Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Inhomogeneous quantum quenches in the sine-Gordon theory

  Dávid X. Horváth, Spyros Sotiriadis, Márton Kormos, Gábor Takács

  SciPost Phys. 12, 144 (2022) · published 3 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study inhomogeneous quantum quenches in the attractive regime of the sine-Gordon model. In our protocol, the system is prepared in an inhomogeneous initial state in finite volume by coupling the topological charge density operator to a Gaussian external field. After switching off the external field, the subsequent time evolution is governed by the homogeneous sine-Gordon Hamiltonian. Varying either the interaction strength of the sine-Gordon model or the amplitude of the external source field, an interesting transition is observed in the expectation value of the soliton density. This affects both the initial profile of the density and its time evolution and can be summarised as a steep transition between behaviours reminiscent of the Klein-Gordon, and the free massive Dirac fermion theory with initial external fields of high enough magnitude. The transition in the initial state is also displayed by the classical sine-Gordon theory and hence can be understood by semi-classical considerations in terms of the presence of small amplitude field configurations and the appearance of soliton excitations, which are naturally associated with bosonic and fermionic excitations on the quantum level, respectively. Features of the quantum dynamics are also consistent with this correspondence and comparing them to the classical evolution of the density profile reveals that quantum effects become markedly pronounced during the time evolution. These results suggest a crossover between the dominance of bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom whose precise identification in terms of the fundamental particle excitations can be rather non-trivial. Nevertheless, their interplay is expected to influence the sine-Gordon dynamics in arbitrary inhomogeneous settings.

  18 citations

• Front dynamics in the XY chain after local excitations

  Viktor Eisler, Florian Maislinger

  SciPost Phys. 8, 037 (2020) · published 6 March 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the time evolution of magnetization and entanglement for initial states with local excitations, created upon the ferromagnetic ground state of the XY chain. For excitations corresponding to a single or two well separated domain walls, the magnetization profile has a simple hydrodynamic limit, which has a standard interpretation in terms of quasiparticles. In contrast, for a spin-flip we obtain an interference term, which has to do with the nonlocality of the excitation in the fermionic basis. Surprisingly, for the single domain wall the hydrodynamic limit of the entropy and magnetization profiles are found to be directly related. Furthermore, the entropy profile is additive for the double domain wall, whereas in case of the spin-flip excitation one has a nontrivial behaviour.

  18 citations

• A classical density functional from machine learning and a convolutional neural network

  Shang-Chun Lin, Martin Oettel

  SciPost Phys. 6, 025 (2019) · published 26 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use machine learning methods to approximate a classical density functional. As a study case, we choose the model problem of a Lennard Jones fluid in one dimension where there is no exact solution available and training data sets must be obtained from simulations. After separating the excess free energy functional into a "repulsive" and an "attractive" part, machine learning finds a functional in weighted density form for the attractive part. The density profile at a hard wall shows good agreement for thermodynamic conditions beyond the training set conditions. This also holds for the equation of state if it is evaluated near the training temperature. We discuss the applicability to problems in higher dimensions.

  18 citations

• Global form of flavor symmetry groups in 4d N=2 theories of class S

  Lakshya Bhardwaj

  SciPost Phys. 12, 183 (2022) · published 7 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We provide a systematic method to deduce the global form of flavor symmetry groups in 4d N=2 theories obtained by compactifying 6d N=(2,0) superconformal field theories (SCFTs) on a Riemann surface carrying regular punctures and possibly outer-automorphism twist lines. Apriori, this method only determines the group associated to the manifest part of the flavor symmetry algebra, but often this information is enough to determine the group associated to the full enhanced flavor symmetry algebra. Such cases include some interesting and well-studied 4d N=2 SCFTs like the Minahan-Nemeschansky theories. The symmetry groups obtained via this method match with the symmetry groups obtained using a Lagrangian description if such a description arises in some duality frame. Moreover, we check that the proposed symmetry groups are consistent with the superconformal indices available in the literature. As another application, our method finds distinct global forms of flavor symmetry group for pairs of interacting 4d N=2 SCFTs (recently pointed out in the literature) whose Coulomb branch dimensions, flavor algebras and levels coincide (along with other invariants), but nonetheless are distinct SCFTs.

