Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Tunable dispersion of the edge states in the integer quantum Hall effect

  Maik Malki, Götz S. Uhrig

  SciPost Phys. 3, 032 (2017) · published 29 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Topological aspects represent currently a boosting area in condensed matter physics. Yet there are very few suggestions for technical applications of topological phenomena. Still, the most important is the calibration of resistance standards by means of the integer quantum Hall effect. We propose modifications of samples displaying the integer quantum Hall effect which render the tunability of the Fermi velocity possible by external control parameters such as gate voltages. In this way, so far unexplored possibilities arise to realize devices such as tunable delay lines and interferometers.

  4 citations

• Dissipation-driven integrable fermionic systems: from graded Yangians to exact nonequilibrium steady states

  Enej Ilievski

  SciPost Phys. 3, 031 (2017) · published 29 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using the Lindblad master equation approach, we investigate the structure of steady-state solutions of open integrable quantum lattice models, driven far from equilibrium by incoherent particle reservoirs attached at the boundaries. We identify a class of boundary dissipation processes which permits to derive exact steady-state density matrices in the form of graded matrix-product operators. All the solutions factorize in terms of vacuum analogues of Baxter's Q-operators which are realized in terms of non-unitary representations of certain finite dimensional subalgebras of graded Yangians. We present a unifying framework which allows to solve fermionic models and naturally incorporates higher-rank symmetries. This enables to explain underlying algebraic content behind most of the previously-found solutions.

  13 citations

• A tensor network study of the complete ground state phase diagram of the spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg model on the square lattice

  Ido Niesen, Philippe Corboz

  SciPost Phys. 3, 030 (2017) · published 28 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using infinite projected entangled pair states, we study the ground state phase diagram of the spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg model on the square lattice directly in the thermodynamic limit. We find an unexpected partially nematic partially magnetic phase in between the antiferroquadrupolar and ferromagnetic regions. Furthermore, we describe all observed phases and discuss the nature of the phase transitions involved.

  27 citations

• Absence of dynamical localization in interacting driven systems

  David J. Luitz, Yevgeny Bar Lev, Achilleas Lazarides

  SciPost Phys. 3, 029 (2017) · published 25 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using a numerically exact method we study the stability of dynamical localization to the addition of interactions in a periodically driven isolated quantum system which conserves only the total number of particles. We find that while even infinitesimally small interactions destroy dynamical localization, for weak interactions density transport is significantly suppressed and is asymptotically diffusive, with a diffusion coefficient proportional to the interaction strength. For systems tuned away from the dynamical localization point, even slightly, transport is dramatically enhanced and within the largest accessible systems sizes a diffusive regime is only pronounced for sufficiently small detunings.

  39 citations

• Inner products in integrable Richardson-Gaudin models

  Pieter W. Claeys, Dimitri Van Neck, Stijn De Baerdemacker

  SciPost Phys. 3, 028 (2017) · published 24 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present the inner products of eigenstates in integrable Richardson-Gaudin models from two different perspectives and derive two classes of Gaudin-like determinant expressions for such inner products. The requirement that one of the states is on-shell arises naturally by demanding that a state has a dual representation. By implicitly combining these different representations, inner products can be recast as domain wall boundary partition functions. The structure of all involved matrices in terms of Cauchy matrices is made explicit and used to show how one of the classes returns the Slavnov determinant formula. This framework provides a further connection between two different approaches for integrable models, one in which everything is expressed in terms of rapidities satisfying Bethe equations, and one in which everything is expressed in terms of the eigenvalues of conserved charges, satisfying quadratic equations.

  25 citations

• Exploring the jamming transition over a wide range of critical densities

  Misaki Ozawa, Ludovic Berthier, Daniele Coslovich

  SciPost Phys. 3, 027 (2017) · published 12 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We numerically study the jamming transition of frictionless polydisperse spheres in three dimensions. We use an efficient thermalisation algorithm for the equilibrium hard sphere fluid and generate amorphous jammed packings over a range of critical jamming densities that is about three times broader than in previous studies. This allows us to reexamine a wide range of structural properties characterizing the jamming transition. Both isostaticity and the critical behavior of the pair correlation function hold over the entire range of jamming densities. At intermediate length scales, we find a weak, smooth increase of bond orientational order. By contrast, distorted icosahedral structures grow rapidly with increasing the volume fraction in both fluid and jammed states. Surprisingly, at large scale we observe that denser jammed states show stronger deviations from hyperuniformity, suggesting that the enhanced amorphous ordering inherited from the equilibrium fluid competes with, rather than enhances, hyperuniformity. Finally, finite size fluctuations of the critical jamming density are considerably suppressed in the denser jammed states, indicating an important change in the topography of the potential energy landscape. By considerably stretching the amplitude of the critical "J-line", our work disentangles physical properties at the contact scale that are associated with jamming criticality, from those occurring at larger length scales, which have a different nature.

