Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• How to unfold top decays

  Luigi Favaro, Roman Kogler, Alexander Paasch, Sofia Palacios Schweitzer, Tilman Plehn, Dennis Schwarz

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 053 (2025) · published 18 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using unfolded top-quark decay data we can measure the top quark mass, as well as search for unexpected kinematic effects. We present a new generative unfolding method for the two tasks and show how they both benefit from unbinned, high-dimensional unfolding. Unlike weight-based or iterative generative methods we include a targeted unbiasing with respect to the training data. This shows significant advantages over standard, iterative methods, in terms of applicability, flexibility and accuracy.

• Confinement, mass gap and gauge symmetry in the Yang-Mills theory -- restoration of residual local gauge symmetry --

  Kei-Ichi Kondo, Naoki Fukushima

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 6, 013 (2022) · published 31 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this talk we want to discuss the color confinement criterion which guarantees confinement of all colored particles including dynamical quarks and gluons. The most well-known criterion is the Kugo-Ojima color confinement criterion derived in the Lorenz gauge. However, it was pointed out that the Kugo-Ojima criterion breaks down for the Maximal Abelian gauge in which quark confinement has been verified according to the dual superconductivity caused by magnetic monopole condensations. We give the color confinement criterion based on the restoration of the residual local gauge symmetry which can be applied to the Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories as well irrespective of the compact or non-compact formulation, and enables us to understand confinement in all the cases. Indeed, the restoration of the residual local gauge symmetry which was shown by Hata in the Lorenz gauge to be equivalent to the Kugo-Ojima criterion indeed occurs in the Maximal Abelian gauge for the SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in two-, three- and four-dimensional Euclidean spacetime once the singular topological configurations of gauge fields are taken into account. This result indicates that the color confinement phase is a disordered phase caused by non-trivial topological configurations irrespective of the gauge choice.

• Competition of light- and phonon-dressing in microwave-dressed Bose polarons

  G. M. Koutentakis, S. I. Mistakidis, F. Grusdt, H. R. Sadeghpour, P. Schmelcher

  SciPost Phys. 19, 093 (2025) · published 13 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We theoretically investigate the stationary properties of a spin-1/2 impurity immersed in a one-dimensional confined Bose gas. In particular, we consider coherently coupled spin states with an external field, where only one spin component interacts with the bath, enabling light dressing of the impurity and spin-dependent bath-impurity interactions. Through detailed comparisons with ab-initio many-body simulations, we demonstrate that the composite system is accurately described by a simplified effective Hamiltonian. The latter builds upon previously developed effective potential approaches in the absence of light dressing. It can be used to extract the impurity energy, residue, effective mass, and anharmonicity induced by the phononic dressing. Light-dressing is shown to increase the polaron residue, undressing the impurity from phononic excitations because of strong spin coupling. For strong repulsions, previously shown to trigger dynamical Bose polaron decay (a phenomenon called temporal orthogonality catastrophe), it is explained that strong light-dressing stabilizes a repulsive polaron-dressed state. Our results establish the effective Hamiltonian framework as a powerful tool for exploring strongly interacting polaronic systems and corroborating forthcoming experimental realizations.

• Entanglement classification via operator size

  Qi-Feng Wu

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 063 (2023) · published 15 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work, multipartite entanglement is classified by polynomials. I show that the operator size is closely related to the entanglement structure. Given a generic quantum state, I define a series of subspaces generated by operators of different sizes acting on it. The information about the entanglement is encoded into these subspaces. With the dimension of these subspaces as coefficients, I define a polynomial which I call the entanglement polynomial. The entanglement polynomial induces a homomorphism from quantum states to polynomials. It implies that we can characterize and find the building blocks of entanglement by polynomial factorization. Two states share the same entanglement polynomial if they are equivalent under the stochastic local operations and classical communication. To calculate the entanglement polynomial practically, I construct a series of states, called renormalized states, whose ranks are related to the coefficients of the entanglement polynomial.

