Single-worldline theory for a dissipative Mott transition
Abstract
In one dimension at zero temperature, local baths with spectral exponent s can stabilize a compressible, non-superfluid dissipative phase between the Mott insulator and Luttinger liquid. The dissipative-to-Mott transition is accessible neither to perturbative renormalization-group methods nor to the free-fermion description of the conventional Mott transition. Here, we show it is governed by the worldline of a single doped excitation, whose geometrical roughness determines the critical exponents. Without dissipation, this worldline undergoes Brownian motion, recovering β=ν=1/z=1/2. Dissipation turns it into a long-range interacting interface, yielding continuously varying exponents β=ν=1/z=s−1 for 1<s<3/2, and β=ν=1/z=0 for s<1. The same theory identifies s=3/2 as the threshold above which the dissipative phase disappears. Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of both the single-worldline theory and the original many-body model quantitatively support these predictions.
Related
- Doping-driven Mott transition from steady-state density functional theory
- Generalized unitarity method for worldline field theory
- On-shell recursion and soft theorems for worldline quantum field theory
- Schwinger--Keldysh worldline effective field theory for quantum black holes: dissipation, noise and decoherence
- Orbital-selective electronic modes induced by doping and originating from distinct spin excitations: an essential feature of orbital-selective Mott transition
BibTeX
@misc{bouverotdupuis2026singleworldline,
title = {{Single-worldline theory for a dissipative Mott transition}},
author = {Oscar Bouverot-Dupuis and Alberto Rosso and Laura Foini},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.00086},
eprint = {2607.00086},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00086},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Single-worldline theory for a dissipative Mott transition
AU - Oscar Bouverot-Dupuis
AU - Alberto Rosso
AU - Laura Foini
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.00086
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00086
AB - In one dimension at zero temperature, local baths with spectral exponent s can stabilize a compressible, non-superfluid dissipative phase between the Mott insulator and Luttinger liquid. The dissipative-to-Mott transition is accessible neither to perturbative renormalization-group methods nor to the free-fermion description of the conventional Mott transition. Here, we show it is governed by the worldline of a single doped excitation, whose geometrical roughness determines the critical exponents. Without dissipation, this worldline undergoes Brownian motion, recovering β=ν=1/z=1/2. Dissipation turns it into a long-range interacting interface, yielding continuously varying exponents β=ν=1/z=s−1 for 1<s<3/2, and β=ν=1/z=0 for s<1. The same theory identifies s=3/2 as the threshold above which the dissipative phase disappears. Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of both the single-worldline theory and the original many-body model quantitatively support these predictions.
ER -