Low-temperature transition of 2d random-bond Ising model and quantum infinite randomness

Abstract

At low temperatures, the classical two-dimensional random bond Ising model undergoes a frustration-driven ferromagnet-to-paramagnet transition controlled by a zero-temperature fixed point separating ferromagnet and spin glass phases. We show that this critical point can be understood through a renormalization group transformation that constructs the ground state of the Ising model through a sequence of Hamiltonians that, starting with an unfrustrated model, iteratively adds in frustration until the target Hamiltonian is reached. Via a mapping of the thermodynamics of the 2d Ising model to the spectral properties of a related Hermitian matrix -- the Hamiltonian of a noninteracting quantum problem -- this RG procedure corresponds to an iterative diagonalization of the quantum Hamiltonian. The flow toward zero temperature in the Ising picture manifests as a flow toward infinite randomness in the spectrum of the quantum Hamiltonian, with the log gap of the Hamiltonian scaling as a power of the system size: $\log \varepsilon_{\it min}^{-1} \sim L^\psi$. The tunneling exponent $\psi$ is equal to the spin stiffness exponent $\theta_c$ characterizing the zero-temperature fixed point.