Continuous quantum phase transition between two topologically distinct valence bond solid states associated with the same spin value

Abstract

We propose a simple one-dimensional spin-2 Hamiltonian, which exhibits two topologically distinct valence bond solid states in different exactly solvable limits. We then construct the phase diagram and study the quantum phase transition between these states using the infinite time evolving block decimation algorithms. From the scaling relation between the entanglement entropy and correlation length, we find that the central charge for the underlying critical conformal field theory is $c=2$.