  41 citations

• Measurement of the dynamic charge response of materials using low-energy, momentum-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (M-EELS)

  Sean Vig, Anshul Kogar, Matteo Mitrano, Ali A. Husain, Vivek Mishra, Melinda S. Rak, Luc Venema, Peter D. Johnson, Genda D. Gu, Eduardo Fradkin, Michael R. Norman, Peter Abbamonte

  SciPost Phys. 3, 026 (2017) · published 6 October 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  One of the most fundamental properties of an interacting electron system is its frequency- and wave-vector-dependent density response function, $\chi({\bf q},\omega)$. The imaginary part, $\chi''({\bf q},\omega)$, defines the fundamental bosonic charge excitations of the system, exhibiting peaks wherever collective modes are present. $\chi$ quantifies the electronic compressibility of a material, its response to external fields, its ability to screen charge, and its tendency to form charge density waves. Unfortunately, there has never been a fully momentum-resolved means to measure $\chi({\bf q},\omega)$ at the meV energy scale relevant to modern electronic materials. Here, we demonstrate a way to measure $\chi$ with quantitative momentum resolution by applying alignment techniques from x-ray and neutron scattering to surface high-resolution electron energy-loss spectroscopy (HR-EELS). This approach, which we refer to here as ``M-EELS" allows direct measurement of $\chi''({\bf q},\omega)$ with meV resolution while controlling the momentum with an accuracy better than a percent of a typical Brillouin zone. We apply this technique to finite-{\bf q} excitations in the optimally-doped high temperature superconductor, Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+x}$ (Bi2212), which exhibits several phonons potentially relevant to dispersion anomalies observed in ARPES and STM experiments. Our study defines a path to studying the long-sought collective charge modes in quantum materials at the meV scale and with full momentum control.

  54 citations

• Bad Metals from Fluctuating Density Waves

  Luca V. Delacrétaz, Blaise Goutéraux, Sean A. Hartnoll, Anna Karlsson

  SciPost Phys. 3, 025 (2017) · published 29 September 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Bad metals have a large resistivity without being strongly disordered. In many bad metals the Drude peak moves away from zero frequency as the resistivity becomes large at increasing temperatures. We catalogue the position and width of the `displaced Drude peak' in the observed optical conductivity of several families of bad metals, showing that $\omega_\text{peak} \sim \Delta \omega \sim k_BT/\hbar$. This is the same quantum critical timescale that underpins the $T$-linear dc resistivity of many of these materials. We provide a unified theoretical description of the optical and dc transport properties of bad metals in terms of the hydrodynamics of short range quantum critical fluctuations of incommensurate density wave order. Within hydrodynamics, pinned translational order is essential to obtain the nonzero frequency peak.

  74 citations

• The Infrared Physics of Bad Theories

  Benjamin Assel, Stefano Cremonesi

  SciPost Phys. 3, 024 (2017) · published 28 September 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the complete moduli space of vacua of 3d $\mathcal{N}=4$ $U(N)$ SQCD theories with $N_f$ fundamentals, building on the algebraic description of the Coulomb branch, and deduce the low energy physics in any vacuum from the local geometry of the moduli space. We confirm previous claims for good and ugly SQCD theories, and show that bad theories flow to the same interacting fixed points as good theories with additional free twisted hypermultiplets. A Seiberg-like duality proposed for bad theories with $N \le N_f \le 2N-2$ is ruled out: the spaces of vacua of the putative dual theories are different. However such bad theories have a distinguished vacuum, which preserves all the global symmetries, whose infrared physics is that of the proposed dual. We finally explain previous results on sphere partition functions and elucidate the relation between the UV and IR $R$-symmetry in this symmetric vacuum.

  38 citations

• Probing non-thermal density fluctuations in the one-dimensional Bose gas

  Jacopo De Nardis, Miłosz Panfil, Andrea Gambassi, Leticia F. Cugliandolo, Robert Konik, Laura Foini

  SciPost Phys. 3, 023 (2017) · published 27 September 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Quantum integrable models display a rich variety of non-thermal excited states with unusual properties. The most common way to probe them is by performing a quantum quench, i.e., by letting a many-body initial state unitarily evolve with an integrable Hamiltonian. At late times, these systems are locally described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble with as many effective temperatures as their local conserved quantities. The experimental measurement of this macroscopic number of temperatures remains elusive. Here we show that they can be obtained by probing the dynamical structure factor of the system after the quench and by employing a generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem that we provide. Our procedure allows us to completely reconstruct the stationary state of a quantum integrable system from state-of-the-art experimental observations.

  20 citations