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Quantum critical dynamical response of the twisted Kitaev spin chain

Uliana E. Khodaeva1, Dmitry L. Kovrizhin2, and Johannes Knolle1,3,4

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 045120 – Published 12 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/884v-7tqh

Abstract

The dynamical structure factor of the transverse field Ising model (TFIM) shows universal power-law divergence at its quantum critical point, signatures of which have been arguably observed in inelastic neutron scattering studies of quantum spin chain materials, for example CoNb2O6. However, it has recently been suggested that its microscopic description is better captured in terms of a twisted Kitaev spin chain (TKSC) with bond-anisotropic couplings. Here, we present exact results for the dynamical structure factor of the TKSC across its quantum critical point, analyzing both the universal low-frequency response and the non-universal high-energy features. In addition, we explore extensions of the model including broken glide symmetry as well as the case of random, and incommensurate magnetic fields. Notably, in the latter case, the fermionic excitations exhibit a localization-delocalization transition, which is manifest in the dynamical response as a distinct signature at finite frequency. We discuss the relevance of these features for the observation of quantum critical response in experiments.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 045120– Published 12 January, 2026
  • Received 23 June 2025
  • Revised 4 December 2025
  • Accepted 15 December 2025
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