Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The mass of the $\pi^-$

  M. Daum, D. Gotta

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 5, 010 (2021) · published 6 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The most precise values of the mass of the negatively charged pion have been determined from several measurements of X-ray wavelengths for transitions in pionic atoms at PSI. The Particle Data Group gives the average $m_{\pi^-}= (139.570 61 \pm 0.000 24) MeV/c^2$.

  4 citations

• Topological Frustration can modify the nature of a Quantum Phase Transition

  Vanja Marić, Gianpaolo Torre, Fabio Franchini, Salvatore Marco Giampaolo

  SciPost Phys. 12, 075 (2022) · published 24 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Ginzburg-Landau theory of continuous phase transitions implicitly assumes that microscopic changes are negligible in determining the thermodynamic properties of the system. In this work we provide an example that clearly contrasts with this assumption. We show that topological frustration can change the nature of a second order quantum phase transition separating two different ordered phases. Even more remarkably, frustration is triggered simply by a suitable choice of boundary conditions in a 1D chain. While with every other BC each of two phases is characterized by its own local order parameter, with frustration no local order can survive. We construct string order parameters to distinguish the two phases, but, having proved that topological frustration is capable of altering the nature of a system's phase transition, our results pose a clear challenge to the current understanding of phase transitions in complex quantum systems.

  4 citations

• Theory of oblique topological insulators

  Benjamin Moy, Hart Goldman, Ramanjit Sohal, Eduardo Fradkin

  SciPost Phys. 14, 023 (2023) · published 27 February 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A long-standing problem in the study of topological phases of matter has been to understand the types of fractional topological insulator (FTI) phases possible in 3+1 dimensions. Unlike ordinary topological insulators of free fermions, FTI phases are characterized by fractional $\Theta$-angles, long-range entanglement, and fractionalization. Starting from a simple family of $\mathbb{Z}_N$ lattice gauge theories due to Cardy and Rabinovici, we develop a class of FTI phases based on the physical mechanism of oblique confinement and the modern language of generalized global symmetries. We dub these phases oblique topological insulators. Oblique TIs arise when dyons—bound states of electric charges and monopoles—condense, leading to FTI phases characterized by topological order, emergent one-form symmetries, and gapped boundary states not realizable in 2+1-D alone. Based on the lattice gauge theory, we present continuum topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) for oblique TI phases involving fluctuating one-form and two-form gauge fields. We show explicitly that these TQFTs capture both the generalized global symmetries and topological orders seen in the lattice gauge theory. We also demonstrate that these theories exhibit a universal "generalized magnetoelectric effect" in the presence of two-form background gauge fields. Moreover, we characterize the possible boundary topological orders of oblique TIs, finding a new set of boundary states not studied previously for these kinds of TQFTs.

  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

• Generalized Lindblad master equation for measurement-induced phase transition

  Yi-Neng Zhou

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 023 (2023) · published 30 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The measurement-induced phase transition (MIPT) occurs when the system is evolving under unitary evolution together with local measurements followed by post-selection. We propose a generalized version of the Lindblad master equation as a continuous equation, to describe the dynamics of the second Rényi entropy in the MIPT. This generalized Lindblad equation explicitly takes into account the post-selection in the MIPT, which is realized as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state projection in the equation. Also, this generalized Lindblad equation preserves the Hermitian, unit trace, and positive definiteness of the density matrix. We further use the hard-core Bose-Hubbard model as a concrete example to numerically confirm that our generalized Lindblad equation is applicable to describing the MIPT.

  4 citations

• The impact of non-ideal surfaces on the solid-water interaction: a time-resolved adsorption study

  Matthias M. May, Helena Stange, Jonas Weinrich, Thomas Hannappel, Oliver Supplie

  SciPost Phys. 6, 058 (2019) · published 13 May 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The initial interaction of water with semiconductors determines the electronic structure of the solid-liquid interface. The exact nature of this interaction is, however, often unknown. Here, we study gallium phosphide-based surfaces exposed to H2O by means of in situ reflection anisotropy spectroscopy. We show that the introduction of typical imperfections in the form of surface steps or trace contaminants not only changes the dynamics of the interaction, but also its qualitative nature. This emphasises the challenges for the comparability of experiments with (idealised) electronic structure models for electrochemistry.

  4 citations

• The Boring Monopole

  Prateek Agrawal, Michael Nee

  SciPost Phys. 13, 049 (2022) · published 2 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study false vacuum decays catalysed by magnetic monopoles which act as tunnelling sites with exponentially enhanced decay rates. The field profiles describing the decay do not have the typically assumed $O(3)/O(4)$ symmetry, thus requiring an extension of the usual decay rate calculation. To numerically determine the saddle point solutions which describe the tunnelling process we use a new algorithm based on the mountain pass theorem. This method can be applied more widely to phase transitions with reduced symmetry, such as decays away from the zero and infinite temperature limits. Our results show that monopole-catalysed tunnelling can dominate over the homogeneous false vacuum decay for a wide range of parameters, significantly modify the gravitational wave signal or trigger phase transitions which would otherwise never complete. A single boring monopole in our Hubble patch may determine the lifetime of the Standard Model vacuum.

  4 citations

• Optimal control for Hamiltonian parameter estimation in non-commuting and bipartite quantum dynamics

  Shushen Qin, Marcus Cramer, Christiane P. Koch, Alessio Serafini

  SciPost Phys. 13, 121 (2022) · published 8 December 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The ability to characterise a Hamiltonian with high precision is crucial for the implementation of quantum technologies. In addition to the well-developed approaches utilising optimal probe states and optimal measurements, the method of optimal control can be used to identify time-dependent pulses applied to the system to achieve higher precision in the estimation of Hamiltonian parameters, especially in the presence of noise. Here, we extend optimally controlled estimation schemes for single qubits to non-commuting dynamics as well as two interacting qubits, demonstrating improvements in terms of maximal precision, time-stability, as well as robustness over uncontrolled protocols.

  4 citations

• Detection of Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition via Generative Adversarial Networks

  Daniele Contessi, Elisa Ricci, Alessio Recati, Matteo Rizzi

  SciPost Phys. 12, 107 (2022) · published 25 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The detection of phase transitions in quantum many-body systems with lowest possible prior knowledge of their details is among the most rousing goals of the flourishing application of machine-learning techniques to physical questions. Here, we train a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) with the Entanglement Spectrum of a system bipartition, as extracted by means of Matrix Product States ans\"atze. We are able to identify gapless-to-gapped phase transitions in different one-dimensional models by looking at the machine inability to reconstruct outsider data with respect to the training set. We foresee that GAN-based methods will become instrumental in anomaly detection schemes applied to the determination of phase-diagrams.

  4 citations

• (1,0) gauge theories on the six-sphere

  Usman Naseer

  SciPost Phys. 6, 002 (2019) · published 8 January 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We construct gauge theories with a vector-multiplet and hypermultiplets of $(1,0)$ supersymmetry on the six-sphere. The gauge coupling on the sphere depends on the polar angle. This has a natural explanation in terms of the tensor branch of $(1,0)$ theories on the six-sphere. For the vector-multiplet we give an off-shell formulation for all supersymmetries. For hypermultiplets we give an off-shell formulation for one supersymmetry. We show that the path integral for the vector-multiplet localizes to solutions of the Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation, which is a generalization of the (anti-)self duality condition to higher dimensions. For the hypermultiplet, the path integral localizes to configurations where the field strengths of two complex scalars are related by an almost complex structure.

  4 citations