Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Geometric expansion of fluctuations and average shadows

  Clément Berthière, Benoit Estienne, Jean-Marie Stéphan, William Witczak-Krempa

  SciPost Phys. 19, 122 (2025) · published 7 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Fluctuations of observables provide unique insights into the nature of physical systems, and their study stands as a cornerstone of both theoretical and experimental science. Generalized fluctuations, or cumulants, provide information beyond the mean and variance of an observable. In this paper, we develop a systematic method to determine the asymptotic behavior of cumulants of local observables as the region becomes large. Our analysis reveals that the expansion is closely tied to the geometric characteristics of the region and its boundary, with coefficients given by convex moments of the connected correlation function: the latter is integrated against intrinsic volumes of convex polytopes built from the coordinates, which can be interpreted as average shadows. A particular application of our method shows that, in two dimensions, the leading behavior of odd cumulants of conserved quantities is topological, specifically depending on the Euler characteristic of the region. We illustrate these results with the paradigmatic strongly-interacting system of two-dimensional quantum Hall state at filling fraction $1/2$, by performing Monte-Carlo calculations of the skewness (third cumulant) of particle number in the Laughlin state.

• Flow decorrelation in heavy-ion collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$=27 and 200 GeV with 3D event-by-event viscous hydrodynamics

  Jakub Cimerman, Iurii Karpenko, Boris Tomasik, Barbara Antonina Trzeciak

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 031 (2022) · published 11 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present the first calculation of longitudinal decorrelation of anisotropic flow at RHIC Beam Energy Scan (BES) energies using event-by-event viscous hydrodynamic model (vHLLE), with two different initial states (GLISSANDO2 and UrQMD) and hadronic cascade. We investigate the origin of the observed decorrelation by checking separately flow angle and flow magnitude decorrelation and by calculating decorrelation in the initial state eccentricity.

• Characterizing the hadronization of parton showers using the HOMER method

  Benoît Assi, Christian Bierlich, Philip Ilten, Tony Menzo, Stephen Mrenna, Manuel Szewc, Michael K. Wilkinson, Ahmed Youssef, Jure Zupan

  SciPost Phys. 19, 125 (2025) · published 11 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We update the HOMER method, a technique to solve a restricted version of the inverse problem of hadronization – extracting the Lund string fragmentation function $f(z)$ from data using only observable information. Here, we demonstrate its utility by extracting $f(z)$ from synthetic Pythia simulations using high-level observables constructed on an event-by-event basis, such as multiplicities and shape variables. Four cases of increasing complexity are considered, corresponding to $e^+e^-$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $90≥v$ producing either a string stretched between a $q$ and $\bar{q}$ containing no gluons; the same string containing one gluon $g$ with fixed kinematics; the same but the gluon has varying kinematics; and the most realistic case, strings with an unrestricted number of gluons that is the end-result of a parton shower. We demonstrate the extraction of $f(z)$ in each case, with the result of only a relatively modest degradation in performance of the HOMER method with the increased complexity of the string system.

• Quantum adiabaticity in many-body systems and almost-orthogonality in complementary subspace

  Jyong-Hao Chen, Vadim Cheianov

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 084 (2025) · published 12 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate why, in quantum many-body systems, the adiabatic fidelity and the overlap between the initial state and instantaneous ground states often yield nearly identical values. Our analysis suggests that this phenomenon results from an interplay between two intrinsic limits of many-body systems: the limit of small evolution parameters and the limit of large system sizes. In the former case, conventional perturbation theory provides a straightforward explanation. In the latter case, a key insight is that pairs of vectors in the Hilbert space orthogonal to the initial state tend to become nearly orthogonal as the system size increases. We illustrate these general findings with two representative models of driven many-body systems: the driven Rice-Mele model and the driven interacting Kitaev chain model.

• On the breakdown of dimensional reduction and supersymmetry in random-field models

  Gilles Tarjus, Matthieu Tissier, Ivan Balog

  SciPost Phys. 19, 001 (2025) · published 1 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We discuss the breakdown of the Parisi-Sourlas supersymmetry (SUSY) and of the dimensional-reduction (DR) property in the random field Ising and O($N$) models as a function of space dimension $d$ and/or number of components $N$. The functional renormalization group (FRG) predicts that this takes place below a critical line $d_\mathrm{DR}(N)$. We revisit the perturbative FRG results for the RFO($N$)M in $d=4+\epsilon$ and carry out a more comprehensive investigation of the nonperturbative FRG approximation for the RFIM. In light of this FRG description, we discuss the perturbative results in $\epsilon=6-d$ recently derived for the RFIM by Kaviraj, Rychkov, and Trevisani. We stress in particular that the disappearance of the SUSY/DR fixed point below $d_\mathrm{DR}$ arises as a consequence of the nonlinearity of the FRG equations and cannot be found via the perturbative expansion in $\epsilon=6-d$ (nor in $1/N$). We also provide an error bar on the value of the critical dimension $d_\mathrm{DR}$ for the RFIM, which we find around $5.11±0.09$, by studying several successive orders of the nonperturbative FRG approximation scheme.

