Topological or not? A unified pattern description in the one-dimensional anisotropic quantum XY model with a transverse field

Abstract: The nature of phase transitions involving the questions why and how phase transitions take place has not been sufficiently touched in the literature. In contrast, the current attention to certain extent still focus on the description of critical phenomena and the classification of the associated phase transition along with the Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson paradigm, where the key issue is to identify phenomenologically order parameters and related symmetries. This brings the question to topological phase transitions (TPTs), where no obvious order parameter and the broken symmetry are identified. Here we present a unified pattern description of the second-order quantum phase transition (QPT) and TPT, both involved in the one-dimensional anisotropic quantum XY model in a transverse field, which contains the transverse Ising model (TIM) as a limit case. Away from the TIM, the XY model enters the ferromagnetic phase (marked by a second-order QPT or a direct TPT) as increasing ferromagentic exchange coupling, a series of TPTs occur, which are absent in the TIM. The TPTs behave like the first-order QPTs. In the isotropic and large exchange coupling cases, the ground state of the XY model is dominated by two topologically different vortices along positive and negative direction of the transverse field. We confirm the above conclusion by analyzing the energy contributions of the patterns to the ground state and calculating the ground state pattern occupations of the XY model. The results have been obtained in a unified and self-evident way and answer the questions why and how the QPT and TPTs take place in the XY model.