Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Fast tensor disentangling algorithm

  Kevin Slagle

  SciPost Phys. 11, 056 (2021) · published 13 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Many recent tensor network algorithms apply unitary operators to parts of a tensor network in order to reduce entanglement. However, many of the previously used iterative algorithms to minimize entanglement can be slow. We introduce an approximate, fast, and simple algorithm to optimize disentangling unitary tensors. Our algorithm is asymptotically faster than previous iterative algorithms and often results in a residual entanglement entropy that is within 10 to 40% of the minimum. For certain input tensors, our algorithm returns an optimal solution. When disentangling order-4 tensors with equal bond dimensions, our algorithm achieves an entanglement spectrum where nearly half of the singular values are zero. We further validate our algorithm by showing that it can efficiently disentangle random 1D states of qubits.

• Electronic structure of liquid xenon in the context of light dark matter direct detection

  Riccardo Catena, Luca Marin, Marek Matas, Nicola A. Spaldin, Einar Urdshals

  SciPost Phys. 19, 064 (2025) · published 3 September 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a description of the electronic structure of xenon within the density-functional theory formalism with the goal of accurately modeling dark-matter-induced ionisation in liquid xenon detectors. We compare the calculated electronic structures of the atomic, liquid and crystalline solid phases, and find that the electronic charge density and its derivatives in momentum space are similar in the atom and the liquid, consistent with the weak interatomic van der Waals bonding. The only notable difference is a band broadening of the highest occupied $5p$ levels, reflected in the densities of states of the condensed phases, as a result of the inter-atomic interactions. We therefore use the calculated density of states of the liquid phase, combined with the standard literature approach for the isolated atom, to recompute ionisation rates and exclusion limit curves for the XENON10 and XENON1T experiments. We find that the broadening of the 5$p$ levels induced by the liquid phase is relevant only for dark matter masses below 6 MeV, where it increases the ionisation rate relative to that of the isolated atom. For most of the explored mass range, the energies of the discrete 4$d$ and 5$s$ levels have the strongest effect on the rate. Our findings suggest a simple scheme for calculating dark matter-electron scattering rates in liquid noble gas detectors, using the calculated values for the atom weighted by the density of states of the condensed phase.

• A quantum annealing protocol to solve the nuclear shell model

  Emanuele Costa, Axel Pérez-Obiol, Javier Menéndez, Arnau Rios, Artur García-Sáez, Bruno Juliá-Díaz

  SciPost Phys. 19, 062 (2025) · published 29 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The nuclear shell model accurately describes the structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei. However, the exponential scaling of the basis size with the number of degrees of freedom hampers a direct numerical solution for heavy nuclei. In this work, we present a quantum annealing protocol to obtain nuclear ground states. We propose a tailored driver Hamiltonian that preserves a large gap and validate our approach in a dozen nuclei with basis sizes up to $10^5$ using classical simulations of the annealing evolution. We explore the relation between the spectral gap and the total time of the annealing protocol, assessing its accuracy by comparing the fidelity and energy relative error to classical benchmarks. While the nuclear Hamiltonian is non-local and thus challenging to implement in current setups, the estimated computational cost of our annealing protocol on quantum circuits is polynomial in the single-particle basis size, paving the way to study heavier nuclei.

• Anomalous coupling studies with forward protons at the LHC

  C. Royon

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 115 (2022) · published 13 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We describe the gain on sensitivities to quartic $\gamma \gamma \gamma \gamma$, $\gamma \gamma WW$ and $\gamma \gamma \gamma Z$ anomalous couplings and to the search for Axion-Like Particles by two or three orders of magnitude with respect to standard methods at the LHC by tagging intact protons in the final state.

