We develop a comprehensive Renormalization Group (RG) approach to criticality in open Floquet systems, where dissipation enables the system to reach a well-defined Floquet steady state of finite entropy, and all observables are synchronized with the drive. We provide a detailed description of how to combine Keldysh and Floquet formalisms to account for the critical fluctuations in the weakly and rapidly driven regime. A key insight is that a reduction to the time-averaged, static sector, is not possible close to the critical point. This guides the design of a perturbative dynamic RG approach, which treats the time-dependent, dynamic sector associated to higher harmonics of the drive, on an equal footing with the time-averaged sector. Within this framework, we develop a weak drive expansion scheme, which enables to systematically truncate the RG flow equations in powers of the inverse drive frequency $Ω^{-1}$. This allows us to show how a periodic drive inhibits scale invariance and critical fluctuations of second order phase transitions in rapidly driven open systems: Although criticality emerges in the limit $Ω^{-1}=0$, any finite drive frequency produces a scale that remains finite all through the phase transition. This is a universal mechanism that relies on the competition of the critical fluctuations within the static and dynamic sectors of the problem.
We study transitions between distinct phases of one-dimensional periodically driven (Floquet) systems. We argue that these are generically controlled by infinite-randomness fixed points of a strong-disorder renormalization group procedure. Working in the fermionic representation of the prototypical Floquet Ising chain, we leverage infinite randomness physics to provide a simple description of Floquet (multi)criticality in terms of a new type of domain wall associated with time-translational symmetry-breaking and the formation of `Floquet time crystals'. We validate our analysis via numerical s…
We present an effective field theory approach to the topological response of Floquet systems with symmetry group $G$. This is achieved by introducing a background $G$ gauge field in the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, which is suitable for far from equilibrium systems. We carry out this program for chiral topological Floquet systems (anomalous Floquet-Anderson insulators) in two spatial dimensions, and the group cohomology models of topological Floquet unitaries. These response actions serve as many-body topological invariants for topological Floquet unitaries. The effective action approach also …
We derive a new renormalization group to calculate a non-trivial critical exponent of the divergent correlation length which gives a universality classification of essential singularities in infinite-order phase transitions. This method resolves the problem of a vanishing scaling matrix. The exponent is obtained from the maximal eigenvalue of a scaling matrix in this renormalization group, as in the case of ordinary second-order phase transitions. We exhibit several nontrivial universality classes in infinite-order transitions different from the well-known Berezinski\uı-Kosterlitz-Thouless tra…
We use Floquet theory to study the maximum value of the stroboscopic group velocity in a one-dimensional tight-binding model subjected to an on-site staggered potential varying sinusoidally in time. The results obtained by numerically diagonalizing the Floquet operator are analyzed using a variety of analytical schemes. In the low frequency limit we use adiabatic theory, while in the high frequency limit the Magnus expansion of the Floquet Hamiltonian turns out to be appropriate. When the magnitude of the staggered potential is much greater or much less than the hopping, we use degenerate Floq…
Quenched randomness can lead to robust non-equilibrium phases of matter in periodically driven (Floquet) systems. Analyzing transitions between such dynamical phases requires a method capable of treating the twin complexities of disorder and discrete time-translation symmetry. We introduce a real-space renormalization group approach, asymptotically exact in the strong-disorder limit, and exemplify its use on the periodically driven interacting quantum Ising model. We analyze the universal physics near the critical lines and multicritical point of this model, and demonstrate the robustness of o…
A class of exact infinitesimal renormalization group transformations is proposed and studied. These transformations are pure changes of variables (i.e., no integration or elimination of some degrees of freedom is required) such that a saddle point approximation is more accurate, becoming, in some cases asymptotically exact as the transformations are iterated. The formalism provides a simplified and unified approach to several known renormalization groups. It also suggests some new ways in which renormalization group methods might successfully be applied. In particular, an exact gauge covariant…
Using the renormalization group approach, the Coulomb gas and the coset techniques, the effect of slightly relevant perturbations is studied for the second parafermionic field theory with the symmetry $Z\_{5}$. New fixed points are found and classified.
