Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• On the resurgent structure of quantum periods

  Jie Gu, Marcos Mariño

  SciPost Phys. 15, 035 (2023) · published 28 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Quantum periods appear in many contexts, from quantum mechanics to local mirror symmetry. They can be described in terms of topological string free energies and Wilson loops, in the so-called Nekrasov-Shatashvili limit. We consider the trans-series extension of the holomorphic anomaly equations satisfied by these quantities, and we obtain exact multi-instanton solutions for these trans-series. Building on this result, we propose a unified perspective on the resurgent structure of quantum periods. We show for example that the Delabaere-Pham formula, which was originally obtained in quantum mechanical examples, is a generic feature of quantum periods. We illustrate our general results with explicit calculations for the double-well in quantum mechanics, and for the quantum mirror curve of local $\mathbb{P}^2$.

  7 citations

• Aperiodic spin chains at the boundary of hyperbolic tilings

  Pablo Basteiro, Rathindra Nath Das, Giuseppe Di Giulio, Johanna Erdmenger

  SciPost Phys. 15, 218 (2023) · published 30 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In view of making progress towards establishing a holographic duality for theories defined on a discrete tiling of the hyperbolic plane, we consider a recently proposed boundary spin chain Hamiltonian with aperiodic couplings that are chosen such as to reflect the inflation rule, i.e. the construction principle, of the bulk tiling. As a remnant of conformal symmetry, the spin degrees of freedom are arranged in multiplets of the dihedral group under which the bulk lattice is invariant. For the boundary Hamiltonian, we use strong-disorder RG techniques and evaluate correlation functions, the entanglement entropy and mutual information for the case that the ground state is in an aperiodic singlet phase. We find that two-point functions decay as a power-law with exponent equal to one. Furthermore, we consider the case that the spin variables transform in the fundamental representation of SO(N), leading to a gapless system, and find that the effective central charge obtained from the entanglement entropy scales as lnN, reflecting the number of local degrees of freedom. We also determine the dependence of this central charge on the parameters specifying the bulk tiling. Moreover, we obtain an analytical expression for the mutual information, according to which there is no phase transition at any finite value of the distance between the two intervals involved.

  7 citations

• Theory of oblique topological insulators

  Benjamin Moy, Hart Goldman, Ramanjit Sohal, Eduardo Fradkin

  SciPost Phys. 14, 023 (2023) · published 27 February 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A long-standing problem in the study of topological phases of matter has been to understand the types of fractional topological insulator (FTI) phases possible in 3+1 dimensions. Unlike ordinary topological insulators of free fermions, FTI phases are characterized by fractional $\Theta$-angles, long-range entanglement, and fractionalization. Starting from a simple family of $\mathbb{Z}_N$ lattice gauge theories due to Cardy and Rabinovici, we develop a class of FTI phases based on the physical mechanism of oblique confinement and the modern language of generalized global symmetries. We dub these phases oblique topological insulators. Oblique TIs arise when dyons—bound states of electric charges and monopoles—condense, leading to FTI phases characterized by topological order, emergent one-form symmetries, and gapped boundary states not realizable in 2+1-D alone. Based on the lattice gauge theory, we present continuum topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) for oblique TI phases involving fluctuating one-form and two-form gauge fields. We show explicitly that these TQFTs capture both the generalized global symmetries and topological orders seen in the lattice gauge theory. We also demonstrate that these theories exhibit a universal "generalized magnetoelectric effect" in the presence of two-form background gauge fields. Moreover, we characterize the possible boundary topological orders of oblique TIs, finding a new set of boundary states not studied previously for these kinds of TQFTs.

  7 citations

• The simple-cubic structure of elemental Polonium and its relation to combined charge and orbital order in other elemental chalcogens

  Ana Silva, Jasper van Wezel

  SciPost Phys. 4, 028 (2018) · published 13 June 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Polonium is the only element to crystallise into a simple cubic structure at ambient conditions. Moreover, at high temperatures it undergoes a structural phase transition into a less symmetric trigonal configuration. It has long been suspected that the strong spin-orbit coupling in Polonium is involved in both peculiarities, but the precise mechanism by which it operates remains controversial. Here, we introduce a single microscopic model capable of capturing the atomic structure of all chalcogen crystals: Selenium, Tellurium, and Polonium. We show that the strong spin-orbit coupling in Polonium suppresses the trigonal charge and orbital ordered state known to be the ground state configuration of Selenium and Tellurium, and allows the simple cubic state to prevail instead. We also confirm a recent suggestion based on ab initio calculations that a small increase in the lattice constant may effectively decrease the role of spin-orbit coupling, leading to a re-emergence of the trigonal orbital ordered state at high temperatures. We conclude that Polonium is a unique element, in which spins, orbitals, electronic charges, and lattice deformations all cooperate and collectively cause the emergence of the only elemental crystal structure with the simplest possible, cubic, lattice.