• Momentum transfer dependence of heavy quarkonium electroproduction

  Michal Krelina, Jan Nemchik

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 114 (2022) · published 13 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the momentum transfer dependence of differential cross sections $d\sigma/dt$ in diffractive electroproduction of heavy quarkonia on proton targets. Model predictions for $d\sigma/dt$ within the light-front QCD dipole formalism are based on a realistic model for a proper correlation between the impact parameter $\vec b$ of a collision and color dipole orientation $\vec r$. We demonstrate a significance of $\vec b-\vec r$ correlation by comparing with a standard simplification $\vec{b}\parallel\vec{r}$, frequently used in the literature.

• Multiscale pentagon integrals to all orders

  Dhimiter D. Canko, Costas G. Papadopoulos, Nikolaos Syrrakos

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 030 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present analytical results for one-loop five-point master integrals with up to three off-shell legs. The method of canonical differential equations along with the Simplified Differential Equations approach is employed. All necessary boundary terms are given in closed form, resulting to solutions in terms of Goncharov Polylogarithms of arbitrary weight. Explicit results up to weight six will be presented.

• Gauge theory for topological waves in continuum fluids with odd viscosity

  Keisuke Fujii, Yuto Ashida

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 058 (2025) · published 28 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider two-dimensional continuum fluids with odd viscosity under a chiral body force. The chiral body force makes the low-energy excitation spectrum of the fluids gapped, and the odd viscosity allows us to introduce the first Chern number of each energy band in the fluids. Employing a mapping between hydrodynamic variables and U(1) gauge field strengths, we derive a U(1) gauge theory for topologically nontrivial waves. The resulting U(1) gauge theory is given by the Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory with an additional term associated with odd viscosity. We then explicitly solve the equations of motion for the gauge fields in the presence of the boundary and find edge mode solutions. We finally confirm the bulk-boundary correspondence in the context of continuum systems.

• $\mathcal{O}(α_s^3)$ corrections to semileptonic $b \to c$ decays in the heavy daughter approximation

  Kay Schoenwald

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 027 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present our recent calculation of the third order corrections to the semileptonic $b \to c$ and the muon decays. The calculation has been performed in an expansion around the limit $m_c \sim m_b$, but shows decent convergence even for $m_c=0$ from which the contribution to the muon decay can be extracted. For the semileptonic $b \to c$ decay we find large perturbative corrections in the on-shell scheme which can be significantly reduced by changing to the kinetic scheme for the bottom quark mass. These results are important input for the inclusive determination of $|V_{cb}|$ and the Fermi coupling constant $G_F$.

• Hyperon physics at BESIII

  Viktor Thorén

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 026 (2024) · published 3 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Spin polarization and entanglement are utilized by the BESIII experiment to learn more about the production and decay properties of hyperon-antihyperon pairs in a series of recent analyses of its unprecedented datasets at the $J/\psi$ and $\psi'$ resonances. This has lead to the observation of significant transverse polarisation in decays of $J/\psi$ or $\psi'$ into $\Lambda \bar{\Lambda}$, $\Sigma \bar{\Sigma}$, $\Xi \bar{\Xi}$, and $\Omega \bar{\Omega}$. Because of the non-zero polarization, the decay parameters for the most common hadronic weak decays of both hyperons and antihyperons could be determined independently for the first time. Comparing these to each other yields precise tests of direct, $\Delta S = 1$ CP-violation that complement measurements of kaon decays.

• Two-Loop renormalization of High-Dimensional QCD operators and Higgs EFT amplitudes

  Qingjun Jin, Ke Ren, Gang Yang, Rui Yu

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 036 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider two-loop renormalization of high-dimensional operators in QCD and the relevant Higgs EFT amplitudes. Efficient unitarity-IBP strategy is used to compute the two-loop minimal form factors of length-3 operators up to dimension sixteen. From the ultraviolet divergences of form factor results, we extract the renormalization matrices and compute anomalous dimensions. We also obtain the analytic finite remainder functions which exhibit several universal transcendentality structures. The form factors we compute are equivalent to Higgs plus three-gluon amplitudes that capture high-order top mass corrections in Higgs effective field theory.