Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Equilibrium fluctuations in maximally noisy extended quantum systems

  Michel Bauer, Denis Bernard, Tony Jin

  SciPost Phys. 6, 045 (2019) · published 16 April 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We introduce and study a class of models of free fermions hopping between neighbouring sites with random Brownian amplitudes. These simple models describe stochastic, diffusive, quantum, unitary dynamics. We focus on periodic boundary conditions and derive the complete stationary distribution of the system. It is proven that the generating function of the latter is provided by the Harish-Chandra-Itzykson-Zuber integral which allows us to access all fluctuations of the system state. The steady state is characterized by non trivial correlations which have a topological nature. Diagrammatic tools appropriate for the study of these correlations are presented. In the thermodynamic large system size limit, the system approaches a non random equilibrium state plus occupancy and coherence fluctuations of magnitude scaling proportionally with the inverse of the square root of the volume. The large deviation function for those fluctuations is determined. Although decoherence is effective on the mean steady state, we observe that sub-leading fluctuating coherences are dynamically produced from the inhomogeneities of the initial occupancy profile.

  34 citations

• Multiparameter quantum critical metrology

  Giovanni Di Fresco, Bernardo Spagnolo, Davide Valenti, Angelo Carollo

  SciPost Phys. 13, 077 (2022) · published 3 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Single parameter estimation is known to benefit from extreme sensitivity to parameter changes in quantum critical systems. However, the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters is generally limited due to the incompatibility arising from the quantum nature of the underlying system. A key question is whether quantum criticality may also play a positive role in reducing the incompatibility in the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters. We argue that this is generally the case and verify this prediction in paradigmatic quantum many-body systems close to first and second order phase tran- sitions. The antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic 1-D Ising chain with both transverse and longitudinal fields are analysed across different regimes and close to criticality.

  33 citations

• Hot and heavy dark matter from a weak scale phase transition

  Iason Baldes, Yann Gouttenoire, Filippo Sala

  SciPost Phys. 14, 033 (2023) · published 14 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We point out that dark matter which is produced non-adiabatically in a phase transition (PT) with fast bubble walls receives a boost in velocity which leads to long free-streaming lengths. We find that this could be observed via the suppressed matter power spectrum for dark matter masses around $\mathbf{ 10^8 - 10^9}$ GeV and energy scales of the PT around $\mathbf{ 10^{2} - 10^3}$ GeV. The PT should take place at the border of the supercooled regime, i.e. approximately when the Universe becomes vacuum dominated. This work offers novel physics goals for galaxy surveys, Lyman-$\alpha$, stellar stream, lensing, and 21-cm observations, and connects these to the gravitational waves from such phase transitions, and more speculatively to possible telescope signals of heavy dark matter decay.

  33 citations

• Comments on foliated gauge theories and dualities in 3+1d

  Po-Shen Hsin, Kevin Slagle

  SciPost Phys. 11, 032 (2021) · published 17 August 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the properties of foliated gauge fields and construct several foliated field theories in 3+1d that describe foliated fracton orders both with and without matter, including the recent hybrid fracton models. These field theories describe Abelian or non-Abelian gauge theories coupled to foliated gauge fields, and they fall into two classes of models that we call the electric models and the magnetic models. We show that these two classes of foliated field theories enjoy a duality. We also construct a model (using foliated gauge fields and an exactly solvable lattice Hamiltonian model) for a subsystem-symmetry protected topological (SSPT) phase, which is analogous to a one-form symmetry protected topological phase, with the subsystem symmetry acting on codimension-two subregions. We construct the corresponding gauged SSPT phase as a foliated two-form gauge theory. Some instances of the gauged SSPT phase are a variant of the X-cube model with the same ground state degeneracy and the same fusion, but different particle statistics.

  33 citations

• Statistics of correlation functions in the random Heisenberg chain

  Luis Colmenarez, Paul A. McClarty, Masudul Haque, David J. Luitz

  SciPost Phys. 7, 064 (2019) · published 21 November 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Ergodic quantum many-body systems satisfy the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). However, strong disorder can destroy ergodicity through many-body localization (MBL) -- at least in one dimensional systems -- leading to a clear signal of the MBL transition in the probability distributions of energy eigenstate expectation values of local operators. For a paradigmatic model of MBL, namely the random-field Heisenberg spin chain, we consider the full probability distribution of eigenstate correlation functions across the entire phase diagram. We find gaussian distributions at weak disorder, as predicted by pure ETH. At intermediate disorder -- in the thermal phase -- we find further evidence for anomalous thermalization in the form of heavy tails of the distributions. In the MBL phase, we observe peculiar features of the correlator distributions: a strong asymmetry in $S_i^z S_{i+r}^z$ correlators skewed towards negative values; and a multimodal distribution for spin-flip correlators. A quantitative quasi-degenerate perturbation theory calculation of these correlators yields a surprising agreement of the full distribution with the exact results, revealing, in particular, the origin of the multiple peaks in the spin-flip correlator distribution as arising from the resonant and off-resonant admixture of spin configurations. The distribution of the $S_i^zS_{i+r}^z$ correlator exhibits striking differences between the MBL and Anderson insulator cases.

  33 citations

• Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated: $N$-subjettiness taggers take on jet images

  Liam Moore, Karl Nordström, Sreedevi Varma, Malcolm Fairbairn

  SciPost Phys. 7, 036 (2019) · published 24 September 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We compare the performance of a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained on jet images with dense neural networks (DNNs) trained on n-subjettiness variables to study the distinguishing power of these two separate techniques applied to top quark decays. We find that they perform almost identically and are highly correlated once jet mass information is included, which suggests they are accessing the same underlying information which can be intuitively understood as being contained in 4-, 5-, 6-, and 8-body kinematic phase spaces depending on the sample. This suggests both of these methods are highly useful for heavy object tagging and provides a tentative answer to the question of what the image network is actually learning.

