Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The Dark Machines Anomaly Score Challenge: Benchmark Data and Model Independent Event Classification for the Large Hadron Collider

  T. Aarrestad, M. van Beekveld, M. Bona, A. Boveia, S. Caron, J. Davies, A. De Simone, C. Doglioni, J. M. Duarte, A. Farbin, H. Gupta, L. Hendriks, L. Heinrich, J. Howarth, P. Jawahar, A. Jueid, J. Lastow, A. Leinweber, J. Mamuzic, E. Merényi, A. Morandini, P. Moskvitina, C. Nellist, J. Ngadiuba, B. Ostdiek, M. Pierini, B. Ravina, R. Ruiz de Austri, S. Sekmen, M. Touranakou, M. Vaškevičiūte, R. Vilalta, J. R. Vlimant, R. Verheyen, M. White, E. Wulff, E. Wallin, K. A. Wozniak, Z. Zhang

  SciPost Phys. 12, 043 (2022) · published 28 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We describe the outcome of a data challenge conducted as part of the Dark Machines Initiative and the Les Houches 2019 workshop on Physics at TeV colliders. The challenged aims at detecting signals of new physics at the LHC using unsupervised machine learning algorithms. First, we propose how an anomaly score could be implemented to define model-independent signal regions in LHC searches. We define and describe a large benchmark dataset, consisting of >1 Billion simulated LHC events corresponding to $10~\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. We then review a wide range of anomaly detection and density estimation algorithms, developed in the context of the data challenge, and we measure their performance in a set of realistic analysis environments. We draw a number of useful conclusions that will aid the development of unsupervised new physics searches during the third run of the LHC, and provide our benchmark dataset for future studies at https://www.phenoMLdata.org. Code to reproduce the analysis is provided at https://github.com/bostdiek/DarkMachines-UnsupervisedChallenge.

  82 citations

• Exotic $\mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetries, duality, and fractons in 3+1-dimensional quantum field theory

  Nathan Seiberg, Shu-Heng Shao

  SciPost Phys. 10, 003 (2021) · published 8 January 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Following our earlier analyses of nonstandard continuum quantum field theories, we study here gapped systems in 3+1 dimensions, which exhibit fractonic behavior. In particular, we present three dual field theory descriptions of the low-energy physics of the X-cube model. A key aspect of our constructions is the use of discontinuous fields in the continuum field theory. Spacetime is continuous, but the fields are not.

  82 citations

• Effective universality in quantum gravity

  Astrid Eichhorn, Peter Labus, Jan M. Pawlowski, Manuel Reichert

  SciPost Phys. 5, 031 (2018) · published 4 October 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the asymptotic safety scenario for a scalar-gravity system. This system contains two avatars of the dynamical Newton coupling, a gravitational self-coupling and a scalar-graviton coupling. We uncover an effective universality for the dynamical Newton coupling on the quantum level: its momentum-dependent avatars are in remarkable quantitative agreement in the scaling regime of the UV fixed point. For the background Newton coupling, this effective universality is not present, but qualitative agreement remains.

  82 citations

• Majorana chain and Ising model - (non-invertible) translations, anomalies, and emanant symmetries

  Nathan Seiberg, Shu-Heng Shao

  SciPost Phys. 16, 064 (2024) · published 1 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the symmetries of closed Majorana chains in 1+1d, including the translation, fermion parity, spatial parity, and time-reversal symmetries. The algebra of the symmetry operators is realized projectively on the Hilbert space, signaling anomalies on the lattice, and constraining the long-distance behavior. In the special case of the free Hamiltonian (and small deformations thereof), the continuum limit is the 1+1d free Majorana CFT. Its continuum chiral fermion parity $(-1)^{F_\text{L}}$ emanates from the lattice translation symmetry. We find a lattice precursor of its mod 8 't Hooft anomaly. Using a Jordan-Wigner transformation, we sum over the spin structures of the lattice model (a procedure known as the GSO projection), while carefully tracking the global symmetries. In the resulting bosonic model of Ising spins, the Majorana translation operator leads to a non-invertible lattice translation symmetry at the critical point. The non-invertible Kramers-Wannier duality operator of the continuum Ising CFT emanates from this non-invertible lattice translation of the transverse-field Ising model.

  81 citations

• Reconstructing the graviton

  Alfio Bonanno, Tobias Denz, Jan M. Pawlowski, Manuel Reichert

  SciPost Phys. 12, 001 (2022) · published 4 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We reconstruct the Lorentzian graviton propagator in asymptotically safe quantum gravity from Euclidean data. The reconstruction is applied to both the dynamical fluctuation graviton and the background graviton propagator. We prove that the spectral function of the latter necessarily has negative parts similar to, and for the same reasons, as the gluon spectral function. In turn, the spectral function of the dynamical graviton is positive. We argue that the latter enters cross sections and other observables in asymptotically safe quantum gravity. Hence, its positivity may hint at the unitarity of asymptotically safe quantum gravity.