  18 citations

• Metallic and insulating stripes and their relation with superconductivity in the doped Hubbard model

  Luca F. Tocchio, Arianna Montorsi, Federico Becca

  SciPost Phys. 7, 021 (2019) · published 12 August 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The dualism between superconductivity and charge/spin modulations (the so-called stripes) dominates the phase diagram of many strongly-correlated systems. A prominent example is given by the Hubbard model, where these phases compete and possibly coexist in a wide regime of electron dopings for both weak and strong couplings. Here, we investigate this antagonism within a variational approach that is based upon Jastrow-Slater wave functions, including backflow correlations, which can be treated within a quantum Monte Carlo procedure. We focus on clusters having a ladder geometry with $M$ legs (with $M$ ranging from $2$ to $10$) and a relatively large number of rungs, thus allowing us a detailed analysis in terms of the stripe length. We find that stripe order with periodicity $\lambda=8$ in the charge and $2\lambda=16$ in the spin can be stabilized at doping $\delta=1/8$. Here, there are no sizable superconducting correlations and the ground state has an insulating character. A similar situation, with $\lambda=6$, appears at $\delta=1/6$. Instead, for smaller values of dopings, stripes can be still stabilized, but they are weakly metallic at $\delta=1/12$ and metallic with strong superconducting correlations at $\delta=1/10$, as well as for intermediate (incommensurate) dopings. Remarkably, we observe that spin modulation plays a major role in stripe formation, since it is crucial to obtain a stable striped state upon optimization. The relevance of our calculations for previous density-matrix renormalization group results and for the two-dimensional case is also discussed.

  18 citations

• Charged quantum fields in AdS$_2$

  Dionysios Anninos, Diego M. Hofman, Jorrit Kruthoff

  SciPost Phys. 7, 054 (2019) · published 23 October 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider quantum field theory near the horizon of an extreme Kerr black hole. In this limit, the dynamics is well approximated by a tower of electrically charged fields propagating in an $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ invariant AdS$_2$ geometry endowed with a constant, symmetry preserving background electric field. At large charge the fields oscillate near the AdS$_2$ boundary and no longer admit a standard Dirichlet treatment. From the Kerr black hole perspective, this phenomenon is related to the presence of an ergosphere. We discuss a definition for the quantum field theory whereby we 'UV' complete AdS$_2$ by appending an asymptotically two dimensional Minkowski region. This allows the construction of a novel observable for the flux-carrying modes that resembles the standard flat space S-matrix. We relate various features displayed by the highly charged particles to the principal series representations of $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$. These representations are unitary and also appear for massive quantum fields in dS$_2$. Both fermionic and bosonic fields are studied. We find that the free charged massless fermion is exactly solvable for general background, providing an interesting arena for the problem at hand.

  17 citations

• A conjecture on the minimal size of bound states

  Ben Freivogel, Thomas Gasenzer, Arthur Hebecker, Sascha Leonhardt

  SciPost Phys. 8, 058 (2020) · published 16 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We conjecture that, in a renormalizable effective quantum field theory where the heaviest stable particle has mass $m$, there are no bound states with radius below $1/m$ (Bound State Conjecture). We are motivated by the (scalar) Weak Gravity Conjecture, which can be read as a statement forbidding certain bound states. As we discuss, versions for uncharged particles and their generalizations have shortcomings. This leads us to the suggestion that one should only constrain rather than exclude bound objects. In the gravitational case, the resulting conjecture takes the sharp form of forbidding the adiabatic construction of black holes smaller than $1/m$. But this minimal bound-state radius remains non-trivial as $M_\text{P}\to \infty$, leading us to suspect a feature of QFT rather than a quantum gravity constraint. We find support in a number of examples which we analyze at a parametric level.

