Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Black hole mirages: Electron lensing and Berry curvature effects in inhomogeneously tilted Weyl semimetals

  Andreas Haller, Suraj Hegde, Chen Xu, Christophe De Beule, Thomas L. Schmidt, Tobias Meng

  SciPost Phys. 14, 119 (2023) · published 17 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study electronic transport in Weyl semimetals with spatially varying nodal tilt profiles. We find that the flow of electrons can be guided precisely by judiciously chosen tilt profiles. In a broad regime of parameters, we show that electron flow is described well by semiclassical equations of motion similar to the ones governing gravitational attraction. This analogy provides a physically transparent tool for designing tiltronic devices like electronic lenses. The analogy to gravity circumvents the notoriously difficult full-fledged description of inhomogeneous solids. A comparison to microscopic lattice simulations shows that it is only valid for trajectories sufficiently far from analogue black holes. We finally comment on the Berry curvature-driven transverse motion and relate the latter to spin precession physics.

  4 citations

• Holographic S-fold theories at one loop

  Connor Behan

  SciPost Phys. 12, 149 (2022) · published 6 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A common feature of tree-level holography is that a correlator in one theory can serve as a generating function for correlators in another theory with less continuous symmetry. This is the case for a family of 4d CFTs with eight supercharges which have protected operators dual to gluons in the bulk. The most recent additions to this family were defined using S-folds which combine a spatial identification with an action of the S-duality group in type IIB string theory. Differences between these CFTs which have a dynamical origin first become manifest at one loop. To explore this phenomenon at the level of anomalous dimensions, we use the AdS unitarity method to bootstrap a one-loop double discontinuity. Compared to previous studies, the subsequent analysis is performed without any assumption about which special functions are allowed. Instead, the Casimir singular and Casimir regular terms are extracted iteratively in order to move from one Regge trajectory to the next. Our results show that anomalous dimensions in the presence of an S-fold are no longer rational functions of the spin.

  4 citations

• Average symmetry protected higher-order topological amorphous insulators

  Yu-Liang Tao, Jiong-Hao Wang, Yong Xu

  SciPost Phys. 15, 193 (2023) · published 14 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  While topological phases have been extensively studied in amorphous systems in recent years, it remains unclear whether the random nature of amorphous materials can give rise to higher-order topological phases that have no crystalline counterparts. Here we theoretically demonstrate the existence of higher-order topological insulators in two-dimensional amorphous systems that can host more than six corner modes, such as eight or twelve corner modes. Although individual sample configuration lacks crystalline symmetry, we find that an ensemble of all configurations exhibits an average crystalline symmetry that provides protection for the new topological phases. To characterize the topological phases, we construct two topological invariants. Even though the bulk energy gap in the topological phase vanishes in the thermodynamic limit, we show that the bulk states near zero energy are localized, as supported by the level-spacing statistics and inverse participation ratio. Our findings open an avenue for exploring average symmetry protected higher-order topological phases in amorphous systems without crystalline counterparts.

  4 citations

• Lecture notes on Berry phases and topology

  Barry Bradlyn, Mikel Iraola

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 51 (2022) · published 11 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In these notes, we review the role of Berry phases and topology in noninteracting electron systems. Topics including the adiabatic theorem, parallel transport, and Wannier functions are reviewed, with a focus on the connection to topological insulators.

  4 citations

• Testing the mechanism of lepton compositeness

  Vincenzo Afferrante, Axel Maas, René Sondenheimer, Pascal Törek

  SciPost Phys. 10, 062 (2021) · published 10 March 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Strict gauge invariance requires that physical left-handed leptons are actually bound states of the elementary left-handed lepton doublet and the Higgs field within the standard model. That they nonetheless behave almost like pure elementary particles is explained by the Fr\"ohlich-Morchio-Strocchi mechanism. Using lattice gauge theory, we test and confirm this mechanism for fermions. Though, due to the current inaccessibility of non-Abelian gauged Weyl fermions on the lattice, a model which contains vectorial leptons but which obeys all other relevant symmetries has been simulated.

  4 citations

• Integrability and quench dynamics in the spin-1 central spin XX model

  Long-Hin Tang, David M. Long, Anatoli Polkovnikov, Anushya Chandran, Pieter W. Claeys

  SciPost Phys. 15, 030 (2023) · published 26 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Central spin models provide an idealized description of interactions between a central degree of freedom and a mesoscopic environment of surrounding spins. We show that the family of models with a spin-1 at the center and XX interactions of arbitrary strength with surrounding spins is integrable. Specifically, we derive an extensive set of conserved quantities and obtain the exact eigenstates using the Bethe ansatz. As in the homogenous limit, the states divide into two exponentially large classes: bright states, in which the spin-1 is entangled with its surroundings, and dark states, in which it is not. On resonance, the bright states further break up into two classes depending on their weight on states with central spin polarization zero. These classes are probed in quench dynamics wherein they prevent the central spin from reaching thermal equilibrium. In the single spin-flip sector we explicitly construct the bright states and show that the central spin exhibits oscillatory dynamics as a consequence of the semilocalization of these eigenstates. We relate the integrability to the closely related class of integrable Richardson-Gaudin models, and conjecture that the spin-$s$ central spin XX model is integrable for any $s$.

