Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Born again

  Jorge G. Russo, Paul K. Townsend

  SciPost Phys. 16, 124 (2024) · published 13 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Born's original 1933 theory of nonlinear electrodynamics (in contrast to the later Born-Infeld theory) is acausal for strong fields. We explore the issue of strong-field causality violation in families of theories containing Born and/or Born-Infeld, and many variants that have been previously proposed in contexts that include cosmology and black hole physics. Many of these variants are acausal and hence unphysical. A notable exception is the modified Born-Infeld theory with ModMax as its conformal weak-field limit.

  2 citations

• Goodness of fit by Neyman-Pearson testing

  Gaia Grosso, Marco Letizia, Maurizio Pierini, Andrea Wulzer

  SciPost Phys. 16, 123 (2024) · published 13 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Neyman-Pearson strategy for hypothesis testing can be employed for goodness of fit if the alternative hypothesis is selected from data by exploring a rich parametrised family of models, while controlling the impact of statistical fluctuations. The New Physics Learning Machine (NPLM) methodology has been developed as a concrete implementation of this idea, to target the detection of new physical effects in the context of high energy physics collider experiments. In this paper we conduct a comparison of this approach to goodness of fit with others, in particular with classifier-based strategies that share strong similarities with NPLM. From our comparison, NPLM emerges as the more sensitive test to small departures of the data from the expected distribution and not biased towards detecting specific types of anomalies. These features make it suited for agnostic searches for new physics at collider experiments. Its deployment in other scientific and industrial scenarios should be investigated.

• Higher-group symmetry of (3+1)D fermionic $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory: Logical CCZ, CS, and T gates from higher symmetry

  Maissam Barkeshli, Po-Shen Hsin, Ryohei Kobayashi

  SciPost Phys. 16, 122 (2024) · published 7 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  It has recently been understood that the complete global symmetry of finite group topological gauge theories contains the structure of a higher-group. Here we study the higher-group structure in (3+1)D $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory with an emergent fermion, and point out that pumping chiral $p+ip$ topological states gives rise to a $\mathbb{Z}_{8}$ 0-form symmetry with mixed gravitational anomaly. This ordinary symmetry mixes with the other higher symmetries to form a 3-group structure, which we examine in detail. We then show that in the context of stabilizer quantum codes, one can obtain logical CCZ and CS gates by placing the code on a discretization of $T^3$ (3-torus) and $T^2 \rtimes_{C_2} S^1$ (2-torus bundle over the circle) respectively, and pumping $p+ip$ states. Our considerations also imply the possibility of a logical $T$ gate by placing the code on $\mathbb{RP}^3$ and pumping a $p+ip$ topological state.

• Anomalous criticality coexists with giant cluster in the uniform forest model

  Hao Chen, Jesús Salas, Youjin Deng

  SciPost Phys. 16, 121 (2024) · published 6 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show by extensive simulations that the whole supercritical phase of the three-dimensional uniform forest model simultaneously exhibits an infinite tree and a rich variety of critical phenomena. Besides typical scalings like algebraically decaying correlation, power-law distribution of cluster sizes, and divergent correlation length, a number of anomalous behaviors emerge. The fractal dimensions for off-giant trees take different values when being measured by linear system size or gyration radius. The giant-tree size displays two-length scaling fluctuations, instead of following the central-limit theorem.

• Phase transitions of wave packet dynamics in disordered non-Hermitian systems

  Helene Spring, Viktor Könye, Fabian A. Gerritsma, Ion Cosma Fulga, Anton R. Akhmerov

  SciPost Phys. 16, 120 (2024) · published 3 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Disorder can localize the eigenstates of one-dimensional non-Hermitian systems, leading to an Anderson transition with a critical exponent of 1. We show that, due to the lack of energy conservation, the dynamics of individual, real-space wave packets follows a different behavior. Both transitions between localization and unidirectional amplification, as well as transitions between distinct propagating phases become possible. The critical exponent of the transition is close to 1/2 in propagating-propagating and (de)localization transitions.

• Non-minimal coupling, negative null energy, and effective field theory

  Jackson R. Fliss, Ben Freivogel, Eleni-Alexandra Kontou, Diego Pardo Santos

  SciPost Phys. 16, 119 (2024) · published 2 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The non-minimal coupling of scalar fields to gravity has been claimed to violate energy conditions, leading to exotic phenomena such as traversable wormholes, even in classical theories. In this work we adopt the view that the non-minimal coupling can be viewed as part of an effective field theory (EFT) in which the field value is controlled by the theory's cutoff. Under this assumption, the average null energy condition, whose violation is necessary to allow traversable wormholes, is obeyed both classically and in the context of quantum field theory. In addition, we establish a type of "smeared" null energy condition in the non-minimally coupled theory, showing that the null energy averaged over a region of spacetime obeys a state dependent bound, in that it depends on the allowed field range. We finally motivate our EFT assumption by considering when the gravity plus matter path integral remains semi-classically controlled.

