Kosterlitz-Thouless signatures in the low-temperature phase of layered three-dimensional systems

Abstract

We study the quasi-two-dimensional quantum O(2) model, a quantum generalization of the Lawrence-Doniach model, within the nonperturbative renormalization-group approach and propose a generic phase diagram for layered three-dimensional systems with an O(2)-symmetric order parameter. Below the transition temperature we identify a wide region of the phase diagram where the renormalization-group flow is quasi-two-dimensional for length scales smaller than a Josephson length $l_J$, leading to signatures of Kosterlitz-Thouless physics in the temperature dependence of physical observables. In particular the order parameter varies as a power law of the interplane coupling with an exponent which depends on the anomalous dimension (itself related to the stiffness) of the strictly two-dimensional low-temperature Kosterlitz-Thouless phase.