Random-mass disorder in the critical Gross-Neveu-Yukawa models (Q2231067)

The authors address the problem widely discussed in the statistical mechanics of disordered quantum systems, and as yet not fully understood (e.g., solved), of how quenched disorder affects continuous quantum phase transitions in systems of itinerant fermions. This refers to such realistic materials like graphene and topological insulators, which are modeled in terms of relativistic \((2+1)\)-dimensional quantum field theories of the Gross-Neveu-Yukawa (GNY) type. In the present paper universal critical properties are studied for the chiral Ising, XY, and Heisenberg GNY models perturbed by quenched random-mass disorder. The paper discusses exclusively the random-mass disorder and provides a comprehensive study of chirial GNY models, that are most relevant for symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions in \((2+1)\)D gapless Dirac matter. A variety of new finite-randomness critical and multicritical points with nonzero Yukawa coupling between low-energy Dirac fields and bosonic order parameter fluctuations has been found, and their universal critical exponents have been computed. The authors develop an approach well suited to determine the long-distance behavior of the system under study, which amounts to investigating the RG flow of disorder-averaged observables. Of particular interest is the situation in which disorder produces RG flows on the critical hypersurface, that connect the clean fixed point (CFP) describing the transition in the absence of disorder to fixed points characterized by a nonzero value of the effective disorder couplings. Such disordered fixed points (DFPs) exhibit scaling behavior. Analyzing bifurcations of the renormalization-group flow, there were found instances of the fixed-point annihilation scenario -- continuously tuned by the power-law exponent of long-range disorder correlations and associated with an exponentially large crossover length, as well as the transcritical bifurcation and the supercritical Hopf bifurcation. The birth of a stable limit cycle on the critical hypersurface has been established. Several avenues for future research have been indicated.