Universal Signatures of Fractionalized Quantum Critical Points

Abstract

Breaking Up the Indivisible The famous Millikan oil drop experiment demonstrated that electric charge is quantized and cannot be divided into parts smaller than that of an electron. Decades later, the fractional quantum Hall effect was discovered that could only be explained through the existence of quasi-particles of fractional charge. Now, Isakov et al. (p. 193 ) numerically demonstrate the existence of an even more exotic object, a fractionalized quantum critical point (QCP), in the so-called Kagome lattice of bosons. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations were used to measure the critical exponents and revealed the fractionalization by comparison with a QCP of real bosons.