Tensor network approach to the fully frustrated XY model on a kagome lattice with a fractional vortex-antivortex pairing transition

Abstract: We have developed a tensor network approach to the two-dimensional fully frustrated classical XY spin model on the kagome lattice, and clarified the nature of the possible phase transitions of various topological excitations.We find that the standard tensor network representation for the partition function does not work due to the strong frustrations in the low temperature limit. To avoid the direct truncation of the Boltzmann weight, based on the duality transformation, we introduce a new representation to build the tensor network with local tensors lying on the centers of the elementary triangles of the kagome lattice. Then the partition function is expressed as a product of one-dimensional transfer matrix operators, whose eigen-equation can be solved by the variational uniform matrix product state algorithm accurately. The singularity of the entanglement entropy for the one-dimensional quantum operator provides a stringent criterion for the possible phase transitions. Through a systematic numerical analysis of thermodynamic properties and correlation functions in the thermodynamic limit, we prove that the model exhibits a single Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition only, which is driven by the unbinding of $1/3$ fractional vortex-antivortex pairs determined at $T_{c}\simeq 0.075J_{1}$ accurately. The absence of long-range order of chirality or quasi-long range order of integer vortices has been verified in the whole finite temperature range. Thus the long-standing controversy about the phase transitions in this fully frustrated XY model on the kagome lattice is solved rigorously, which provides a plausible way to understand the charge-6e superconducting phase observed experimentally in the two-dimensional kagome superconductors.