  7 citations

• Topological field theory approach to intermediate statistics

  Ward L. Vleeshouwers, Vladimir Gritsev

  SciPost Phys. 10, 146 (2021) · published 16 June 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Random matrix models provide a phenomenological description of a vast variety of physical phenomena. Prominent examples include the eigenvalue statistics of quantum (chaotic) systems, which are characterized by the spectral form factor (SFF). Here, we calculate the SFF of unitary matrix ensembles of infinite order with the weight function satisfying the assumptions of Szegö’s limit theorem. We then consider a parameter-dependent critical ensemble which has intermediate statistics characteristic of ergodic-to-nonergodic transitions such as the Anderson localization transition. This same ensemble is the matrix model of $U(N)$ Chern-Simons theory on $S^3$ , and the SFF of this ensemble is proportional to the HOMFLY invariant of (2n,2)-torus links with one component in the fundamental and one in the antifundamental representation. This is one example of a large class of ensembles with intermediate statistics arising from topological field and string theories. Indeed, the absence of a local order parameter suggests that it is natural to characterize ergodic-to-nonergodic transitions using topological tools, such as we have done here.

  7 citations

• Signal region combination with full and simplified likelihoods in MadAnalysis 5

  Gaël Alguero, Jack Y. Araz, Benjamin Fuks, Sabine Kraml

  SciPost Phys. 14, 009 (2023) · published 30 January 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The statistical combination of disjoint signal regions in reinterpretation studies uses more of the data of an analysis and gives more robust results than the single signal region approach. We present the implementation and usage of signal region combination in MadAnalysis 5 through two methods: an interface to the Pyhf package making use of statistical models in JSON-serialised format provided by the ATLAS collaboration, and a simplified likelihood calculation making use of covariance matrices provided by the CMS collaboration. The gain in physics reach is demonstrated 1.) by comparison with official mass limits for 4 ATLAS and 5 CMS analyses from the Public Analysis Database of MadAnalysis 5 for which signal region combination is currently available, and 2.) by a case study for an MSSM scenario in which both stops and sbottoms can be produced and have a variety of decays into charginos and neutralinos.

  7 citations

• Interleaved resonance decays and electroweak radiation in the Vincia parton shower

  Helen Brooks, Peter Skands, Rob Verheyen

  SciPost Phys. 12, 101 (2022) · published 22 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose a framework for high-energy interactions in which resonance decays and electroweak branching processes are interleaved with the QCD evolution in a single com- mon sequence of decreasing resolution scales. The interleaved treatment of resonance decays allows for a new treatment of finite-width effects in parton showers. At scales above their offshellness (i.e., typically Q > Γ ), resonances participate explicitly as incom- ing and outgoing states in branching processes, while they are effectively “integrated out” of the description at lower scales. We implement this formalism, together with a full set of antenna functions for branching processes involving electroweak (W/Z/H) bosons in the Vincia shower module in Pythia 8.3, and study some of the consequences

  7 citations

• An effective field theory of magneto-elasticity

  Shashin Pavaskar, Riccardo Penco, Ira Z. Rothstein

  SciPost Phys. 12, 155 (2022) · published 11 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We utilize the coset construction to derive the effective field theory of magnon-phonon interactions in (anti)-ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic insulating materials. The action is used to calculate the equations of motion which generalize the Landau-Lifshitz and stress equations to allow for magneto-acoustic couplings to all orders in the fields at lowest order in the derivative expansion. We also include the symmetry breaking effects due to Zeeman, and Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interactions. This effective theory is a toolbox for the study of magneto-elastic phenomena from first principles. As an example we use this theory to calculate the leading order contribution to the magnon decay width due to its the decay into phonons.

  7 citations

• Pairing instabilities of the Yukawa-SYK models with controlled fermion incoherence

  Wonjune Choi, Omid Tavakol, Yong Baek Kim

  SciPost Phys. 12, 151 (2022) · published 9 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The interplay of non-Fermi liquid and superconductivity born out of strong dynamical interactions is at the heart of the physics of unconventional superconductivity. As a solvable platform of the strongly correlated superconductors, we study the pairing instabilities of the Yukawa-Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (Yukawa-SYK) model, which describes spin-1/2 fermions coupled to bosons by the random, all-to-all, spin-independent and dependent Yukawa interactions. In contrast to the previously studied models, the random Yukawa couplings are sampled from a collection of Gaussian ensembles whose variances follow a continuous distribution rather than being fixed to a constant. By tuning the analytic behaviour of the distribution, we could control the fermion incoherence to systematically examine various normal states ranging from the Fermi liquid to non-Fermi liquids that are different from the conformal solution of the SYK model with a constant variance. Using the linearised Eliashberg theory, we show that the onset of the unconventional spin-triplet pairing is preferred with the spin-dependent interactions while all pairing channels show instabilities with the spin-independent interactions. Although the interactions shorten the lifetime of the fermions in the non-Fermi liquid, the same interactions also dress the bosons to strengthen the tendency to pair the incoherent fermions. As a consequence, the onset temperature $T_c$ of the pairing is enhanced in the non-Fermi liquid compared to the case of the Fermi liquid.

  7 citations

• Marginal deformations from type IIA supergravity

  Nikolay Bobev, Pieter Bomans, Fridrik Freyr Gautason, Vincent S. Min

  SciPost Phys. 10, 140 (2021) · published 10 June 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study marginal deformations of a class of three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ SCFTs that admit a holographic dual description in massive type IIA supergravity. We compute the dimension of the conformal manifold in these SCFTs and identify a special submanifold with enhanced flavor symmetry. We show how to apply the TsT transformation of Lunin-Maldacena to construct explicit supersymmetric AdS$_4$ solutions of massive type IIA supergravity with non-trivial internal fluxes that are the holographic dual of these marginal deformations. Finally, we also briefly comment on a class of RG flows between some of these SCFTs that also admit a holographic realization.

  7 citations