Work

Stability of the symmetry-protected topological phase and Ising transitions in a disordered U(1) quantum link model on a ladder

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We revisit the U(1) quantum link model in a ladder geometry, finding, by finite-size scaling, that the critical exponent $ν=1$ and the central charge $c=1/2$ are consistent with the Ising universality class for all phase transitions observed. A blind application of the Harris criterion would suggest that this criticality is lost in the presence of the disorder. It turns out not to be the case. For the disorder affecting ladder's rung hoppings only, we have found that the transitions survive disappearing only for quite strong disorder. The disorder in the ladder's legs destroys the nonzero mass phase criticality, while the symmetry-protected topological phase for zero mass survives a small disorder. The observed robustness against disorder is explained qualitatively using field-theoretic arguments.

Source: Physical review. B./Physical review. B

DOI: 10.1103/vksd-5gpn

Authors: Mykhailo V. Rakov, Luca Tagliacozzo, Maciej Lewenstein, Jakub Zakrzewski, Titas Chanda

Institutions: Jagiellonian University, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto de Física Fundamental, Institute of Photonic Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Language: English

Topic: Quantum many-body systems

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green