Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The one-loop tadpole in the geoSMEFT

  Tyler Corbett

  SciPost Phys. 11, 097 (2021) · published 26 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Making use of the geometric formulation of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory we calculate the one-loop tadpole diagrams to all orders in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory power counting. This work represents the first calculation of a one-loop amplitude beyond leading order in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, and discusses the potential to extend this methodology to perform similar calculations of observables in the near future.

  4 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

• Gaining insights on anyon condensation and 1-form symmetry breaking across a topological phase transition in a deformed toric code model

  Joe Huxford, Dung Xuan Nguyen, Yong Baek Kim

  SciPost Phys. 15, 253 (2023) · published 22 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We examine the condensation and confinement mechanisms exhibited by a deformed toric code model proposed in [Castelnovo and Chamon, Phys. Rev. B 77, 054433 (2008)]. The model describes both sides of a phase transition from a topological phase to a trivial phase. Our findings reveal an unconventional confinement mechanism that governs the behavior of the toric code excitations within the trivial phase. Specifically, the confined magnetic charge can still be displaced without any energy cost, albeit only via the application of non-unitary operators that reduce the norm of the state. This peculiar phenomenon can be attributed to a previously known feature of the model: It maintains the non-trivial ground state degeneracy of the toric code throughout the transition. We describe how this degeneracy arises in both phases in terms of spontaneous symmetry breaking of a generalized (1-form) symmetry and explain why such symmetry breaking is compatible with the trivial phase. The present study implies the existence of subtle considerations that must be addressed in the context of recently posited connections between topological phases and broken higher-form symmetries.

  4 citations

• p-forms on the celestial sphere

  Laura Donnay, Erfan Esmaeili, Carlo Heissenberg

  SciPost Phys. 15, 026 (2023) · published 25 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We construct a basis of conformal primary wavefunctions (CPWs) for $p$-form fields in any dimension, calculating their scalar products and exhibiting the change of basis between conventional plane wave and CPW mode expansions. We also perform the analysis of the associated shadow transforms. For each family of $p$-form CPWs, we observe the existence of pure gauge wavefunctions of conformal dimension $\Delta=p$, while shadow $p$-forms of this weight are only pure gauge in the critical spacetime dimension value $D=2p+2$. We then provide a systematic technique to obtain the large-$r$ asymptotic limit near $\mathscr I$ based on the method of regions, which naturally takes into account the presence of both ordinary and contact terms on the celestial sphere. In $D=4$, this allows us to reformulate in a conformal primary language the links between scalars and dual two-forms.

  4 citations

• Field-induced magnetic states in geometrically frustrated SrEr2O4

  N. Qureshi, O. Fabelo, P. Manuel, D. D. Khalyavin, E. Lhotel, S.X.M. Riberolles, G. Balakrishnan, O. A. Petrenko

  SciPost Phys. 11, 007 (2021) · published 12 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We report an unusual in-field behaviour of SrEr2O4 for a magnetic field applied along two high-symmetry directions, the a and c axes. This geometrically frustrated magnet hosts two crystallographically inequivalent Er ions, Er1 and Er2, that are both located on triangular zigzag ladders, but only one site, Er1, forms a long-range magnetic order at low temperatures in a zero field. We follow the sequence of peculiar field induced states in SrEr2O4 with detailed single-crystal magnetisation and neutron diffraction experiments. On appli- cation of an external field along the c axis, the long-range antiferromagnetic order of the Er1 ions is rapidly destroyed and replaced, in fields between 2 and 5 kOe, by a state with shorter-range correlations. The change in correlation length coincides with a fast increase in magnetisation during the metamagnetic transition above which a long-range order is reestablished and maintained into the high fields. The high-field ferromagnet-like order is characterised by sig- nificantly different magnetic moments on the two Er sites, with the Er1 site dominating the magnetisation process. For the field applied parallel to the a axis, in the field range of 4 to 12 kOe, the planes of diffuse magnetic scat- tering observed in zero field due to the one-dimensional correlations between the Er2 moments are replaced by much more localised but still diffuse features corresponding to the establishment of an up-up-down structure associated with a one-third magnetisation plateau. Above 14 kOe, a ferromagnet-like high-field order is induced following another phase transition. For this direction of the field, the Er2 moments dictate the succession of transitions while the Er1 mo- ments remain significantly less polarised. A complete field polarisation of both Er sites is not achieved even at 50 kOe for either field direction, reflecting the strongly anisotropic nature of magnetisation process in SrEr2O4.

