Strong randomness criticality in the scratched XY model

Abstract

We study the finite-temperature superfluid transition in a modified two-dimensional (2D) XY model with power-law distributed "scratch"-like bond disorder. As its exponent decreases, the disorder grows stronger and the mechanism driving the superfluid transition changes from conventional vortex-pair unbinding to a strong randomness criticality (termed scratched-XY criticality) characterized by a non-universal jump of the superfluid stiffness. The existence of the scratched-XY criticality at finite temperature and its description by an asymptotically exact semi-renormalization group theory, previously developed for the superfluid-insulator transition in one-dimensional disordered quantum systems, is numerically proven by designing a model with minimal finite size effects. Possible experimental implementations are discussed.