Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Electric polarization and magnetization in metals

  Perry T. Mahon, John E. Sipe

  SciPost Phys. 14, 058 (2023) · published 3 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A feature of the "modern theory" is that electric polarization is not well-defined in a metallic ground state. A different approach invokes the general existence of a complete set of exponentially localized Wannier functions, with respect to which general definitions of microscopic electronic polarization and magnetization fields, and free charge and current densities are always admitted. These definitions assume no particular initial electronic state of the crystal, and the set of microscopic fields satisfy the usual relations of classical electrodynamics. Notably, when applied to a trivial insulator initially occupying its $T=0$ ground state, the expressions for the unperturbed polarization and orbital magnetization, and for the orbital magnetoelectric polarizability tensor obtained from these different approaches can agree. However, the "modern theory of magnetization" has been extended via thermodynamic arguments to include metals and Chern insulators. We here compare with that generalization and find disagreement; the manner in which the expressions differ elucidates the distinct philosophies of these approaches. Our approach leads to the usual electrical conductivity tensor in the long-wavelength limit; in the absence of any scattering mechanisms, the dc divergence of that tensor is due to the free current density and the finite-frequency generalization of the anomalous Hall contribution arises from a combination of bound and free current densities. As well, in the limit that the electronic ground state is that of a trivial insulator, our expressions reduce to those expected for the unperturbed polarization and magnetization, and the electric susceptibility.

  5 citations

• ML-based top taggers: Performance, uncertainty and impact of tower & tracker data integration

  Rameswar Sahu, Kirtiman Ghosh

  SciPost Phys. 17, 166 (2024) · published 12 December 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Machine learning algorithms have the capacity to discern intricate features directly from raw data. We demonstrated the performance of top taggers built upon three machine learning architectures: a BDT that uses jet-level variables (high-level features, HLF) as input, a CNN (a miniature version of ResNet) trained on the jet image, and a GNN (LorentzNet) trained on the particle cloud representation of a jet utilizing the 4-momentum (low-level features, LLF) of the jet constituents as input. We found significant performance enhancement for all three classes of classifiers when trained on combined data from calorimeter towers and tracker detectors. The high resolution of the tracking data not only improved the classifier performance in the high transverse momentum region, but the information about the distribution and composition of charged and neutral constituents of the fat jets and subjets helped identify the quark/gluon origin of sub-jets and hence enhances top tagging efficiency. The LLF-based classifiers, such as CNN and GNN, exhibit significantly better performance when compared to HLF-based classifiers like BDT, especially in the high transverse momentum region. Nevertheless, the LLF-based classifiers trained on constituents' 4-momentum data exhibit substantial dependency on the jet modeling within Monte Carlo generators. The composite classifiers, formed by stacking a BDT on top of a GNN/CNN, not only enhance the performance of LLF-based classifiers but also mitigate the uncertainties stemming from the showering and hadronization model of the event generator. We have conducted a comprehensive study on the influence of the fat jet's reconstruction and labeling procedure on the efficiency of the classifiers.

  5 citations

• Mechanisms for the emergence of Gaussian correlations

  Marek Gluza, Thomas Schweigler, Mohammadamin Tajik, João Sabino, Federica Cataldini, Frederik S. Møller, Si-Cong Ji, Bernhard Rauer, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Jens Eisert, Spyros Sotiriadis

  SciPost Phys. 12, 113 (2022) · published 30 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We comprehensively investigate two distinct mechanisms leading to memory loss of non-Gaussian correlations after switching off the interactions in an isolated quantum system undergoing out-of-equilibrium dynamics. The first mechanism is based on spatial scrambling and results in the emergence of locally Gaussian steady states in large systems evolving over long times. The second mechanism, characterized as `canonical transmutation', is based on the mixing of a pair of canonically conjugate fields, one of which initially exhibits non-Gaussian fluctuations while the other is Gaussian and dominates the dynamics, resulting in the emergence of relative Gaussianity even at finite system sizes and times. We evaluate signatures of the occurrence of the two candidate mechanisms in a recent experiment that has observed Gaussification in an atom-chip controlled ultracold gas and elucidate evidence that it is canonical transmutation rather than spatial scrambling that is responsible for Gaussification in the experiment. Both mechanisms are shown to share the common feature that the Gaussian correlations revealed dynamically by the quench are already present though practically inaccessible at the initial time. On the way, we present novel observations based on the experimental data, demonstrating clustering of equilibrium correlations, analyzing the dynamics of full counting statistics, and utilizing tomographic reconstructions of quantum field states. Our work aims at providing an accessible presentation of the potential of atom-chip experiments to explore fundamental aspects of quantum field theories in quantum simulations.

  5 citations

• Analysis of the buildup of spatiotemporal correlations and their bounds outside of the light cone

  Nils O. Abeling, Lorenzo Cevolani, Stefan Kehrein

  SciPost Phys. 5, 052 (2018) · published 26 November 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In non-relativistic quantum theories the Lieb-Robinson bound defines an effective light cone with exponentially small tails outside of it. In this work we use it to derive a bound for the time evolution of the correlation function of two local disjoint observables if the initial state has a power-law decay. We show that the exponent of the power-law of the bound is identical to the initial (equilibrium) decay. We explicitly verify this result by studying the full dynamics of the susceptibilities and correlations in the exactly solvable Luttinger model after a sudden quench from the non-interacting to the interacting model.