  33 citations

• Universality in Anderson localization on random graphs with varying connectivity

  Piotr Sierant, Maciej Lewenstein, Antonello Scardicchio

  SciPost Phys. 15, 045 (2023) · published 3 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We perform a thorough and complete analysis of the Anderson localization transition on several models of random graphs with regular and random connectivity. The unprecedented precision and abundance of our exact diagonalization data (both spectra and eigenstates), together with new finite size scaling and statistical analysis of the graph ensembles, unveils a universal behavior which is described by two simple, integer, scaling exponents. A by-product of such analysis is a reconciliation of the tension between the results of perturbation theory coming from strong disorder and earlier numerical works, which seemed to suggest that there should be a non-ergodic region above a given value of disorder $W_{E}$ which is strictly less than the Anderson localization critical disorder $W_C$, and that of other works which suggest that there is no such region. We find that, although no separate $W_{E}$ exists from $W_C$, the length scale at which fully developed ergodicity is found diverges like $|W-W_C|^{-1}$, while the critical length over which delocalization develops is $\sim |W-W_C|^{-1/2}$. The separation of these two scales at the critical point allows for a true non-ergodic, delocalized region. In addition, by looking at eigenstates and studying leading and sub-leading terms in system size-dependence of participation entropies, we show that the former contain information about the non-ergodicity volume which becomes non-trivial already deep in the delocalized regime. We also discuss the quantitative similarities between the Anderson transition on random graphs and many-body localization transition.

  33 citations

• Momentum-space and real-space Berry curvatures in Mn$_{3}$Sn

  Xiaokang Li, Liangcai Xu, Huakun Zuo, Alaska Subedi, Zengwei Zhu, Kamran Behnia

  SciPost Phys. 5, 063 (2018) · published 18 December 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Mn$_{3}$X (X= Sn, Ge) are noncollinear antiferromagnets hosting a large anomalous Hall effect (AHE). Weyl nodes in the electronic dispersions are believed to cause this AHE, but their locus in the momentum space is yet to be pinned down. We present a detailed study of the Hall conductivity tensor and magnetization in Mn$_{3}$Sn crystals and find that in the presence of a moderate magnetic field, spin texture sets the orientation of the $k$-space Berry curvature with no detectable in-plane anisotropy due to the $Z_6$ symmetry of the underlying lattice. We quantify the energy cost of domain nucleation and show that themultidomain regime is restricted to a narrow field window. Comparing the field dependence of AHE and magnetization, we find that there is a distinct component in the AHE which does not scale with magnetization when the domain walls are erected. This so-called `topological' Hall effect provides indirect evidence for a non-coplanar spin components and real-space Berry curvature in domain walls.

  33 citations

• Continuous Néel-VBS quantum phase transition in non-local one-dimensional systems with SO(3) symmetry

  Chao-Ming Jian, Yichen Xu, Xiao-Chuan Wu, Cenke Xu

  SciPost Phys. 10, 033 (2021) · published 12 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  One dimensional $(1d)$ interacting systems with local Hamiltonians can be studied with various well-developed analytical methods. Recently novel $1d$ physics was found numerically in systems with either spatially nonlocal interactions, or at the $1d$ boundary of $2d$ quantum critical points, and the critical fluctuation in the bulk also yields effective nonlocal interactions at the boundary. This work studies the edge states at the $1d$ boundary of $2d$ strongly interacting symmetry protected topological (SPT) states, when the bulk is driven to a disorder-order phase transition. We will take the $2d$ Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki (AKLT) state as an example, which is a SPT state protected by the $SO(3)$ spin symmetry and spatial translation. We found that the original $(1+1)d$ boundary conformal field theory of the AKLT state is unstable due to coupling to the boundary avatar of the bulk quantum critical fluctuations. When the bulk is fixed at the quantum critical point, within the accuracy of our expansion method, we find that by tuning one parameter at the boundary, there is a generic direct transition between the long range antiferromagnetic N\'{e}el order and the valence bond solid (VBS) order. This transition is very similar to the Néel-VBS transition recently found in numerical simulation of a spin-1/2 chain with nonlocal spatial interactions. Connections between our analytical studies and recent numerical results concerning the edge states of the $2d$ AKLT-like state at a bulk quantum phase transition will also be discussed.

  33 citations

• Generalized hydrodynamics regime from the thermodynamic bootstrap program

  Axel Cortés Cubero, Miłosz Panfil

  SciPost Phys. 8, 004 (2020) · published 13 January 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Within the generalized hydrodynamics (GHD) formalism for quantum integrable models, it is possible to compute simple expressions for a number of correlation functions at the Eulerian scale. Specializing to integrable relativistic field theories, we show the same correlators can be computed as a sum over form factors, the GHD regime corresponding to the leading contribution with one particle-hole pair on a finite energy-density background. The thermodynamic bootstrap program (TBP) formalism was recently introduced as an axiomatic approach to computing such finite-energy-density form factors for integrable field theories. We derive a new axiom within the TBP formalism from which we easily recover the predicted GHD Eulerian correlators. We also compute higher form factor contributions, with more particle-hole pairs, within the TBP, allowing for the computation of correlation functions in the diffusive, and beyond, GHD regimes. The two particle-hole form factors agree with expressions recently conjectured within the~GHD.

  33 citations