The flow equations of the Functional Renormalization Group are applied to the O(N)-symmetric scalar theory, for N=1 and N=4, in four Euclidean dimensions, d=4, to determine the effective potential and the renormalization function of the field in the broken phase. In our numerical analysis, the infrared limit, corresponding to the vanishing of the running momentum scale in the equations, is approached to obtain the physical values of the parameters by extrapolation. In the N=4 theory a non-perturbatively large value of the physical renormalization of the longitudinal component of the field is o…
We develop a flow renormalization approach for periodically-driven quantum systems, which reveals prethermal dynamical regimes and associated timescales via direct correspondence between real time and flow time behavior. In this formalism, the dynamical problem is recast in terms of coupling constants of the theory flowing towards an attractive fixed point that represents the thermal Floquet Hamiltonian at long times, while narrowly avoiding a series of unstable fixed points which determine distinct prethermal regimes at intermediate times. We study a class of relevant perturbations that trigg…
In this article we apply a recently invented analytical real-space renormalization group formulation which is based on numerical concepts of the density matrix renormalization group. Within a rigorous mathematical framework we construct non-perturbative renormalization group transformations for the spin-1/2 XXX Heisenberg model in the finite temperature regime. The developed renormalization group scheme allows for calculating the renormalization group flow behaviour in the temperature dependent coupling constant. The constructed renormalization group transformations are applied within the ferr…
We propose a renormalization group treatment of stochastically growing networks. As an example, we study percolation on growing scale-free networks in the framework of a real-space renormalization group approach. As a result, we find that the critical behavior of percolation on the growing networks differs from that in uncorrelated nets.
We give a holographic explanation how the renormalization group approach to singular perturbations in non-linear differential equations proposed by Chen, Goldenfeld and Oono is indeed equivalent to a renormalization group method in quantum field theories proposed by Gell-Mann and Low via AdS/CFT correspondence.
Some renormalization group approaches have been proposed during the last few years which are close in spirit to the Nightingale phenomenological procedure. In essence, by exploiting the finite size scaling hypothesis, the approximate critical behavior of the model on infinite lattice is obtained through the exact computation of some thermal quantities of the model on finite clusters. In this work some of these methods are reviewed, namely the mean field renormalization group, the effective field renormalization group and the finite size scaling renormalization group procedures. Although specia…
We consider a one-dimensional interacting spinless fermion model, which displays the well-known Luttinger liquid (LL) to charge density wave (CDW) transition as a function of the ratio between the strength of the interaction, $U$, and the hopping, $J$. We subject this system to a spatially uniform drive which is ramped up over a finite time interval and becomes time-periodic in the long time limit. We show that by using a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) approach formulated for infinite system sizes, we can access the large-time limit even when the drive induces finite heating. When…
We present a real-space renormalization group approach for the corner Hamiltonian, which is relevant to the reduced density matrix in the density matrix renormalization group. A set of self-consistent equations that the renormalized Hamiltonian should satisfy in the thermodynamic limit is also derived from the fixed point of the recursion relation for the corner Hamiltonian. We demonstrate the renormalization group algorithm for the $S=1/2$ XXZ spin chain and show that the results are consistent with the exact solution. We further examine the renormalization group for the S=1 Heisenberg spin c…
The product-wavefunction renormalization group method, which is a novel numerical renormalization group scheme proposed recently,is applied to one-dimensional quantum spin chains in a magnetic field. We draw the zero-temperature magnetization curve of the spin chains, which excellently agrees with the exact solution in the whole range of the field.
Koopman operator theory is shown to be directly related to the renormalization group. This observation allows us, with no assumption of translational invariance, to compute the critical exponents $η$ and $δ$, as well as ratios of critical exponents, of classical spin systems from single observables alone. This broadens the types of problems that the renormalization group framework can be applied to and establish universality classes of. In addition, this connection may allow for a new, data-driven way in which to find the renormalization group fixed point(s), and their relevant and irrelevant …
We use a renormalization group method, similar to that developed for random spin chains, to infer information about the layouts of cellular wireless networks.
We propose a simple derivation of renormalization group equations and Callan-Symanzik equations as decoupling theorems of the structures underlying effective field theories.
Application of asymptotic freedom to the ultraviolet stability in Euclidean quantum field theories is revisited and illustrated through the hierarchical model making also use of a few technical developments that followed the original works of Wilson on the renormalization group.
We introduce two versions of a renormalization group scheme for the equal load sharing fiber bundle model. The renormalization group is based on formulating the fiber bundle model in the language of damage mechanics. A central concept is the work performed on the fiber bundle to produce a given damage. The renormalization group conserves this work. In the first version of the renormalization group, we take advantage of ordering the strength of the individual fibers. This procedure, which is the simpler one, gives EXACT results -but cannot be generalized to other fiber bundle models such as the…