Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Operator Entanglement in Local Quantum Circuits II: Solitons in Chains of Qubits

  Bruno Bertini, Pavel Kos, Tomaz Prosen

  SciPost Phys. 8, 068 (2020) · published 28 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We provide exact results for the dynamics of local-operator entanglement in quantum circuits with two-dimensional wires featuring ultralocal solitons, i.e. single-site operators which, up to a phase, are simply shifted by the time evolution. We classify all circuits allowing for ultralocal solitons and show that only dual-unitary circuits can feature moving ultralocal solitons. Then, we rigorously prove that if a circuit has an ultralocal soliton moving to the left (right), the entanglement of local operators initially supported on even (odd) sites saturates to a constant value and its dynamics can be computed exactly. Importantly, this does not bound the growth of complexity in chiral circuits, where solitons move only in one direction, say to the left. Indeed, in this case we observe numerically that operators on the odd sublattice have unbounded entanglement. Finally, we present a closed-form expression for the local-operator entanglement entropies in circuits with ultralocal solitons moving in both directions. Our results hold irrespectively of integrability.

  37 citations

• Operator Entanglement in Local Quantum Circuits I: Chaotic Dual-Unitary Circuits

  Bruno Bertini, Pavel Kos, Tomaz Prosen

  SciPost Phys. 8, 067 (2020) · published 28 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The entanglement in operator space is a well established measure for the complexity of the quantum many-body dynamics. In particular, that of local operators has recently been proposed as dynamical chaos indicator, i.e. as a quantity able to discriminate between quantum systems with integrable and chaotic dynamics. For chaotic systems the local-operator entanglement is expected to grow linearly in time, while it is expected to grow at most logarithmically in the integrable case. Here we study local-operator entanglement in dual-unitary quantum circuits, a class of "statistically solvable" quantum circuits that we recently introduced. We identify a class of "completely chaotic" dual-unitary circuits where the local-operator entanglement grows linearly and we provide a conjecture for its asymptotic behaviour which is in excellent agreement with the numerical results. Interestingly, our conjecture also predicts a "phase transition" in the slope of the local-operator entanglement when varying the parameters of the circuits.

  72 citations

• Collective oscillations of a two-component Fermi gas on the repulsive branch

  Tomasz Karpiuk, Piotr T. Grochowski, Mirosław Brewczyk, Kazimierz Rzążewski

  SciPost Phys. 8, 066 (2020) · published 21 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We calculate frequencies of collective oscillations of two-component Fermi gas that is kept on the repulsive branch of its energy spectrum. Not only is a paramagnetic phase explored, but also a ferromagnetically separated one. Both in-, and out-of-phase perturbations are investigated, showing contributions from various gas excitations. Additionally, we compare results coming from both time-dependent Hartree-Fock and density-functional approaches.

  5 citations

• On duality between Cosserat elasticity and fractons

  Andrey Gromov, Piotr Surówka

  SciPost Phys. 8, 065 (2020) · published 21 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a dual formulation of the Cosserat theory of elasticity. In this theory a local element of an elastic body is described in terms of local displacement and local orientation. Upon the duality transformation these degrees of freedom map onto a coupled theory of a vector-valued one-form gauge field and an ordinary $U(1)$ gauge field. We discuss the degrees of freedom in the corresponding gauge theories, the defect matter and coupling to the curved space.

  28 citations

• A bound on thermal relativistic correlators at large spacelike momenta

  Souvik Banerjee, Kyriakos Papadodimas, Suvrat Raju, Prasant Samantray, Pushkal Shrivastava

  SciPost Phys. 8, 064 (2020) · published 20 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider thermal Wightman correlators in a relativistic quantum field theory in the limit where the spatial momenta of the insertions become large while their frequencies stay fixed. We show that, in this limit, the size of these correlators is bounded by $e^{-\beta R}$, where $R$ is the radius of the smallest sphere that contains the polygon formed by the momenta. We show that perturbative quantum field theories can saturate this bound through suitably high-order loop diagrams. We also consider holographic theories in $d$-spacetime dimensions, where we show that the leading two-point function of generalized free-fields saturates the bound in $d = 2$ and is {\em below} the bound for $d > 2$. We briefly discuss interactions in holographic theories and conclude with a discussion of several open problems.