• A note on the Noether-Wald and generalized Komar charges

  Tomás Ortín, Matteo Zatti

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 094 (2025) · published 22 December 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose a simple algorithm to compute the generalized Komar charge of any exactly gauge- and diffeomorphism-invariant theory.

• Free growth under tension

  Chenyun Yao, Jens Elgeti

  SciPost Phys. 19, 097 (2025) · published 15 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Ever since the ground breaking work of Trepat et al. in 2009, we know that cell colonies growing on a substrate can be under tensile mechanical stress. The origin of tension has so far been attributed to cellular motility forces being oriented outward of the colony. Works in the field mainly revolve around how this orientation of the forces can be explained, ranging from velocity alignment to self-sorting due to self-propulsion. In this work, we demonstrate that tension in growing colonies can also be explained without cellular motility forces! Using a combination of well established tissue growth simulation technique and analytical modelling, we show how tension can arise as a consequence of simple mechanics of growing tissues. Combining these models with a minimalistic motility model shows how colonies can expand while under even larger tension. Furthermore, our results and analytical models provide novel analysis procedures to identify the underlying mechanics.

• Normative approaches to neural coding and behavior

  Ann Hermundstad

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 83 (2024) · published 13 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These are a brief set of lectures notes for lectures given at the Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Biological Physics in July 2023. In these notes, I provide an introduction to some of the theoretical frameworks that are used to understand how the brain makes sense of incoming signals from the environment to ultimately guide effective behavior. I then discuss how we can apply these frameworks to understand the structure and function of real brains.

• Catalogue of phonon modes in several cuprate high-temperature superconductors from density functional theory

  Noah J. Jabusch, Pavan Dayal, Alexander F. Kemper

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 018 (2023) · published 23 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Cuprates are promising candidates for study in developing higher temperature superconductors. A thorough understanding of a material's phonon modes enables further investigation of its emergent properties, however, no complete reference of the phonon modes exists. Here, using density functional theory, we evaluate the phonon frequencies and atomic displacements for $\text{La}_2\text{CuO}_4$, $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CuO}_6$, and $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CaCu}_2\text{O}_8$, in their tetragonal structures. The phonon modes for all materials agree with those expected from space group symmetry and display instabilities corresponding to known low-temperature structural phase transitions.

• Critical dynamics and cyclic memory retrieval in non-reciprocal Hopfield networks

  Shuyue Xue, Mohammad Maghrebi, George I. Mias, Carlo Piermarocchi

  SciPost Phys. 19, 100 (2025) · published 16 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study Hopfield networks with non-reciprocal coupling inducing switches between memory patterns. Dynamical phase transitions occur between phases of no memory retrieval, retrieval of multiple point-attractors, and limit-cycles. The limit cycle phase is bounded by a Hopf bifurcation line and a fold bifurcation line. Autocorrelation scales as $\tilde{C}(\tau/N^\zeta)$, with $\zeta = 1/2$ on the Hopf line and $\zeta = 1/3$ on the fold line. Perturbations of strength $F$ on the Hopf line exhibit response times scaling as $|F|^{-2/3}$, while they induce switches in a controlled way within times scaling as $|F|^{-1/2}$ in the fold line. A Master Equation approach numerically verifies the critical behavior predicted analytically. We discuss how these networks could model biological processes near a critical threshold of cyclic instability evolving through multi-step transitions.

• Proposal for an autonomous quantum heat engine

  Miika Rasola, Vasilii Vadimov, Tuomas Uusnäkki, Mikko Möttönen

  SciPost Phys. 19, 101 (2025) · published 17 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose and theoretically analyse a superconducting electric circuit which can be used to experimentally realize an autonomous quantum heat engine. Using a quasiclassical, non-Markovian theoretical model, we demonstrate that coherent microwave power generation can emerge solely from the heat flow through the circuit determined by non-linear circuit quantum electrodynamics. The predicted energy generation rate is sufficiently high for experimental observation with contemporary techniques, rendering this work a significant step toward the first experimental realization of an autonomous quantum heat engine based on Otto cycles.