Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Diffusion of muonic hydrogen in hydrogen gas and the measurement of the 1$s$ hyperfine splitting of muonic hydrogen

  J. Nuber, A. Adamczak, M. Abdou Ahmed, L. Affolter, F. D. Amaro, P. Amaro, A. Antognini, P. Carvalho, Y. -H. Chang, T. -L. Chen, W. -L. Chen, L. M. P. Fernandes, M. Ferro, D. Goeldi, T. Graf, M. Guerra, T. W. Hänsch, C. A. O. Henriques, M. Hildebrandt, P. Indelicato, O. Kara, K. Kirch, A. Knecht, F. Kottmann, Y. -W. Liu, J. Machado, M. Marszalek, R. D. P. Mano, C. M. B. Monteiro, F. Nez, A. Ouf, N. Paul, R. Pohl, E. Rapisarda, J. M. F. dos Santos, J. P. Santos, P. A. O. C. Silva, L. Sinkunaite, J. -T. Shy, K. Schuhmann, S. Rajamohanan, A. Soter, L. Sustelo, D. Taqqu, L. -B. Wang, F. Wauters, P. Yzombard, M. Zeyen, J. Zhang

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 057 (2023) · published 23 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The CREMA collaboration is pursuing a measurement of the ground-state hyperfine splitting (HFS) in muonic hydrogen ($\mu$p) with 1 ppm accuracy by means of pulsed laser spectroscopy. In the proposed experiment, the $\mu$p atom is excited by a laser pulse from the singlet to the triplet hyperfine sub-levels, and is quenched back to the singlet state by an inelastic collision with a H$_2$ molecule. The resulting increase of kinetic energy after this cycle modifies the $\mu$p atom diffusion in the hydrogen gas and the arrival time of the $\mu$p atoms at the target walls. This laser-induced modification of the arrival times is used to expose the atomic transition. In this paper we present the simulation of the $\mu$p diffusion in the H$_2$ gas which is at the core of the experimental scheme. These simulations have been implemented with the Geant4 framework by introducing various low-energy processes including the motion of the H$_2$ molecules, i.e. the effects related with the hydrogen target temperature. The simulations have been used to optimize the hydrogen target parameters (pressure, temperatures and thickness) and to estimate signal and background rates. These rates allow to estimate the maximum time needed to find the resonance and the statistical accuracy of the spectroscopy experiment.

  1 citation

• Certifying quantum separability with adaptive polytopes

  Ties-A. Ohst, Xiao-Dong Yu, Otfried Gühne, H. Chau Nguyen

  SciPost Phys. 16, 063 (2024) · published 1 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The concept of entanglement and separability of quantum states is relevant for several fields in physics. Still, there is a lack of effective operational methods to characterise these features. We propose a method to certify quantum separability of two- and multiparticle quantum systems based on an adaptive polytope approximation. This leads to an algorithm which, for practical purposes, conclusively recognises two-particle separability for small and medium-size dimensions. For multiparticle systems, the approach allows to characterise full separability for up to five qubits or three qutrits; in addition, different classes of entanglement can be distinguished. Finally, our methods allow to identify systematically quantum states with interesting entanglement properties, such as maximally robust states which are separable for all bipartitions, but not fully separable.

  1 citation

• Even lighter particle dark matter

  Alvaro E. Chavarria

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 001 (2023) · published 3 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We report on recent progress in the search for dark matter particles with masses from 1 Mev to 1 Gev . Several dark matter candidates in this mass range are expected to generate measurable electronic-recoil signals in direct-detection experiments. We focus on dark matter particles scattering with electrons in semiconductor detectors since they have fundamentally the highest sensitivity due to their low ionization threshold. Charge-coupled device (CCD) silicon detectors are the leading technology, with significant progress expected in the coming years. We present the status of the CCD program and briefly report on other efforts.

  1 citation

• Unconventional superconductivity in a strongly correlated band-insulator without doping

  Anwesha Chattopadhyay, H. R. Krishnamurthy, Arti Garg

  SciPost Phys. Core 4, 009 (2021) · published 28 April 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a novel route for attaining unconventional superconductivity in a strongly correlated system without doping. In a simple model of a correlated band insulator at half-filling we demonstrate, based on a generalization of the projected wavefunctions method, that superconductivity emerges for a broad range of model parameters when e-e interactions and the bare band-gap are both much larger than the kinetic energy, provided the system has sufficient frustration against the magnetic order. As the interactions are tuned, the superconducting phase appears sandwiched between the correlated band insulator followed by a paramagnetic metal on one side, and a ferrimagnetic metal, antiferromagnetic half-metal, and Mott insulator phases on the other side

  1 citation

• Holography for bulk states in 3D quantum gravity

  Joris Raeymaekers, Gideon Vos

  SciPost Phys. 15, 054 (2023) · published 8 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work we discuss the holographic description of states in the Hilbert space of (2+1)-dimensional quantum gravity, living on a time slice in the bulk. We focus on pure gravity coupled to pointlike sources for heavy spinning particles. We develop a formulation where the equations for the backreacted metric reduce to two decoupled Liouville equations with delta-function sources under pseudosphere boundary conditions. We show that both the semiclassical wavefunction and the gravity solution are determined by a universal object, namely a classical Virasoro vacuum block on the sphere. In doing so we derive a version of Polyakov's conjecture, as well as an existence criterion, for classical Liouville theory on the pseudosphere. We also discuss how some of these results are modified when considering closed universes with compact spatial slices.