  4 citations

• Colour unwound - disentangling colours for azimuthal asymmetries in Drell-Yan scattering

  Daniël Boer, Tom van Daal, Jonathan R. Gaunt, Tomas Kasemets, Piet J. Mulders

  SciPost Phys. 3, 040 (2017) · published 19 December 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  It has been suggested that a colour-entanglement effect exists in the Drell-Yan cross section for the 'double T-odd' contributions at low transverse momentum $Q_T$, rendering the colour structure different from that predicted by the usual factorisation formula [1]. These T-odd contributions can come from the Boer-Mulders or Sivers transverse momentum dependent distribution functions. The different colour structure should be visible already at the lowest possible order that gives a contribution to the double Boer-Mulders (dBM) or double Sivers (dS) effect, that is at the level of two gluon exchanges. To discriminate between the different predictions, we compute the leading-power contribution to the low-$Q_T$ dBM cross section at the two-gluon exchange order in the context of a spectator model. The computation is performed using a method of regions analysis with Collins subtraction terms implemented. The results conform with the predictions of the factorisation formula. In the cancellation of the colour entanglement, diagrams containing the three-gluon vertex are essential. Furthermore, the Glauber region turns out to play an important role - in fact, it is possible to assign the full contribution to the dBM cross section at the given order to the region in which the two gluons have Glauber scaling. A similar disentanglement of colour is found for the dS effect.

  4 citations

• Classical and quantum harmonic mean-field models coupled intensively and extensively with external baths

  Francesco Andreucci, Stefano Lepri, Stefano Ruffo, Andrea Trombettoni

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 036 (2022) · published 15 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the nonequilibrium steady-state of a fully-coupled network of $N$ quantum harmonic oscillators, interacting with two thermal reservoirs. Given the long-range nature of the couplings, we consider two setups: one in which the number of particles coupled to the baths is fixed (intensive coupling) and one in which it is proportional to the size $N$ (extensive coupling). In both cases, we compute analytically the heat fluxes and the kinetic temperature distributions using the nonequilibrium Green's function approach, both in the classical and quantum regimes. In the large $N$ limit, we derive the asymptotic expressions of both quantities as a function of $N$ and the temperature difference between the baths. We discuss a peculiar feature of the model, namely that the bulk temperature vanishes in the thermodynamic limit, due to a decoupling of the dynamics of the inner part of the system from the baths. At variance with usual cases, this implies that the steady state depends on the initial state of the particles in the bulk. We also show that quantum effects are relevant only below a characteristic temperature that vanishes as $1/N$. In the quantum low-temperature regime the energy flux is proportional to the universal quantum of thermal conductance.

  4 citations

• Ground-state phase diagram of quantum link electrodynamics in $(2+1)$-d

  Tomohiro Hashizume, Jad C. Halimeh, Philipp Hauke, Debasish Banerjee

  SciPost Phys. 13, 017 (2022) · published 12 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The exploration of phase diagrams of strongly interacting gauge theories coupled to matter in lower dimensions promises the identification of exotic phases and possible new universality classes, and it facilitates a better understanding of salient phenomena in Nature, such as confinement or high-temperature superconductivity. The emerging new techniques of quantum synthetic matter experiments as well as efficient classical computational methods with matrix product states have been extremely successful in one spatial dimension, and are now motivating such studies in two spatial dimensions. In this work, we consider a $\mathrm{U}(1)$ quantum link lattice gauge theory where the gauge fields, represented by spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ operators are coupled to a single flavor of staggered fermions. Using matrix product states on infinite cylinders with increasing diameter, we conjecture its phase diagram in $(2+1)$-d. This model allows us to smoothly tune between the $\mathrm{U}(1)$ quantum link and the quantum dimer models by adjusting the strength of the fermion mass term, enabling us to connect to the well-studied phases of those models. Our study reveals a rich phase diagram with exotic phases and interesting phase transitions to a potential liquid-like phase. It thus furthers the collection of gauge theory models that may guide future quantum-simulation experiments.

  4 citations

• Fusion in the periodic Temperley-Lieb algebra and connectivity operators of loop models

  Yacine Ikhlef, Alexi Morin-Duchesne

  SciPost Phys. 12, 030 (2022) · published 20 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In two-dimensional loop models, the scaling properties of critical random curves are encoded in the correlators of connectivity operators. In the dense O($n$) loop model, any such operator is naturally associated to a standard module of the periodic Temperley-Lieb algebra. We introduce a new family of representations of this algebra, with connectivity states that have two marked points, and argue that they define the fusion of two standard modules. We obtain their decomposition on the standard modules for generic values of the parameters, which in turn yields the structure of the operator product expansion of connectivity operators.

  4 citations