Commensurate-incommensurate Mott transition without magnetic field: emergence of nematic Luttinger liquid in XXZ chain

Abstract: We investigate the zero-magnetization phase diagram of a spin-1/2 chain with competing ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor exchange couplings in the strongly interacting regime. Using density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations, we discover two successive commensurate-incommensurate transitions of the non-conformal Pokrovsky-Talapov universality class, occurring (even) at zero magnetic field. The first transition marks the condensation of bound pairs of magnons into a critical phase with central charge $c=2$, emerging from a gapped period-4 phase. At the second transition, an incommensurate quadrupolar (or nematic) Luttinger liquid forms out of a gapped phase separation state, via the pairwise condensation of domain walls. We argue that both transitions involve the same underlying incommensurate nematic Luttinger liquid, and that the $c=2$ phase can be understood as a coexistence of a conventional (single-magnon type) and quadrupolar (two-magnon type) Luttinger liquids. Our results demonstrate that frustration alone is sufficient to drive continuous commensurate-incommensurate transitions of Mott type and stabilise incommensurate quasi-long-range order without doping.