  8 citations

• The negativity contour: a quasi-local measure of entanglement for mixed states

  Jonah Kudler-Flam, Hassan Shapourian, Shinsei Ryu

  SciPost Phys. 8, 063 (2020) · published 20 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this paper, we study the entanglement structure of mixed states in quantum many-body systems using the $\textit{negativity contour}$, a local measure of entanglement that determines which real-space degrees of freedom in a subregion are contributing to the logarithmic negativity and with what magnitude. We construct an explicit contour function for Gaussian states using the fermionic partial-transpose. We generalize this contour function to generic many-body systems using a natural combination of derivatives of the logarithmic negativity. Though the latter negativity contour function is not strictly positive for all quantum systems, it is simple to compute and produces reasonable and interesting results. In particular, it rigorously satisfies the positivity condition for all holographic states and those obeying the quasi-particle picture. We apply this formalism to quantum field theories with a Fermi surface, contrasting the entanglement structure of Fermi liquids and holographic (hyperscale violating) non-Fermi liquids. The analysis of non-Fermi liquids show anomalous temperature dependence of the negativity depending on the dynamical critical exponent. We further compute the negativity contour following a quantum quench and discuss how this may clarify certain aspects of thermalization.

  27 citations

• Anomaly matching in the symmetry broken phase: Domain walls, CPT, and the Smith isomorphism

  Itamar Hason, Zohar Komargodski, Ryan Thorngren

  SciPost Phys. 8, 062 (2020) · published 17 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Symmetries in Quantum Field Theory may have 't Hooft anomalies. If the symmetry is unbroken in the vacuum, the anomaly implies a nontrivial low-energy limit, such as gapless modes or a topological field theory. If the symmetry is spontaneously broken, for the continuous case, the anomaly implies low-energy theorems about certain couplings of the Goldstone modes. Here we study the case of spontaneously broken discrete symmetries, such as Z/2 and T. Symmetry breaking leads to domain walls, and the physics of the domain walls is constrained by the anomaly. We investigate how the physics of the domain walls leads to a matching of the original discrete anomaly. We analyze the symmetry structure on the domain wall, which requires a careful analysis of some properties of the unbreakable CPT symmetry. We demonstrate the general results on some examples and we explain in detail the mod 4 periodic structure that arises in the Z/2 and T case. This gives a physical interpretation for the Smith isomorphism, which we also extend to more general abelian groups. We show that via symmetry breaking and the analysis of the physics on the wall, the computations of certain discrete anomalies are greatly simplified. Using these results we perform new consistency checks on the infrared phases of 2+1 dimensional QCD.

  34 citations

• Hall anomaly and moving vortex charge in layered superconductors

  Assa Auerbach, Daniel P. Arovas

  SciPost Phys. 8, 061 (2020) · published 17 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Magnetotransport theory of layered superconductors in the flux flow steady state is revisited. Longstanding controversies concerning observed Hall sign reversals are resolved. The conductivity separates into a Bardeen-Stephen vortex core contribution, and a Hall conductivity due to moving vortex charge. This charge, which is responsible for Hall anomaly, diverges logarithmically at weak magnetic field. Its values can be extracted from magetoresistivity data by extrapolation of vortex core Hall angle from the normal phase. Hall anomalies in YBCO, BSCCO, and NCCO data are consistent with theoretical estimates based on doping dependence of London penetration depths. In the appendices, we derive the Streda formula for the hydrodynamical Hall conductivity, and refute previously assumed relevance of Galilean symmetry to Hall anomalies.

  9 citations

• Asymptotic temperature of a lossy condensate

  Isabelle Bouchoule, Max Schemmer

  SciPost Phys. 8, 060 (2020) · published 16 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We monitor the time evolution of the temperature of phononic collective modes in a one-dimensional quasicondensate submitted to losses. At long times the ratio between the temperature and the energy scale $mc^2$, where $m$ is the atomic mass and $c$ the sound velocity takes, within a precision of 20\%, an asymptotic value. This asymptotic value is observed while $mc^2$ decreases in time by a factor as large as 2.5. Moreover this ratio is shown to be independent on the loss rate and on the strength of interactions. These results confirm theoretical predictions and the measured stationary ratio is in quantitative agreement with the theoretical calculations.

  10 citations

• The friction of tilted skates on ice

  J. M. J. van Leeuwen

  SciPost Phys. 8, 059 (2020) · published 16 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The friction felt by a speed skater is calculated as function of the velocity and tilt angle of the skate. This calculation is an extension of the more common theory of friction of upright skates. Not only in rounding a curve the skate has to be tilted, but also in straightforward skating small tilt angles occur, which turn out to be of noticeable influence on the friction. As for the upright skate the friction remains fairly insensitive of the velocities occurring in speed skating.

  3 citations