Non-Landau quantum phase transition in modulated SU(N) Heisenberg spin chains

Abstract: We investigate the nature of the quantum phase transition in modulated SU(N) Heisenberg spin chains. In the odd-N case, the transition separates a trivial non-degenerate phase to a doubly-degenerate gapped chiral PSU(N) symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase which breaks spontaneously the inversion symmetry. The transition is not an Ising transition associated to the breaking of the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ inversion symmetry, but is governed by the delocalization of the edge states of the SPT phase. In this respect, a modulated SU(N) Heisenberg spin chain provides a simple example in one dimension of a non-Landau phase transition which is described by the SU(N)$_1$ conformal field theory. We show that the chiral SPT phase exhibits fractionalized spinon excitations, which can be confined by changing the model parameters slightly.