  5 citations

• Integrable hierarchies, Hurwitz numbers and a branch point field in critical topologically massive gravity

  Yannick Mvondo-She

  SciPost Phys. 12, 132 (2022) · published 19 April 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We discuss integrable aspects of the logarithmic contribution of the partition function of cosmological critical topologically massive gravity. On one hand, written in terms of Bell polynomials which describe the statistics of set partitions, the partition function of the logarithmic fields is a generating function of the potential Burgers hierarchy. On the other hand, the polynomial variables are solutions of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation, and the partition function is a KP $\tau$ function, making more precise the solitonic nature of the logarithmic fields being counted. We show that the partition function is a generating function of Hurwitz numbers, and derive its expression. The fact that the partition function is the generating function of branched coverings gives insight on the orbifold target space. We show that the logarithmic field $\psi^{new}_{\mu \nu}$ can be regarded as a branch point field associated to the branch point $\mu l =1$.

  5 citations

• Laser-induced heating for the experimental study of critical Casimir forces with optical trapping

  Ignacio A. Martinez, Artyom Petrosyan, Sergio Ciliberto

  SciPost Phys. 15, 247 (2023) · published 20 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Critical Casimir interactions represent a perfect example of bath-induced forces at mesoscales. These forces may have a relevant role in the living systems as well as a role in the design of nanomachines fueled by environmental fluctuations. Since the thermal fluctuations are enhanced in the vicinity of a demixing point of a second-order phase transition, we can modulate the magnitude and range of these Casimir-like forces by slight changes in the temperature. Here, we consider two optical trapped colloidal beads inside a binary mixture. The Casimir interaction is controlled by warming the mixture by laser-induced heating, whose local application ensures high reproducibility. Once this two-particle system is warmed, the critical behavior of different observables allows the system to become its self-thermometer. We use this experimental scheme for analyzing the energetics of a critical colloidal system under a non-equilibrium-driven protocol. We quantify how the injected work can be dissipated to the environment as heat or stored as free energy. Indeed, our system allows us to use the fluctuation theorems framework for analyzing the performance of this critically driven toy model. Our work paves the way for future experimental studies on the non-equilibrium features of bath-induced forces and the design of critically driven nanosystems.

  5 citations

• Ferromagnets, a new anomaly, instantons, and (noninvertible) continuous translations

  Nathan Seiberg

  SciPost Phys. 18, 063 (2025) · published 21 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We discuss a large class of classical field theories with continuous translation symmetry. In the quantum theory, a new anomaly explicitly breaks this translation symmetry to a discrete symmetry. Furthermore, this discrete translation symmetry is extended by a $d-2$-form global symmetry. All these theories can be described as $U(1)$ gauge theories where Gauss law states that the system has nonzero charge density. Special cases of such systems can be phrased as theories with a compact phase space. Examples are ferromagnets and lattices in the lowest Landau level. In some cases, the broken continuous translation symmetry can be resurrected as a noninvertible symmetry. We clarify the relation between the discrete translation symmetry of the continuum theory and the discrete translation symmetry of an underlying lattice model. Our treatment unifies, clarifies, and extends earlier works on the same subject.

  5 citations

• Coloring mixed QCD/QED evolution

  Leif Gellersen, Stefan Prestel, Michael Spannowsky

  SciPost Phys. 13, 034 (2022) · published 26 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Parton showers are crucial components of high-energy physics calculations. Improving their modelling of QCD is an active research area since shower approximations are stumbling blocks for precision event generators. Naively, the interference between sub-dominant Standard-Model interactions and QCD can be of similar size to subleading QCD corrections. This article assesses the impact of QCD/QED interference effects in parton showers, by developing a sophisticated shower including QED, QCD at fixed color, and employing complete tree-level matrix element corrections for individual $N_C=3$ color configurations to embed interference. The resulting simulation indicates that QCD/QED interference effects are small for a simple test case and dwarfed by electro-weak resonance effects.

  5 citations

• Two portals to GeV sterile neutrinos: Dipole versus mixing

  Enrico Bertuzzo, Michele Frigerio

  SciPost Phys. 18, 140 (2025) · published 28 April 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Massive sterile neutrinos, also known as heavy neutral leptons, can have a mixing with active neutrinos, $\theta$, as well as a dipole coupling to the photon, $d$. We study the interplay between these two portals, considering the production from meson decays of sterile neutrinos with mass $0.1$ GeV $≲ M_N ≲ 10$ GeV, at beam-dump facilities such as NA62 and SHiP, and at the FASER2 experiment. These sterile neutrinos can be long-lived and decay into a photon in a distant detector, via the dipole operator. We find that all these experiments will be sensitive to values of $d$ which are presently unconstrained. The experimental reach varies strongly with the mass $M_N$ and the mixing $\theta$, and one observes specific correlations with the flavour of active neutrinos. The SHiP experiment will mark a jump in sensitivity: (i) it will probe a sterile dipole as small as $d\sim 10^{-8}\ \text{GeV}^{-1}$, thus testing new physics well above the electroweak scale; (ii) it may detect the active-sterile dipole to the level predicted by electroweak loops, if $\theta$ is close to the present bound.

  5 citations

• Towards traversable wormholes from force-free plasmas

  Nabil Iqbal, Simon F. Ross

  SciPost Phys. 12, 086 (2022) · published 9 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The near-horizon region of magnetically charged black holes can have very strong magnetic fields. A useful low-energy effective theory for fluctuations of the fields, coupled to electrically charged particles, is force-free electrodynamics. The low energy collective excitations include a large number of Alfven wave modes, which have a massless dispersion relation along the field worldlines. We attempt to construct traversable wormhole solutions using the negative Casimir energy of the Alfven wave modes, analogously to the recent construction using charged massless fermions. The behaviour of massless scalars in the near-horizon region implies that the size of the wormholes is strongly restricted and cannot be made large, even though the force free description is valid in a larger regime.

  5 citations