Contributor info: Dr Damien Barbier

Damien Barbier

SciPost Phys. 18, 115 (2025) · published 31 March 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We study the binary symmetric perceptron model, and in particular its atypical solutions. While the solution-space of this problem is dominated by isolated configurations, it is also solvable for a certain range of constraint density $\alpha$ and threshold $\kappa$. We provide in this paper a statistical measure probing sequences of solutions, where two consecutive elements shares a strong overlap. After simplifications, we test its predictions by comparing it to Monte-Carlo simulations. We obtain good agreement and show that connected states with a Markovian correlation profile can fully decorrelate from their initialization only for $\kappa>\kappa_{\rm no-mem.\, state}$ ($\kappa_{\rm no-mem.\, state}\sim \sqrt{0.91\log(N)}$ for $\alpha=0.5$ and $N$ being the dimension of the problem). For $\kappa<\kappa_{\rm no-mem.\, state}$, we show that decorrelated sequences still exist but have a non-trivial correlations profile. To study this regime we introduce an Ansatz for the correlations that we label as the nested Markov chain.

Damien Barbier, Leticia F. Cugliandolo, Gustavo S. Lozano, Nicolás Nessi

SciPost Phys. 13, 048 (2022) · published 2 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We build and analytically calculate the Generalised Gibbs Ensemble partition function of the integrable Soft Neumann Model. This is the model of a classical particle which is constrained to move, on average over the initial conditions, on an $N$ dimensional sphere, and feels the effect of anisotropic harmonic potentials. We derive all relevant averaged static observables in the (thermodynamic) $N\rightarrow\infty$ limit. We compare them to their long-term dynamic averages finding excellent agreement in all phases of a non-trivial phase diagram determined by the characteristics of the initial conditions and the amount of energy injected or extracted in an instantaneous quench. We discuss the implications of our results for the proper Neumann model in which the spherical constraint is imposed strictly.

Xhek Turkeshi, Damien Barbier, Leticia F. Cugliandolo, Marco Schirò, Marco Tarzia

SciPost Phys. 12, 189 (2022) · published 9 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We discuss and compare two recently proposed toy models for anomalous transport and Griffiths effects in random systems near the Many-Body Localization transitions: the random dephasing model, which adds thermal inclusions in an Anderson Insulator as local Markovian dephasing channels that heat up the system, and the random Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) approach which models them in terms of ensembles of random regular graphs. For these two settings we discuss and compare transport and dissipative properties and their statistics. We show that both types of dissipation lead to similar Griffiths-like phenomenology, with the GOE bath being less effective in thermalising the system due to its finite bandwidth. We then extend these models to the case of a quasi-periodic potential as described by the André-Aubry-Harper model coupled to random thermal inclusions, that we show to display, for large strength of the quasiperiodic potential, a similar phenomenology to the one of the purely random case. In particular, we show the emergence of subdiffusive transport and broad statistics of the local density of states, suggestive of Griffiths like effects arising from the interplay between quasiperiodic localization and random coupling to the baths.