  81 citations

• Energy diffusion and the butterfly effect in inhomogeneous Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev chains

  Yingfei Gu, Andrew Lucas, Xiao-Liang Qi

  SciPost Phys. 2, 018 (2017) · published 28 May 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We compute the energy diffusion constant $D$, Lyapunov time $\tau_{\text{L}}$ and butterfly velocity $v_{\text{B}}$ in an inhomogeneous chain of coupled Majorana Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models in the large $N$ and strong coupling limit. We find $D\le v_{\text{B}}^2 \tau_{\text{L}}$ from a combination of analytical and numerical approaches. Our example necessitates the sharpening of postulated transport bounds based on quantum chaos.

  79 citations

• Symmetry decomposition of negativity of massless free fermions

  Sara Murciano, Riccarda Bonsignori, Pasquale Calabrese

  SciPost Phys. 10, 111 (2021) · published 19 May 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the problem of symmetry decomposition of the entanglement negativity in free fermionic systems. Rather than performing the standard partial transpose, we use the partial time-reversal transformation which naturally encodes the fermionic statistics. The negativity admits a resolution in terms of the charge imbalance between the two subsystems. We introduce a normalised version of the imbalance resolved negativity which has the advantage to be an entanglement proxy for each symmetry sector, but may diverge in the limit of pure states for some sectors. Our main focus is then the resolution of the negativity for a free Dirac field at finite temperature and size. We consider both bipartite and tripartite geometries and exploit conformal field theory to derive universal results for the charge imbalance resolved negativity. To this end, we use a geometrical construction in terms of an Aharonov-Bohm-like flux inserted in the Riemann surface defining the entanglement. We interestingly find that the entanglement negativity is always equally distributed among the different imbalance sectors at leading order. Our analytical findings are tested against exact numerical calculations for free fermions on a lattice.

  77 citations

• Maximal Entanglement in High Energy Physics

  Alba Cervera-Lierta, José I. Latorre, Juan Rojo, Luca Rottoli

  SciPost Phys. 3, 036 (2017) · published 24 November 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze how maximal entanglement is generated at the fundamental level in QED by studying correlations between helicity states in tree-level scattering processes at high energy. We demonstrate that two mechanisms for the generation of maximal entanglement are at work: i) $s$-channel processes where the virtual photon carries equal overlaps of the helicities of the final state particles, and ii) the indistinguishable superposition between $t$- and $u$-channels. We then study whether requiring maximal entanglement constrains the coupling structure of QED and the weak interactions. In the case of photon-electron interactions unconstrained by gauge symmetry, we show how this requirement allows reproducing QED. For $Z$-mediated weak scattering, the maximal entanglement principle leads to non-trivial predictions for the value of the weak mixing angle $\theta_W$. Our results are a first step towards understanding the connections between maximal entanglement and the fundamental symmetries of high-energy physics.

  77 citations

• JT gravity at finite cutoff

  Luca V. Iliesiu, Jorrit Kruthoff, Gustavo J. Turiaci, Herman Verlinde

  SciPost Phys. 9, 023 (2020) · published 21 August 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We compute the partition function of 2D Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity at finite cutoff in two ways: (i) via an exact evaluation of the Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunctional in radial quantization and (ii) through a direct computation of the Euclidean path integral. Both methods deal with Dirichlet boundary conditions for the metric and the dilaton. In the first approach, the radial wavefunctionals are found by reducing the constraint equations to two first order functional derivative equations that can be solved exactly, including factor ordering. In the second approach we perform the path integral exactly when summing over surfaces with disk topology, to all orders in perturbation theory in the cutoff. Both results precisely match the recently derived partition function in the Schwarzian theory deformed by an operator analogous to the $T\overline{T}$ deformation in 2D CFTs. This equality can be seen as concrete evidence for the proposed holographic interpretation of the $T\overline{T}$ deformation as the movement of the AdS boundary to a finite radial distance in the bulk.

  76 citations

• Emergence of curved light-cones in a class of inhomogeneous Luttinger liquids

  Jérôme Dubail, Jean-Marie Stéphan, Pasquale Calabrese

  SciPost Phys. 3, 019 (2017) · published 6 September 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The light-cone spreading of entanglement and correlation is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of homogeneous extended quantum systems. Here we point out that a class of inhomogenous Luttinger liquids (those with a uniform Luttinger parameter $K$) at low energy display the universal phenomenon of curved light cones: gapless excitations propagate along the geodesics of the metric $ds^2=dx^2+v(x)^2 d\tau^2$, with $v(x)$ being the calculable spatial dependent velocity induced by the inhomogeneity. We confirm our findings with explicit analytic and numerical calculations both in- and out-of-equilibrium for a Tonks-Girardeau gas in a harmonic potential and in lattice systems with artificially tuned hamiltonian density.

  76 citations