  4 citations

• Picking the low-hanging fruit: testing new physics at scale with active learning

  Juan Rocamonde, Louie Corpe, Gustavs Zilgalvis, Maria Avramidou, Jon Butterworth

  SciPost Phys. 13, 002 (2022) · published 15 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Since the discovery of the Higgs boson, testing the many possible extensions to the Standard Model has become a key challenge in particle physics. This paper discusses a new method for predicting the compatibility of new physics theories with existing experimental data from particle colliders. By using machine learning, the technique obtained comparable results to previous methods (>90% precision and recall) with only a fraction of their computing resources (<10%). This makes it possible to test models that were impossible to probe before, and allows for large-scale testing of new physics theories.

  4 citations

• Searching for muon to electron conversion: The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab

  Richard Bonventre on behalf of the Mu2e Collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 038 (2019) · published 21 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Mu2e experiment will measure the charged-lepton flavor violating (CLFV) neutrino-less conversion of a negative muon into an electron in the field of a nucleus. Mu2e will improve the previous measurement by four orders of magnitude, reaching a 90% C.L. limit of $8\times10^{-17}$ on the conversion rate. The experiment will reach mass scales of nearly $10^4$ TeV, far beyond the direct reach of colliders. The experiment is sensitive to a wide range of new physics, complementing and extending other CLFV searches. Mu2e is under design and construction at the Muon Campus of Fermilab; we expect to start taking physics data in 2022 with 3 years of running to achieve our target sensitivity.

  4 citations

• The Return of the Singularities: Applications of the Smeared Null Energy Condition

  Ben Freivogel, Eleni-Alexandra Kontou, Dimitrios Krommydas

  SciPost Phys. 13, 001 (2022) · published 15 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The classic singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that can be violated in semiclassical gravity. Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed by semiclassical gravity: the smeared null energy condition (SNEC), a proposed bound on the weighted average of the null energy along a finite portion of a null geodesic. We then prove a semiclassical singularity theorem using SNEC as an assumption. This theorem extends the Penrose theorem to semiclassical gravity. We also apply our bound to evaporating black holes and the traversable wormhole of Maldacena-Milekhin-Popov, and comment on the relationship of our results to other proposed semiclassical singularity theorems.

  4 citations

• Ferromagnetism of LaCoO$_3$ films

  Andrii Sotnikov, Kyo-Hoon Ahn, Jan Kuneš

  SciPost Phys. 8, 082 (2020) · published 2 June 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study ferromagnetic ordering and microscopic inhomogeneity in tensile strained LaCoO$_3$ using numerical simulations. We argue that both phenomena originate from effective superexchange interactions between atoms in the high-spin (HS) state mediated by the intermediate-spin excitations. We derive a model of the HS excitation as a bare atomic state dressed by electron and electron-hole fluctuations on the neighbor atoms. We construct a series of approximations to account for electron correlation effects responsible for HS fluctuations and magnetic exchange. The obtained amplitudes and directional dependence of magnetic couplings between the "dressed" HS states show a qualitative agreement with experimental observations and provide a new physical picture of LaCoO$_3$ films.

  4 citations

• Sub-Doppler laser cooling of $^{39}$K via the 4S$\to$5P transition

  Govind Unnikrishnan, Michael Gröbner, Hanns-Christoph Nägerl

  SciPost Phys. 6, 047 (2019) · published 18 April 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We demonstrate sub-Doppler laser cooling of $ ^{39} $K using degenerate Raman sideband cooling via the 4S$_{1/2} \rightarrow $5P$ _{1/2} $ transition at 404.8 nm. By using an optical lattice in combination with a magnetic field and optical pumping beams, we obtain a spin-polarized sample of up to $5.6 \times 10^{7}$ atoms cooled down to a sub-Doppler temperature of 4 $\mu $K, reaching a peak density of $3.9 \times 10^{9}$ atoms/cm$ ^{3} $, a phase-space density greater than $ 10^{-5} $, and an average vibrational level of $ \langle \nu \rangle=0.6 $ in the lattice. This work opens up the possibility of implementing a single-site imaging scheme in a far-detuned optical lattice utilizing shorter wavelength transitions in alkali atoms, thus allowing improved spatial resolution.

  4 citations