  17 citations

• Curvature effects on phase transitions in chiral magnets

  Kostiantyn V. Yershov, Volodymyr P. Kravchuk, Denis D. Sheka, Ulrich K. Rößler

  SciPost Phys. 9, 043 (2020) · published 1 October 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Periodical equilibrium states of magnetization exist in chiral ferromagnetic films, if the constant of antisymmetric exchange (Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction) exceeds some critical value. Here, we demonstrate that this critical value can be significantly modified in curved film. The competition between symmetric and antisymmetric exchange interactions in a curved film can lead to a new type of domain wall which is inclined with respect to the cylinder axis. The wall structure is intermediate between Bloch and N\'eel ones. The exact analytical solutions for phase boundary curves and the new domain wall are obtained.

  17 citations

• Flux-closure domains in high aspect ratio electroless-deposited CoNiB nanotubes

  Michal Staňo, Sandra Schaefer, Alexis Wartelle, Maxime Rioult, Rachid Belkhou, Alessandro Sala, Tevfik Onur Menteş, Andrea Locatelli, Laurent Cagnon, Beatrix Trapp, Sebastian Bochmann, Sylvain Martin, Eric Gautier, Jean-Christophe Toussaint, Wolfgang Ensinger, Olivier Fruchart

  SciPost Phys. 5, 038 (2018) · published 25 October 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We report the imaging of magnetic domains in ferromagnetic CoNiB nanotubes with very long aspect ratio, fabricated by electroless plating. While axial magnetization is expected for long tubes made of soft magnetic materials, we evidence series of azimuthal domains. We tentatively explain these by the interplay of anisotropic strain and/or grain size, with magneto-elasticity and/or anisotropic interfacial magnetic anisotropy. This material could be interesting for dense data storage, as well as curvature-induced magnetic phenomena such as the non-reciprocity of spin-wave propagation.

  17 citations

• Non-Wilson-Fisher kinks of $O(N)$ numerical bootstrap: from the deconfined phase transition to a putative new family of CFTs

  Yin-Chen He, Junchen Rong, Ning Su

  SciPost Phys. 10, 115 (2021) · published 26 May 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  It is well established that the $O(N)$ Wilson-Fisher (WF) CFT sits at a kink of the numerical bounds from bootstrapping four point function of $O(N)$ vector. Moving away from the WF kinks, there indeed exists another family of kinks (dubbed non-WF kinks) on the curve of $O(N)$ numerical bounds. Different from the $O(N)$ WF kinks that exist for arbitary $N$ in $2<d<4$ dimensions, the non-WF kinks exist in arbitrary dimensions but only for a large enough $N>N_c(d)$ in a given dimension $d$. In this paper we have achieved a thorough understanding for few special cases of these non-WF kinks. The first case is the $O(4)$ bootstrap in 2d, where the non-WF kink turns out to be the $SU(2)_1$ Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) model, and all the $SU(2)_{k>2}$ WZW models saturate the numerical bound on the left side of the kink. We further carry out dimensional continuation of the 2d $SU(2)_1$ kink towards the 3d $SO(5)$ deconfined phase transition. We find the kink disappears at around $d=2.7$ dimensions indicating the $SO(5)$ deconfined phase transition is weakly first order. The second interesting observation is, the $O(2)$ bootstrap bound does not show any kink in 2d ($N_c=2$), but is surprisingly saturated by the 2d free boson CFT (also called Luttinger liquid) all the way on the numerical curve. The last case is the $N=\infty$ limit, where the non-WF kink sits at $(\Delta_\phi, \Delta_T)=(d-1, 2d)$ in $d$ dimensions. We manage to write down its analytical four point function in arbitrary dimensions, which equals to the subtraction of correlation functions of a free fermion theory and generalized free theory. An important feature of this solution is the existence of a full tower of conserved higher spin current. We speculate that a new family of CFTs will emerge at non-WF kinks for finite $N$, in a similar fashion as $O(N)$ WF CFTs originating from free boson at $N=\infty$.

  17 citations