Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The propagator matrix reloaded

  João F. Melo

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 019 (2023) · published 24 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The standard way to perform calculations for quantum field theories involves the S-matrix and the assumption that the theory is free at past and future infinity. However, this assumption may not hold for field theories in non-trivial backgrounds such as curved spacetimes or finite temperature. In fact, even in the simple case of finite temperature Minkowski spacetime, there are a lot of misconceptions and confusion in the literature surrounding how to correctly take interactions into account when setting up the initial conditions. The objective of this work is to clear up these misconceptions and provide a clean and simple derivation of a formalism which includes interactions in the initial conditions and assesses whether or not it is legitimate to ignore them. The ultimate conclusion is that we cannot ignore them: quantum field theories at finite temperature are not free in the infinite past.

• Air showers and hadronic interactions with CORSIKA 8

  Maximilian Reininghaus

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 019 (2024) · published 3 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The CORSIKA 8 project is a collaborative effort aiming to develop a versatile C++ framework for the simulation of extensive air showers, intended to eventually succeed the long-standing FORTRAN version. I present an overview of its current capabilities, focusing on aspects concerning the hadronic and muonic shower components. In particular, I demonstrate the "cascade lineage" feature and its application to quantify the importance of certain phase-space regions in hadronic interactions for muon production. Additionally, I show first results using Pythia 8.3, which as of late is usable as interaction model in cosmic-ray applications and is currently being integrated into CORSIKA 8.

• Fluctuations and Selection Bias in 5 and 13 TeV p-p Collisions: Where are the jets?

  Thomas A. Trainor

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 003 (2022) · published 10 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The ALICE collaboration recently reported high-statistics $\bf p_t$ spectra from 5 TeV and 13 TeV p-p collisions with intent to determine the role of jets in high-multiplicity collisions. In the present study a two-component (soft + hard) model (TCM) of hadron production in p-p collisions is applied to ALICE $\bf p_t$ spectra. As in previous TCM studies of A-B collision systems jet and nonjet contributions to $\bf p_t$ spectra are accurately separated over the entire $\bf p_t$ acceptance. The statistical significance of data-model differences is established leading to insights concerning selection bias and spectrum model validity.

• Constraining the nuclear gluon PDF with inclusive hadron production data

  P. Duwentäster, L. A. Husová, T. Ježo, M. Klasen, K. Kovařík, A. Kusina, K. F. Muzakka, F. I. Olness, I. Schienbein, J.Y. Yu

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 045 (2022) · published 12 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) of gluons are known to be difficult to determine with fits of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and Drell-Yan (DY) data alone. Therefore, the nCTEQ15 analysis of nuclear PDFs added inclusive neutral pion production data from RHIC to help in constraining the gluon. In this analysis, we present a new global analysis of nuclear PDFs based on a much larger set of single inclusive light hadron data from RHIC and the LHC. Using our new nCTEQ code (nCTEQ++) with an optimized version of INCNLO we study systematically the limitations of the theory and the impact of the fragmentation function uncertainty.

• Anomalous criticality coexists with giant cluster in the uniform forest model

  Hao Chen, Jesús Salas, Youjin Deng

  SciPost Phys. 16, 121 (2024) · published 6 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show by extensive simulations that the whole supercritical phase of the three-dimensional uniform forest model simultaneously exhibits an infinite tree and a rich variety of critical phenomena. Besides typical scalings like algebraically decaying correlation, power-law distribution of cluster sizes, and divergent correlation length, a number of anomalous behaviors emerge. The fractal dimensions for off-giant trees take different values when being measured by linear system size or gyration radius. The giant-tree size displays two-length scaling fluctuations, instead of following the central-limit theorem.

• 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.

• Entropy-driven phase behavior of associative polymer networks

  Lorenzo Rovigatti, Francesco Sciortino

  SciPost Phys. 15, 163 (2023) · published 16 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the same species, the network formation occurs continuously as density increases. By contrast, it has been recently shown [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 047801 (2022)] that, if the attractive monomers are of two different and alternating types, the entropic gain of swapping intra-molecular bonds for inter-molecular connections induces a first order phase transition in the fully-bonded (i.e. low-temperature or, equivalently, large monomer-monomer attraction strength) limit and the network forms abruptly on increasing density. Here we use simulations to show that this phenomenon is robust with respect to thermal fluctuations, disorder and change in the polymer architecture, demonstrating its generality and likely relevance for the wide class of materials that can be modelled as associative (transient) polymer networks.

• Probing quantum entanglement and collectivity effects in e+p collisions at HERA H1

  Chuan Sun

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 147 (2022) · published 14 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Charged particle multiplicity spectra are measured at HERA H1 in DIS process at 319 GeV. The hadron entropy determined from the multiplicity spectra is compared to the gluon entropy predicted from a quantum-entanglement model. On the other hand, observed collective behaviours in high multiplicity pA, pp and ultra-peripheral PbPb collisions at RHIC and LHC motivate a study in ep collisions. Two- and multi-particle correlations are studied in DIS, as well as photoproduction events with collision energy <Wγp>~270 GeV.

• Vertical and lateral manipulation of single Cs atoms on the semiconductor InAs(111)A

  Rian A. M. Ligthart, Cristophe Coinon, Ludovic Desplanque, Xavier Wallart, Ingmar Swart

  SciPost Phys. 16, 096 (2024) · published 5 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The tip of the scanning tunneling microscope can be used to position atoms and molecules on surfaces with atomic scale precision. Here, we report the controlled vertical and lateral manipulation of single Cs atoms on the InAs(111)A surface. The Cs adatom adsorbs on the In-vacancy site of the InAs(111)A—(2x2) surface reconstruction. Lateral manipulation is possible in all directions over the surface, not just along high-symmetry directions. Both pushing and pulling modes were observed in the height profile of the tip. We assembled two artificial structures, demonstrating the reliability of the manipulation procedures. Structures remained intact to a temperature of at least 44 K.

• Extensions of realisations for low-dimensional Lie algebras

  Iryna Yehorchenko

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 14, 048 (2023) · published 24 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We find extensions of realisations of some low-dimensional Lie algebras, in particular, for the Poincaré algebra for one space dimension. Using inequivalent extensions, we performed comprehensive classification of relative differential invariants for these Lie algebras. We show difference between classification of extensions of realisations, and classification of nonlinear realisations of Lie algebras.