Person:

Huh, Yejin

We show that the Néel states of two-dimensional antiferromagnets have low energy vector boson excitations in the vicinity of deconfined quantum critical points. We compute the universal damping of these excitations arising from spin-wave emission. Detection of such a vector boson will demonstrate the existence of emergent topological gauge excitations in a quantum spin system.

We consider Z2 spin liquids on the kagome lattice on the verge of a valence bond solid (VBS) transition, where vortex excitations carrying Z2 magnetic flux—so-called visons—condense. We show that these vison excitations can couple directly to the external electromagnetic field, even though they carry neither spin nor charge. This is possible via a magnetoelastic coupling mechanism recently identified. [Potter, Senthil, and Lee, arXiv:1301.3495; Hao, Phys. Rev. B 85, 174432 (2012)] For the case of transitions to a 36-site unit cell VBS state, the corresponding finite ac conductivity has a specific power-law frequency dependence, which is related to the crossover exponent of the quantum critical point. The visons’ contribution to the optical conductivity at transitions to VBS states with a 12-site unit cell vanishes, however.

We compute current correlators of the CPN−1 field theory in 2+1 dimensions, both at the critical point and in the phase with spontaneously broken SU(N) symmetry. Universal constants are obtained to next-to-leading order in the 1/N expansion. Implications are noted for quantum critical points of antiferromagnets and their vicinity.