  1 citation

• Monopoles in Dirac spin liquids and their symmetries from instanton calculus

  Shankar Ganesh, Joseph Maciejko

  SciPost Phys. 16, 118 (2024) · published 2 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Dirac spin liquid (DSL) is a two-dimensional (2D) fractionalized Mott insulator featuring massless Dirac spinon excitations coupled to a compact U(1) gauge field, which allows for flux-tunneling instanton events described by magnetic monopoles in (2+1)D Euclidean spacetime. The state-operator correspondence of conformal field theory has been used recently to define associated monopole operators and determine their quantum numbers, which encode the microscopic symmetries of conventional ordered phases proximate to the DSL. In this work, we utilize semiclassical instanton methods not relying on conformal invariance to construct monopole operators directly in (2+1)D spacetime as instanton-induced 't Hooft vertices, i.e., fermion-number-violating effective interactions originating from zero modes of the Euclidean Dirac operator in an instanton background. In the presence of a flavor-adjoint fermion mass, resummation of the instanton gas is shown to select the correct monopole to be proliferated, in accordance with predictions of the state-operator correspondence. We also show that our instanton-based approach is able to determine monopole quantum numbers on bipartite lattices.

• A numerical study of bounds in the correlations of fractional quantum Hall states

  Prashant Kumar, Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane

  SciPost Phys. 16, 117 (2024) · published 1 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We numerically compute the guiding center static structure factor $\bar S(k)$ of various fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states to $\mathcal{O}(k\ell)^6$ where $k$ is the wavenumber and $\ell$ is the magnetic length. Employing density matrix renormalization group on an infinite cylinder of circumference $L_y$, we study the two-dimensional limit using $L_y/\xi \gg 1$, where $\xi$ is the correlation length. The main findings of our work are: 1) the ground states that deviate away from the ideal conformal block wavefunctions, do not saturate the Haldane bound, and 2) the coefficient of $O(k\ell)^6$ term appears to be bounded above by a value predicted by field theories proposed in the literature. The first finding implies that the graviton mode is not maximally chiral for experimentally relevant FQH states.

• Weakly interacting Bose gas with two-body losses

  Chang Liu, Zheyu Shi, Ce Wang

  SciPost Phys. 16, 116 (2024) · published 1 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the many-body dynamics of weakly interacting Bose gases with two-particle losses. We show that both the two-body interactions and losses in atomic gases may be tuned by controlling the inelastic scattering process between atoms by an optical Feshbach resonance. Interestingly, the low-energy behavior of the scattering amplitude is governed by a single parameter, i.e. the complex $s$-wave scattering length $a_c$. The many-body dynamics are thus described by a Lindblad master equation with complex scattering length. We solve this equation by applying the Bogoliubov approximation in analogy to the closed systems. Various peculiar dynamical properties are discovered, some of them may be regarded as the dissipative counterparts of the celebrated results in closed Bose gases. For example, we show that the next-order correction to the mean-field particle decay rate is to the order of $|n a_c^{3}|^{1/2}$, which is an analogy of the Lee-Huang-Yang correction of Bose gases. It is also found that there exists a dynamical symmetry of symplectic group Sp$(4,\mathbb{C})$ in the quadratic Bogoliubov master equation, which is an analogy of the SU(1,1) dynamical symmetry of the corresponding closed system. We further confirmed the validity of the Bogoliubov approximation by comparing its results with a full numerical calculation in a double-well toy model. Generalizations of other alternative approaches such as the dissipative version of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and hydrodynamic theory are also discussed in the last.

• Proximity-induced gapless superconductivity in two-dimensional Rashba semiconductor in magnetic field

  Serafim S. Babkin, Andrew P. Higginbotham, Maksym Serbyn

  SciPost Phys. 16, 115 (2024) · published 1 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Two-dimensional semiconductor-superconductor heterostructures form the foundation of numerous nanoscale physical systems. However, measuring the properties of such heterostructures, and characterizing the semiconductor in-situ is challenging. A recent experimental study by [Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 107701 (2022)] was able to probe the semiconductor within the heterostructure using microwave measurements of the superfluid density. This work revealed a rapid depletion of superfluid density in semiconductor, caused by the in-plane magnetic field which in presence of spin-orbit coupling creates so-called Bogoliubov Fermi surfaces. The experimental work used a simplified theoretical model that neglected the presence of non-magnetic disorder in the semiconductor, hence describing the data only qualitatively. Motivated by experiments, we introduce a theoretical model describing a disordered semiconductor with strong spin-orbit coupling that is proximitized by a superconductor. Our model provides specific predictions for the density of states and superfluid density. Presence of disorder leads to the emergence of a gapless superconducting phase, that may be viewed as a manifestation of Bogoliubov Fermi surface. When applied to real experimental data, our model showcases excellent quantitative agreement, enabling the extraction of material parameters such as mean free path and mobility, and estimating $g$-tensor after taking into account the orbital contribution of magnetic field. Our model can be used to probe in-situ parameters of other superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures and can be further extended to give access to transport properties.