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Collusion of Interactions and Disorder at the Superfluid-Insulator Transition: A Dirty 2d Quantum Critical Point

ORAL

Abstract

We study the stability of the Wilson-Fisher fixed point of the quantum O(2N) vector model to quenched disorder in the large-N limit. While a random mass is strongly relevant at the Gaussian fixed point, its effect is screened by the strong interactions of the Wilson-Fisher fixed point. This enables a perturbative renormalization group study of the interplay of disorder and interactions about this fixed point. We show that, in contrast to the spiralling flows obtained in earlier double-ε expansions, the theory flows directly to a quantum critical point characterized by finite disorder and interactions. The critical exponents we obtain for this transition are in remarkable agreement with numerical studies of the superfluid-Mott glass transition. We additionally discuss the stability of this fixed point to scalar and vector potential disorder and use proposed boson-fermion dualities to make conjectures regarding the effects of weak disorder on dual Abelian Higgs and Chern-Simons-Dirac fermion theories when N=1.

Presenters

  • Hart Goldman

    Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Authors

  • Hart Goldman

    Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • Alex Thomson

    Caltech, California Institute of Technology

  • Laimei Nie

    University of Chicago

  • Zhen Bi

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology