Phase structure of the (1+1)-dimensional massive Thirring model from matrix product states

Abstract

Employing matrix product states as an ansatz, we study the nonthermal phase structure of the (1 + 1)-dimensional massive Thirring model in the sector of a vanishing total fermion number with staggered regularization. In this paper, details of the implementation for this project are described. To depict the phase diagram of the model, we examine the entanglement entropy, the fermion bilinear condensate, and two types of correlation functions. Our investigation shows the existence of two phases, with one of them being critical and the other gapped. An interesting feature of the phase structure is that the theory with the nonzero fermion mass can be conformal. We also find clear numerical evidence that these phases are separated by a transition of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type. Results presented in this paper establish the possibility of using the matrix product states for probing this type of phase transition in quantum field theories. They can provide information for further exploration of scaling behavior, and they serve as an important ingredient for controlling the continuum extrapolation of the model.