  1 citation

• Comparative analysis of tight-binding models for transition metal dichalcogenides

  Bert Jorissen, Lucian Covaci, Bart Partoens

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 004 (2024) · published 6 February 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We provide a comprehensive analysis of the prominent tight-binding (TB) models for transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) available in the literature. We inspect the construction of these TB models, discuss their parameterization used and conduct a thorough comparison of their effectiveness in capturing important electronic properties. Based on these insights, we propose a novel TB model for TMDs designed for enhanced computational efficiency. Utilizing $MoS_2$ as a representative case, we explain why specific models offer a more accurate description. Our primary aim is to assist researchers in choosing the most appropriate TB model for their calculations on TMDs.

  1 citation

• 5d SCFTs and their non-supersymmetric cousins

  Mohammad Akhond, Masazumi Honda, Francesco Mignosa

  SciPost Phys. 16, 036 (2024) · published 29 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider generalisations of the recently proposed supersymmetry breaking deformation of the 5d rank-1 $E_1$ superconformal field theory to higher rank. We generalise the arguments to theories which admit a mass deformation leading to gauge theories coupled to matter hypermultiplets at low energies. These theories have a richer space of non-supersymmetric deformations, due to the existence of a larger global symmetry. We show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the non-SUSY deformations of the gauge theory and their $(p,q)$ 5-brane web. We comment on the (in)stability of these deformations both from the gauge theory and the 5-brane web point of view. UV duality plays a key role in our analysis, fixing the effective Chern-Simons level for the background vector multiplets, together with their complete prepotential. We partially classify super-Yang-Mills theories known to enjoy UV dualities which show a phase transition where different phases are separated by a jump of Chern-Simons levels of both a perturbative and an instantonic global symmetry. When this transition can be reached by turning on a non-supersymmetric deformation of the UV superconformal field theory, it can be a good candidate to host a 5d non-supersymmetric CFT. We also discuss consistency of the proposed phase diagram with the 't Hooft anomalies of the models that we analyse.

  1 citation

• Hydrodynamics of a relativistic charged fluid in the presence of a periodically modulated chemical potential

  Nicolas Chagnet, Koenraad Schalm

  SciPost Phys. 16, 028 (2024) · published 24 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study charged hydrodynamics in a periodic lattice background. Fluctuations are Bloch waves rather than single momentum Fourier modes. At boundaries of the unit cell where hydrodynamic fluctuations are formally degenerate with their Umklapped copy, level repulsion occurs. Novel mode mixings between charge, sound, and their Umklapped copies appear at finite chemical potential - both at zero and finite momentum. We provide explicit examples for an ionic lattice, i.e. a periodic external chemical potential, and verify our results with numerical computations in fluid-gravity duality.

  1 citation

• Traveling discontinuity at the quantum butterfly front

  Camille Aron, Éric Brunet, Aditi Mitra

  SciPost Phys. 15, 042 (2023) · published 2 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We formulate a kinetic theory of quantum information scrambling in the context of a paradigmatic model of interacting electrons in the vicinity of a superconducting phase transition. We carefully derive a set of coupled partial differential equations that effectively govern the dynamics of information spreading in generic dimensions. Their solutions show that scrambling propagates at the maximal speed set by the Fermi velocity. At early times, we find exponential growth at a rate set by the inelastic scattering. At late times, we find that scrambling is governed by shock-wave dynamics with traveling waves exhibiting a discontinuity at the boundary of the light cone. Notably, we find perfectly causal dynamics where the solutions do not spill outside of the light cone.

  1 citation

• The classical Heisenberg model on the centred pyrochlore lattice

  Rajah P. Nutakki, Ludovic D. C. Jaubert, Lode Pollet

  SciPost Phys. 15, 040 (2023) · published 1 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The centred pyrochlore lattice is a novel geometrically frustrated lattice, realized in the metal-organic framework Mn(ta)$_2$ [Phys. Rev. Research 5, L022018 (2023)] where the basic unit of spins is a five site centred tetrahedron. Here, we present an in-depth theoretical study of the $J_1-J_2$ classical Heisenberg model on this lattice, using a combination of mean-field analytical methods and Monte Carlo simulations. We find a rich phase diagram with low temperature states exhibiting ferrimagnetic order, partial ordering, and a highly degenerate spin liquid with distinct regimes of low temperature correlations. We discuss in detail how the regime displaying broadened pinch points in its spin structure factor is consistent with an effective description in terms of a fluid of interacting charges. We also show how this picture holds in two dimensions on the analogous centred kagome lattice and elucidate the connection to the physics of thin films in ($d+1$) dimensions. Furthermore, we show that a Coulomb phase can be stabilized on the centred pyrochlore lattice by the addition of further neighbour couplings. This demonstrates the centred pyrochlore lattice is an experimentally relevant geometry which naturally hosts emergent gauge fields in the presence of charges at low energies.

  1 citation