Gauge field and the confinement-deconfinement transition in hydrogen-bonded ferroelectrics
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Journal Volume
112
Journal Issue
24
Date Issued
2014
Author(s)
Chern, C.-H.
Abstract
Quantum melting of a ferroelectric moment in the frustrated hydrogen-bonded system with the "ice rule" is studied theoretically by using quantum Monte Carlo simulation. The large number of nearly degenerate configurations are described as the gauge degrees of freedom; i.e., the model is mapped to a lattice gauge theory, which shows the confinement-deconfinment transition (CDT). The dipole-dipole interaction J2, on the other hand, explicitly breaks the gauge symmetry leading to the ferroelectric transition at finite temperature T. It is found that the crossover from the FT to CDT manifests itself in the reduced correlation length of the polarization ξFT∼Δ(K-Kc)-ν, with Δ J2 while Kc and ν remains finite in the limit J2→0. In contrast, the Curie-Weiss-like law for the susceptibility χ and the spontaneous polarization behaves smoothly and the length scale ξCDT, related to the molecular symmetry and volume for CDT, does not reduce in this limit. © 2014 American Physical Society.
SDGs
Type
journal article