Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Ultra-high energy neutrinos searches with the Pierre Auger Observatory

  Marta Trini for the Pierre Auger Collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 047 (2019) · published 22 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In the EeV range, neutrinos are expected to be produced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays interactions with the Cosmic Microwave Background during propagation in the Universe. We report on the search for ultra-high energy neutrinos in data collected with the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The searches are most efficient in the zenith angle range from 60 degrees to 95 degrees with tau neutrinos skimming in the Earth playingdominant role. The present non-detection of UHE neutrinos in the Pierre Auger Observatory excludes the most optimistic scenarios of neutrino production in terms of UHE cosmic rays chemical composition and cosmological evolution of the acceleration sites. We also report on the searches for neutrinos in coincidence with the recent Gravitational Wave events detected by LIGO/Virgo.

• Pionic hydrogen and deuterium

  D. Gotta, L. M. Simons

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 5, 014 (2021) · published 6 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The measurement of strong-interaction shift and broadening in pionic hydrogen and deuterium yields pion-nucleon scattering lengths as well as the threshold pion-production strength on isoscalar NN pairs. Results from recent high-resolution experiments at PSI using crystal spectrometers allow important comparisons with the outcome of the modern low-energy description of QCD within the framework of effective field theories.

• Floquet engineering of axion and high-Chern number phases in a topological insulator under illumination

  Mohammad Shafiei, Farhad Fazileh, François M. Peeters, Milorad V. Milošević

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 024 (2024) · published 1 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Quantum anomalous Hall, high-Chern number, and axion phases in topological insulators are characterized by its Chern invariant C (respectively, C=1, integer C>1, and C=0 with half-quantized Hall conductance of opposite signs on top and bottom surfaces). They are of recent interest because of novel fundamental physics and prospective applications, but identifying and controlling these phases has been challenging in practice. Here we show that these states can be created and switched between in thin films of Bi$_2$Se$_3$ by Floquet engineering, using irradiation by circularly polarized light. We present the calculated phase diagrams of encountered topological phases in Bi$_2$Se$_3$, as a function of wavelength and amplitude of light, as well as sample thickness, after properly taking into account the penetration depth of light and the variation of the gap in the surface states. These findings open pathways towards energy-efficient optoelectronics, advanced sensing, quantum information processing and metrology.

• STEP: A tool to perform tests of smoothness on differential distributions based on expansion of polynomials

  Patrick L. S. Connor, Radek Žlebčík

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 040 (2023) · published 1 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We motivate and describe a method based on fits with polynomials to test the smoothness of differential distributions. As a demonstration, we apply the method to several measurements of inclusive jet double-differential cross section in the jet transverse momentum and rapidity at the Tevatron and LHC. This method opens new possibilities to test the quality of differential distributions used for the extraction of physics quantities such as the strong coupling.

• Automatic, high-order, and adaptive algorithms for Brillouin zone integration

  Jason Kaye, Sophie Beck, Alex Barnett, Lorenzo Van Muñoz, Olivier Parcollet

  SciPost Phys. 15, 062 (2023) · published 15 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present efficient methods for Brillouin zone integration with a non-zero but possibly very small broadening factor $\eta$, focusing on cases in which downfolded Hamiltonians can be evaluated efficiently using Wannier interpolation. We describe robust, high-order accurate algorithms automating convergence to a user-specified error tolerance $\varepsilon$, emphasizing an efficient computational scaling with respect to $\eta$. After analyzing the standard equispaced integration method, applicable in the case of large broadening, we describe a simple iterated adaptive integration algorithm effective in the small $\eta$ regime. Its computational cost scales as $\mathcal{O}(\log^3(\eta^{-1}))$ as $\eta \to 0^+$ in three dimensions, as opposed to $\mathcal{O}(\eta^{-3})$ for equispaced integration. We argue that, by contrast, tree-based adaptive integration methods scale only as $\mathcal{O}(\log(\eta^{-1})/\eta^{2})$ for typical Brillouin zone integrals. In addition to its favorable scaling, the iterated adaptive algorithm is straightforward to implement, particularly for integration on the irreducible Brillouin zone, for which it avoids the tetrahedral meshes required for tree-based schemes. We illustrate the algorithms by calculating the spectral function of SrVO$_3$ with broadening on the meV scale.

