Dimensionality-Changing Transition from a Non-Fermi Liquid to a Spin-Solid in a Multichannel Kondo Lattice

It is natural to ask: what happens when an extensive number of such systems are coupled together? A simple renormalization group argument implies that in a chain of SU(N) multichannel quantum systems, where each spin is coupled to its own bath of K channels, the individual spins dynamically decouple at low energy when N >K, resulting in a `sliding' non-Fermi liquid.

Using Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations, we find evidence of a continuous, `dimensionality-changing' phase transition out of this non-Fermi liquid into a valence bond solid phase as the intersite coupling is increased. Remarkably, at the critical point, correlations exhibit a power-law behavior even along the direction in which the spins are coupled, indicating the breakdown of dynamical decoupling at the transition.