both dipolar and quadrupolar spin operators have the same asymptotic behavior.

Criticality and quenched disorder: Harris criterion versus rare regions.

We employ scaling arguments and optimal fluctuation theory to establish a general relation between quantum Griffiths singularities and the Harris criterion for quantum phase transitions in disordered systems. If a clean critical point violates the Harris criterion, it is destabilized by weak disorder. At the same time, the Griffiths dynamical exponent z' diverges upon approaching the transition, suggesting unconventional critical behavior. In contrast, if the Harris criterion is fulfilled, power-law Griffiths singularities can coexist with clean critical behavior, but z' saturates at a finite value. We present applications of our theory to a variety of systems including quantum spin chains, classical reaction-diffusion systems and metallic magnets, and we discuss modifications for transitions above the upper critical dimension. Based on these results we propose a unified classification of phase transitions in disordered systems.

Critical properties of the susceptible-exposed-infected model with correlated temporal disorder.

In this paper we study the critical properties of the nonequilibrium phase transition of the susceptible-exposed-infected (SEI) model under the effects of long-range correlated time-varying environmental noise on the Bethe lattice. We show that temporal noise is perturbatively relevant changing the universality class from the (mean-field) dynamical percolation to the exotic infinite-noise universality class of the contact process model. Our analytical results are based on a mapping to the one-dimensional fractional Brownian motion with an absorbing wall and is confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. Unlike the contact process, our theory also predicts that it is quite difficult to observe the associated active temporal Griffiths phase in the long-time limit. Finally, we also show an equivalence between the infinite-noise and the compact directed percolation universality classes by relating the SEI model in the presence of temporal disorder to the Domany-Kinzel cellular automaton in the limit of compact clusters.

Dynamical conductivity at the dirty superconductor-metal quantum phase transition.

We study the transport properties of ultrathin disordered nanowires in the neighborhood of the superconductor-metal quantum phase transition. To this end we combine numerical calculations with analytical strong-disorder renormalization group results. The quantum critical conductivity at zero temperature diverges logarithmically as a function of frequency. In the metallic phase, it obeys activated scaling associated with an infinite-randomness quantum critical point. We extend the scaling theory to higher dimensions and discuss implications for experiments.

Probing the Unruh effect with an accelerated extended system.

It has been proved in the context of quantum fields in Minkowski spacetime that the vacuum state is a thermal state according to uniformly accelerated observers-a seminal result known as the Unruh effect. Recent claims, however, have challenged the validity of this result for extended systems, thus casting doubts on its physical reality. Here, we study the dynamics of an extended system, uniformly accelerated in the vacuum. We show that its reduced density matrix evolves to a Gibbs thermal state with local temperature given by the Unruh temperature [Formula: see text], where a is the system's spatial-dependent proper acceleration-c is the speed of light and kB and [Formula: see text] are the Boltzmann's and the reduced Planck's constants, respectively. This proves that the vacuum state does induce thermalization of an accelerated extended system-which is all one can expect of a legitimate thermal reservoir.

Weakly disordered absorbing-state phase transitions.

The effects of quenched disorder on nonequilibrium phase transitions in the directed percolation universality class are revisited. Using a strong-disorder energy-space renormalization-group method, it is shown that for any amount of disorder the critical behavior is controlled by an infinite-randomness fixed point in the same universality class of the random transverse-field Ising models.

Contact process with temporal disorder.

We investigate the influence of time-varying environmental noise, i.e., temporal disorder, on the nonequilibrium phase transition of the contact process. Combining a real-time renormalization group, scaling theory, and large scale Monte-Carlo simulations in one and two dimensions, we show that the temporal disorder gives rise to an exotic critical point. At criticality, the effective noise amplitude diverges with increasing time scale, and the probability distribution of the density becomes infinitely broad, even on a logarithmic scale. Moreover, the average density and survival probability decay only logarithmically with time. This infinite-noise critical behavior can be understood as the temporal counterpart of infinite-randomness critical behavior in spatially disordered systems, but with exchanged roles of space and time. We also analyze the generality of our results, and we discuss potential experiments.

Rare regions and Griffiths singularities at a clean critical point: the five-dimensional disordered contact process.

We investigate the nonequilibrium phase transition of the disordered contact process in five space dimensions by means of optimal fluctuation theory and Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the critical behavior is of mean-field type, i.e., identical to that of the clean five-dimensional contact process. It is accompanied by off-critical power-law Griffiths singularities whose dynamical exponent z' saturates at a finite value as the transition is approached. These findings resolve the apparent contradiction between the Harris criterion, which implies that weak disorder is renormalization-group irrelevant, and the rare-region classification, which predicts unconventional behavior. We confirm and illustrate our theory by large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of systems with up to 70(5) sites. We also relate our results to a recently established general relation between the Harris criterion and Griffiths singularities [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 075702 (2014)], and we discuss implications for other phase transitions.

Influence of super-ohmic dissipation on a disordered quantum critical point.

We investigate the combined influence of quenched randomness and dissipation on a quantum critical point with O(N) order-parameter symmetry. Utilizing a strong-disorder renormalization group, we determine the critical behavior in one space dimension exactly. For super-ohmic dissipation, we find a Kosterlitz-Thouless type transition with conventional (power-law) dynamical scaling. The dynamical critical exponent depends on the spectral density of the dissipative baths. We also discuss the Griffiths singularities, and we determine observables.

Theory of smeared quantum phase transitions.

We present an analytical strong-disorder renormalization group theory of the quantum phase transition in the dissipative random transverse-field Ising chain. For Ohmic dissipation, we solve the renormalization flow equations analytically, yielding asymptotically exact results for the low-temperature properties of the system. We find that the interplay between quantum fluctuations and Ohmic dissipation destroys the quantum critical point by smearing. We also determine the phase diagram and the behavior of observables in the vicinity of the smeared quantum phase transition.

Effects of dissipation on a quantum critical point with disorder.

We study the effects of dissipation on a disordered quantum phase transition with O(N) order-parameter symmetry by applying a strong-disorder renormalization group to the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson field theory of the problem. We find that Ohmic dissipation results in a nonperturbative infinite-randomness critical point with unconventional activated dynamical scaling while super-Ohmic damping leads to conventional behavior. We discuss applications to the superconductor-metal transition in nanowires and to the Hertz theory of the itinerant antiferromagnetic transition.