• Quench dynamics of entanglement from crosscap states

  Konstantinos Chalas, Pasquale Calabrese, Colin Rylands

  SciPost Phys. 19, 132 (2025) · published 19 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The linear growth of entanglement after a quench from a state with short-range correlations is a universal feature of many body dynamics. It has been shown to occur in integrable and chaotic systems undergoing either Hamiltonian, Floquet or circuit dynamics and has also been observed in experiments. The entanglement dynamics emerging from long-range correlated states is far less studied, although no less viable using modern quantum simulation experiments. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of the bipartite entanglement entropy and mutual information from initial states which have long-range entanglement with correlation between antipodal points of a finite and periodic system. Starting from these crosscap states, we study both brickwork quantum circuits and Hamiltonian dynamics and find distinct patterns of behaviour depending on the type of dynamics and whether the system is integrable or chaotic. Specifically, we study both dual unitary and random unitary quantum circuits as well as free and interacting fermion Hamiltonians. For integrable systems, we find that after a time delay the entanglement experiences a linear in time decrease followed by a series of revivals, while, in contrast, chaotic systems exhibit constant entanglement entropy. On the other hand, both types of systems experience an immediate linear decrease of the mutual information in time. In chaotic systems this then vanishes, whereas integrable systems instead experience a series of revivals. We show how the quasiparticle and membrane pictures of entanglement dynamics can be modified to describe this behaviour, and derive explicitly the quasiparticle picture in the case of free fermion models which we then extend to all integrable systems.

• Logarithmic operators in $c=0$ bulk CFTs

  Yifei He

  SciPost Phys. 19, 008 (2025) · published 4 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study Kac operators (e.g. energy operator) in percolation and self-avoiding walk bulk CFTs with central charge $c=0$. The proper normalizations of these operators can be deduced at generic $c$ by requiring the finiteness and reality of the three-point constants in cluster and loop model CFTs. At $c=0$, Kac operators become zero-norm states and the bottom fields of logarithmic multiplets, and comparison with $c<1$ Liouville CFT suggests the potential existence of arbitrarily high rank Jordan blocks. We give a generic construction of logarithmic operators based on Kac operators and focus on the rank-2 pair of the energy operator mixing with the hull operator. By taking the $c\to 0$ limit, we compute some of their conformal data and use this to investigate the operator algebra at $c=0$. Based on cluster decomposition, we find that, contrary to previous belief, the four-point correlation function of the bulk energy operator does not vanish at $c=0$, and a crucial role is played by its coupling to the rank-3 Jordan block associated with the second energy operator. This reveals the intriguing way zero-norm operators build long-range higher-point correlations through the intricate logarithmic structures in $c=0$ bulk CFTs.

• Multi-differential studies to explore strangeness enhancement in pp with ALICE at the LHC

  Francesca Ercolessi

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 028 (2022) · published 11 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The study of energy and multiplicity dependence of strange hadron production in proton-proton collisions provides a powerful tool to understand similarities and differences between small and large collision systems. In order to better understand the origin of strangeness enhancement in pp new multi-differential analyses have been performed. The first separates the contribution of soft and hard processes, such as jets, to strange hadron production through two-particle correlation techniques. The second exploits the concept of the effective energy available for particle production in the event, which is estimated by an anti-correlation with the energy deposited in ALICE's Zero Degree Calorimeters. The results indicate that strangeness production emerges from the growth of the underlying event and confirm it is related to the final state multiplicity.

• The Mu3e experiment at PSI

  Alessandro Bravar on behalf of the Mu3e Collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 037 (2019) · published 21 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Mu3e will search for charged Lepton Flavor Violation in the neutrinoless muon decay $\mu^+ \rightarrow e^+ e^- e^+$ with a sensitivity down to $10^{-16}$ (90\% C.L.) using the world most intense continuous muon beam at PSI. This search requires a large acceptance detector capable of coping with rates of up to $2 \times 10^9$ stopped muons per second with excellent momentum, spatial, and time resolution. The Mu3e detector is based on thin monolithic active silicon pixel sensors for tracking in conjunction with scintillating fibers and tiles for timing measurements. The Mu3e apparatus is under constructions and first data is expected in 2020.

• Strings and membranes from $\mathcal{A}$-theory five brane

  Machiko Hatsuda, Ondřej Hulík, William D. Linch, Warren D. Siegel, Di Wang, Yu-Ping Wang

  SciPost Phys. 19, 009 (2025) · published 7 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The $\mathcal{A}$-theory takes U-duality symmetry as a guiding principle, with the SL(5) U-duality symmetry being described as the world-volume theory of a 5-brane. Furthermore, by unifying the 6-dimensional world-volume Lorentz symmetry with the SL(5) spacetime symmetry, it extends to SL(6) U-duality symmetry. The SL(5) spacetime vielbein fields and the 5-brane world-volume vielbein fields are mixed under the SL(6) U-duality transformation. We demonstrate that consistent sectionings of the SL(6) $\mathcal{A}$5-brane world-volume Lagrangian yield Lagrangians of the $\mathcal{T}$-string with O(D,D) T-duality symmetry, the conventional string, the $\mathcal{M}$5-brane with GL(4) duality symmetry, and the non-perturbative M2-brane in supergravity theory. The GL(4) covariant Lagrangian of the $\mathcal{M}$5-brane derived in this manner is a new, perturbatively quantizable theory.