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Quantum dissipation arises when a large system can be split in a quantum system and an environment to which the energy of the former flows. Understanding the effect of dissipation on quantum many-body systems is of particular importance due to its potential relationship with quantum information. We propose a conceptually simple approach to introduce dissipation into interacting quantum systems in a thermodynamical context, in which every site of a one-dimensional (1D) lattice is coupled off-diagonally to its own bath. The interplay between quantum dissipation and interactions gives rise to counterintuitive interpretations such as a compressible zero-temperature state with spontaneous discrete symmetry breaking and a thermal phase transition in a 1D dissipative quantum many-body system as revealed by quantum Monte Carlo path-integral simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the ground state phase diagram of a one-dimensional hard-core bosonic model with nearest neighbor interactions (XXZ model) where every site is coupled Ohmically to an independent but identical reservoir, hereby generalizing spin-boson models to interacting spin-boson systems. We show that a bath-induced Bose liquid phase can occur in the ground state phase diagram away from half filling. This phase is compressible, gapless, and conducting but not superfluid. At half filling, only a Luttinger liquid and a charge density wave are found. The phase transition between them is of Kosterlitz-Thouless type where the Luttinger parameter takes a nonuniversal value. The applied quantum Monte Carlo method can be used for all open bosonic and unfrustrated spin systems, regardless of their dimension, filling factor, and spectrum of the dissipation as long as the quantum system couples to the bath via the density operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyhedral nematics are examples of exotic orientational phases that possess a complex internal symmetry, representing highly nontrivial ways of rotational symmetry breaking, and are subject to current experimental pursuits in colloidal and molecular systems. The classification of these phases has been known for a long time; however, their transitions to the disordered isotropic liquid phase remain largely unexplored, except for a few symmetries. In this work, we utilize a recently introduced non-Abelian gauge theory to explore the nature of the underlying nematic-isotropic transition for all three-dimensional polyhedral nematics. The gauge theory can readily be applied to nematic phases with an arbitrary point-group symmetry, including those where traditional Landau methods and the associated lattice models may become too involved to implement owing to a prohibitive order-parameter tensor of high rank or (the absence of) mirror symmetries. By means of exhaustive Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the nematic-isotropic transition is generically first-order for all polyhedral symmetries. Moreover, we show that this universal result is fully consistent with our expectation from a renormalization group approach, as well as with other lattice models for symmetries already studied in the literature. We argue that extreme fine tuning is required to promote those transitions to second-order ones. We also comment on the nature of phase transitions breaking the O(3) symmetry in general cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss how to reveal the massive Goldstone mode, often referred to as the Higgs amplitude mode, near the superfluid-to-insulator quantum critical point (QCP) in a system of two-dimensional ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices. The spectral function of the amplitude response is obtained by analytic continuation of the kinetic energy correlation function calculated by Monte Carlo methods. Our results enable a direct comparison with the recent experiment [M. Endres, T. Fukuhara, D. Pekker, M. Cheneau, P. Schauß, C. Gross, E. Demler, S. Kuhr, and I. Bloch, Nature (London) 487, 454 (2012)] and demonstrate a good agreement for temperature shifts induced by lattice modulation. Based on our numerical analysis, we formulate the necessary conditions in terms of homogeneity, detuning from the QCP and temperature in order to reveal the massive Goldstone resonance peak in spectral functions experimentally. We also propose to apply a local modulation at the trap center to overcome the inhomogeneous broadening caused by the parabolic trap confinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present spectral functions for the magnitude squared of the order parameter in the scaling limit of the two-dimensional superfluid to Mott insulator quantum phase transition at constant density, which has emergent particle-hole symmetry and Lorentz invariance. The universal functions for the superfluid, Mott insulator, and normal liquid phases reveal a low-frequency resonance which is relatively sharp and is followed by a damped oscillation (in the first two phases only) before saturating to the quantum critical plateau. The counterintuitive resonance feature in the insulating and normal phases calls for deeper understanding of collective modes in the strongly coupled (2+1)-dimensional relativistic field theory. Our results are derived from analytically continued correlation functions obtained from path-integral Monte Carlo simulations of the Bose-Hubbard model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low-temperature phase diagram of 4He adsorbed on a single graphene sheet is studied by computer simulations of a system consisting of nearly a thousand helium atoms. In the first layer, two commensurate solid phases are observed with fillings 1/3 and 7/16, respectively, separated by a domain wall phase, as well as an incommensurate crystal at a higher coverage. No evidence of a thermodynamically stable superfluid phase is found for the first adlayer. Second-layer promotion occurs at a coverage of 0.111(4) Å-2. In the second layer, two phases are observed, namely a superfluid and an incommensurate solid, with no commensurate solid intervening between these two phases. The computed phase diagram closely resembles that predicted for helium on graphite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]