Fermionic multicriticality near Kekulé valence-bond ordering in honeycomb lattice (1902.08616v2)

Abstract: We analyze the possibility of emergent quantum multicritical points (MCPs) with enlarged chiral symmetry, when strongly interacting gapless Dirac fermions acquire comparable propensity toward the nucleation of Kekul\'{e} valence-bond solid (KVBS) and charge-density-wave ($N_b=1$) or $s$-wave pairing ($N_b=2$) or anti-ferromagnet ($N_b=3$) in honeycomb lattice, where $N_b$ counts the number of bosonic order parameter components. Besides the cubic terms present in the order parameter description of KVBS due to the breaking of a discrete $Z_3$ symmetry, quantum fluctuations generate new cubic vertices near the high symmetry MCPs. All cubic terms are strongly relevant at the bare level near three spatial dimensions, about which we perform a leading order renormalization group analysis of coupled Gross-Neveu-Yukawa field theory. We show that due to non-trivial Yukawa interactions among gapless bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom, all cubic terms ultimately become irrelevant at an $O(2+N_b)$ symmetric MCP, near two spatial dimensions, where $N_b=1,2,3$. Therefore, MCPs with an enlarged $O(2+N_b)$ symmetry near KVBS ordering are stable.