Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Charge quantization and detector resolution

  Roman-Pascal Riwar

  SciPost Phys. 10, 093 (2021) · published 29 April 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Charge quantization, or the absence thereof, is a central theme in quantum circuit theory, with dramatic consequences for the predicted circuit dynamics. Very recently, the question of whether or not charge should actually be described as quantized has enjoyed renewed widespread interest, with however seemingly contradictory propositions. Here, we intend to reconcile these different approaches, by arguing that ultimately, charge quantization is not an intrinsic system property, but instead depends on the spatial resolution of the charge detector. We show that the latter can be directly probed by unique geometric signatures in the correlations of the supercurrent. We illustrate these findings at the example of Josephson junction arrays in the superinductor regime, where the transported charge appears to be continuous. Finally, we comment on potential consequences of charge quantization beyond superconducting circuits.

  4 citations

• Spin polarization induced by decoherence in a tunneling one-dimensional Rashba model

  Solmar Varela, Mayra Peralta, Vladimiro Mujica, Bertrand Berche, Ernesto Medina

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 044 (2023) · published 19 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Basic questions on the nature of spin polarization in two terminal systems and the way in which decoherence breaks Time-Reversal Symmetry (TRS) are analyzed. We exactly solve several one-dimensional models of tunneling electrons and show the interplay of spin precession and decay of the wavefunction in either a $U(1)$ magnetic field or an effective Spin-Orbit (SO) magnetic field. Spin polarization is clearly identified as the emergence of a spin component parallel to either magnetic field. We show that Onsager's reciprocity is fulfilled when time reversal symmetry is present and no spin polarization arises, no matter the barrier parameters or the SO strength. Introducing a Büttiker's decoherence probe, that preserves unitarity of time evolution, we show that breaking of TRS results in a strong spin polarization for realistic SO, and barrier strengths. We discuss the significance of these results as a very general scenario for the onset of the Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity effect (CISS).

  4 citations

• The history of the muon (g-2) experiments

  B. Lee Roberts

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 032 (2019) · published 20 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  I discuss the history of the muon $(g-2)$ measurements, beginning with the Columbia-Nevis measurement that observed parity violation in muon decay, and also measured the muon $g$-factor for the first time, finding $g_\mu=2$. The theoretical (Standard Model) value contains contributions from quantum electrodynamics, the strong interaction through hadronic vacuum polarization and hadronic light-by-light loops, as well as the electroweak contributions from the $W$, $Z$ and Higgs bosons. The subsequent experiments, first at Nevis and then with increasing precision at CERN, measured the muon anomaly $a_\mu = (g_\mu-2)/2$ down to a precision of 7.3 parts per million (ppm) The Brookhaven National Laboratory experiment E821 increased the precision to 0.54 ppm, and observed for the first time the electroweak contributions. Interestingly, the value of $a_\mu$ measured at Brookhaven appears to be larger than the Standard Model value by greater than three standard deviations. A new experiment, Fermilab E989, aims to improve on the precision by a factor of four, to clarify whether this result is a harbinger of new physics entering through loops, or from some experimental, statistical or systematic issue.

  4 citations

• Non-standard interactions in $\tau^- \to (\pi^-\eta,\pi^-\pi^0)\nu_{\tau}$ decays

  Gabriel López Castro

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 008 (2019) · published 18 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Originally thought as clean processes to study the hadronization of the weak currents, semileptonic tau lepton decays can be useful to set constraints on non-standard (NS) weak interactions. In this talk we summarize our recent studies on the effects of NS interactions in $\tau^- \to (\pi^-\pi^0,\pi^-\eta)\nu_{\tau}$ decays. We find that experimental data on these decays provide strong constraints on NS scalar and tensor interactions, respectively. Further improved measurements at Belle II and a better knowledge of necessary tensor and scalar form factors will allow to set limits on these NS interactions that are similar or better to contraints obtained from other low-energy processes

  4 citations

• Measurement induced transitions in non-Markovian free fermion ladders

  Mikheil Tsitsishvili, Dario Poletti, Marcello Dalmonte, Giuliano Chiriacò

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 011 (2024) · published 12 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Recently there has been an intense effort to understand measurement induced transitions, but we still lack a good understanding of non-Markovian effects on these phenomena. To that end, we consider two coupled chains of free fermions, one acting as the system of interest, and one as a bath. The bath chain is subject to Markovian measurements, resulting in an effective non-Markovian dissipative dynamics acting on the system chain which is still amenable to numerical studies in terms of quantum trajectories. Within this setting, we study the entanglement within the system chain, and use it to characterize the phase diagram depending on the ladder hopping parameters and on the measurement probability. For the case of pure state evolution, the system is in an area law phase when the internal hopping of the bath chain is small, while a non-area law phase appears when the dynamics of the bath is fast. The non-area law exhibits a logarithmic scaling of the entropy compatible with a conformal phase, but also displays linear corrections for the finite system sizes we can study. For the case of mixed state evolution, we instead observe regions with both area, and non-area scaling of the entanglement negativity. We quantify the non-Markovianity of the system chain dynamics and find that for the regimes of parameters we study, a stronger non-Markovianity is associated to a larger entanglement within the system.

  4 citations

• How SU(2)$_4$ Anyons are Z$_3$ Parafermions

  Richard Fern, Johannes Kombe, Steven H. Simon

  SciPost Phys. 3, 037 (2017) · published 9 December 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the braid group representation which describes the non-abelian braiding statistics of the spin $1/2$ particle world lines of an SU(2)$_4$ Chern-Simons theory. Up to an abelian phase, this is the same as the non-Abelian statistics of the elementary quasiparticles of the $k=4$ Read-Rezayi quantum Hall state. We show that these braiding properties can be represented exactly using $\mathbb{Z}_3$ parafermion operators.

  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

• 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.

  4 citations

• Decoherence and relaxation of topological states in extended quantum Ising models

  Hannes Weisbrich, Wolfgang Belzig, Gianluca Rastelli

  SciPost Phys. 6, 037 (2019) · published 26 March 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the decoherence and the relaxation dynamics of topological states in an extended class of quantum Ising chains which can present a manyfold ground state subspace. The leading interaction of the spins with the environment is assumed to be the local fluctuations of the transverse magnetic field. By deriving the Lindblad equation using the many-body states, we investigate the relation between decoherence, energy relaxation and topology. In particular, in the topological phase and at low temperature, we analyze the dephasing rates between the different degenerate ground states.

  4 citations

• Characteristic determinant and Manakov triple for the double elliptic integrable system

  A. Grekov, A. Zotov

  SciPost Phys. 10, 055 (2021) · published 4 March 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using the intertwining matrix of the IRF-Vertex correspondence we propose a determinant representation for the generating function of the commuting Hamiltonians of the double elliptic integrable system. More precisely, it is a ratio of the normally ordered determinants, which turns into a single determinant in the classical case. With its help we reproduce the recently suggested expression for the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonians for the dual to elliptic Ruijsenaars model. Next, we study the classical counterpart of our construction, which gives expression for the spectral curve and the corresponding $L$-matrix. This matrix is obtained explicitly as a weighted average of the Ruijsenaars and/or Sklyanin type Lax matrices with the weights as in the theta function series definition. By construction the $L$-matrix satisfies the Manakov triple representation instead of the Lax equation. Finally, we discuss the factorized structure of the $L$-matrix.

  4 citations