• Anomalies, representations, and self-supervision

  Barry M. Dillon, Luigi Favaro, Friedrich Feiden, Tanmoy Modak, Tilman Plehn

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 056 (2024) · published 16 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We develop a self-supervised method for density-based anomaly detection using contrastive learning, and test it using event-level anomaly data from CMS ADC2021. The AnomalyCLR technique is data-driven and uses augmentations of the background data to mimic non-Standard-Model events in a model-agnostic way. It uses a permutation-invariant Transformer Encoder architecture to map the objects measured in a collider event to the representation space, where the data augmentations define a representation space which is sensitive to potential anomalous features. An AutoEncoder trained on background representations then computes anomaly scores for a variety of signals in the representation space. With AnomalyCLR we find significant improvements on performance metrics for all signals when compared to the raw data baseline.

• Identifying Chern numbers of superconductors from local measurements

  Paul Baireuther, Marcin Płodzień, Teemu Ojanen, Jakub Tworzydło, Timo Hyart

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 087 (2023) · published 15 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Fascination in topological materials originates from their remarkable response properties and exotic quasiparticles which can be utilized in quantum technologies. In particular, large-scale efforts are currently focused on realizing topological superconductors and their Majorana excitations. However, determining the topological nature of superconductors with current experimental probes is an outstanding challenge. This shortcoming has become increasingly pressing due to rapidly developing designer platforms which are theorized to display very rich topology and are better accessed by local probes rather than transport experiments. We introduce a robust machine learning protocol for classifying the topological states of two-dimensional (2D) chiral superconductors and insulators from local density of states (LDOS) data. Since the LDOS can be measured with standard experimental techniques, our protocol contributes to overcoming the almost three decades standing problem of identifying the topological phase of 2D superconductors with broken time-reversal symmetry.

• On currents in the $O(n)$ loop model

  Jesper Lykke Jacobsen, Rongvoram Nivesvivat, Hubert Saleur

  SciPost Phys. 16, 111 (2024) · published 24 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using methods from the conformal bootstrap, we study the properties of Noether currents in the critical $O(n)$ loop model. We confirm that they do not give rise to a Kac-Moody algebra (for $n≠ 2$), a result expected from the underlying lack of unitarity. By studying four-point functions in detail, we fully determine the current-current OPEs, and thus obtain several structure constants with physical meaning. We find in particular that the terms $:\!J\bar{J}\!:$ in the identity and adjoint channels vanish exactly, invalidating the argument made in \[Nucl. Phys. B 419, 411 (1994)] that adding orientation-dependent interactions to the model should lead to continuously varying exponents in self-avoiding walks. We also determine the residue of the identity channel in the $JJ$ two-point function, finding that it coincides both with the result of a transfer-matrix computation for an orientation-dependent correlation function in the lattice model, and with an earlier Coulomb gas computation of Cardy [Nucl. Phys. B 265, 409 (1986)]. This is, to our knowledge, one of the first instances where the Coulomb gas formalism and the bootstrap can be successfully compared.

• Localization engineering by resonant driving in dissipative polariton arrays

  Gonzalo Usaj

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 052 (2024) · published 9 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Arrays of microcavity polaritons are very versatile systems that allow for broad possibilities for the engineering of multi-orbital lattice geometries using different state preparation schemes. One of these schemes, spatially modulated resonant driving, can be used, for instance, to selectively localize the polariton field within the particular region of the lattice enclosed by the driving laser. Both the frequency and the spatial amplitude distribution (module and phase) of the driven laser field are important and serve as a knob to control the leakage outside that region and hence the extend of the spatial localization. Here, we analyse both the linear and nonlinear regimes using the lattice Green function formalism that is particularly suitable for the case of polariton arrays described in a tight-binding approximation. We identify the conditions for the laser induced localization to occur on arbitrary lattice's geometries and discuss some experimentally relevant cases. We find that the polariton-polariton interaction leads to a frequency shift of the optimal localization condition that could be used to further control it.

• Central exclusive production of $\eta_c$ and $\chi_{c0}$ in the light-front k$_{\perp}$-factorization approach

  Izabela Babiarz, Roman Pasechnik, Wolfgang Schäfer, Antoni Szczurek

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 118 (2022) · published 13 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the exclusive production of $J^{PC}=0^{++}, 0^{--}$ charmonium states in proton-proton collisions at the LHC energies. The amplitudes for $g^*g^*→\chi_{c0}$ as well as for$ gg→\eta_c$ mechanisms are derived in the kT-factorization approach. The $pp \to pp\eta_c$ reaction is discussed for the first time. We observe a substantial contribution from the nonperturbative domain of gluon virtualities, especially for $\eta_c$ production. To model the nonperturbative region better, we utilize models of the unintegrated gluon distribution based on parametrizations of the color dipole cross-section.