Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Scaling at quantum phase transitions above the upper critical dimension

  A. Langheld, J. A. Koziol, P. Adelhardt, S. C. Kapfer, K. P. Schmidt

  SciPost Phys. 13, 088 (2022) · published 10 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The hyperscaling relation and standard finite-size scaling (FSS) are known to break down above the upper critical dimension due to dangerous irrelevant variables. We establish a coherent formalism for FSS at quantum phase transitions above the upper critical dimension following the recently introduced Q-FSS formalism for thermal phase transitions. Contrary to long-standing belief, the correlation sector is affected by dangerous irrelevant variables. The presented formalism recovers a generalized hyperscaling relation and FSS form. Using this new FSS formalism, we determine the full set of critical exponents for the long-range transverse-field Ising chain in all criticality regimes ranging from the nearest-neighbor to the long-range mean field regime. For the same model, we also explicitly confirm the effect of dangerous irrelevant variables on the characteristic length scale.

  9 citations

• Building models of topological quantum criticality from pivot Hamiltonians

  Nathanan Tantivasadakarn, Ryan Thorngren, Ashvin Vishwanath, Ruben Verresen

  SciPost Phys. 14, 013 (2023) · published 2 February 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Progress in understanding symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases has been greatly aided by our ability to construct lattice models realizing these states. In contrast, a systematic approach to constructing models that realize quantum critical points between SPT phases is lacking, particularly in dimension $d>1$. Here, we show how the recently introduced notion of the pivot Hamiltonian—generating rotations between SPT phases—facilitates such a construction. We demonstrate this approach by constructing a spin model on the triangular lattice, which is midway between a trivial and SPT phase. The pivot Hamiltonian generates a $U(1)$ pivot symmetry which helps to stabilize a direct SPT transition. The sign-problem free nature of the model—with an additional Ising interaction preserving the pivot symmetry—allows us to obtain the phase diagram using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We find evidence for a direct transition between trivial and SPT phases that is consistent with a deconfined quantum critical point with emergent $SO(5)$ symmetry. The known anomaly of the latter is made possible by the non-local nature of the $U(1)$ pivot symmetry. Interestingly, the pivot Hamiltonian generating this symmetry is nothing other than the staggered Baxter-Wu three-spin interaction. This work illustrates the importance of $U(1)$ pivot symmetries and proposes how to generally construct sign-problem-free lattice models of SPT transitions with such anomalous symmetry groups for other lattices and dimensions.

  9 citations

• Bridging nano-optics and condensed matter formalisms in a unified description of inelastic scattering of relativistic electron beams

  Hugo Lourenço-Martins, Axel Lubk, Mathieu Kociak

  SciPost Phys. 10, 031 (2021) · published 10 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In the last decades, the blossoming of experimental breakthroughs in the domain of electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) has triggered a variety of theoretical developments. Those have to deal with completely different situations, from atomically resolved phonon mapping to electron circular dichroism passing by surface plasmon mapping. All of them rely on very different physical approximations and have not yet been reconciled, despite early attempts to do so. As an effort in that direction, we report on the development of a scalar relativistic quantum electrodynamic (QED) approach of the inelastic scattering of fast electrons. This theory can be adapted to describe all modern EELS experiments, and under the relevant approximations, can be reduced to any of the last EELS theories. In that aim, we present in this paper the state of the art and the basics of scalar relativistic QED relevant to the electron inelastic scattering. We then give a clear relation between the two once antagonist descriptions of the EELS, the retarded green Dyadic, usually applied to describe photonic excitations and the quasi-static mixed dynamic form factor (MDFF), more adapted to describe core electronic excitations of material. We then use this theory to establish two important EELS-related equations. The first one relates the spatially resolved EELS to the imaginary part of the photon propagator and the incoming and outgoing electron beam wavefunction, synthesizing the most common theories developed for analyzing spatially resolved EELS experiments. The second one shows that the evolution of the electron beam density matrix is proportional to the mutual coherence tensor, proving that quite universally, the electromagnetic correlations in the target are imprinted in the coherence properties of the probing electron beam.

  9 citations

• Quantum Gutzwiller approach for the two-component Bose-Hubbard model

  Victor E. Colussi, Fabio Caleffi, Chiara Menotti, Alessio Recati

  SciPost Phys. 12, 111 (2022) · published 29 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the effects of quantum fluctuations in the two-component Bose-Hubbard model generalizing to mixtures the quantum Gutzwiller approach introduced recently in [Phys. Rev. Research 2, 033276 (2020)]. As a basis for our study, we analyze the mean-field ground-state phase diagram and spectrum of elementary excitations, with particular emphasis on the quantum phase transitions of the model. Within the quantum critical regimes, we address both the superfluid transport properties and the linear response dynamics to density and spin probes of direct experimental relevance. Crucially, we find that quantum fluctuations have a dramatic effect on the drag between the superfluid species of the system, particularly in the vicinity of the paired and antipaired phases absent in the usual one-component Bose-Hubbard model. Additionally, we analyse the contributions of quantum corrections to the one-body coherence and density/spin fluctuations from the perspective of the collective modes of the system, providing results for the few-body correlations in all the regimes of the phase diagram.

  9 citations

• Quantum Field Theory Anomalies in Condensed Matter Physics

  R. Arouca, Andrea Cappelli, T. H. Hansson

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 62 (2022) · published 8 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We give a pedagogical introduction to quantum anomalies, how they are calculated using various methods, and why they are important in condensed matter theory. We discuss axial, chiral, and gravitational anomalies as well as global anomalies. We illustrate the theory with examples such as quantum Hall liquids, Fermi liquids, Weyl semi-metals, topological insulators and topological superconductors. The required background is basic knowledge of quantum field theory, including fermions and gauge fields, and some familiarity with path integral and functional methods. Some knowledge of topological phases of matter is helpful, but not necessary.

  9 citations

• Generalized eigenproblem without fermion doubling for Dirac fermions on a lattice

  M. J. Pacholski, G. Lemut, J. Tworzydło, C. W. J. Beenakker

  SciPost Phys. 11, 105 (2021) · published 14 December 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The spatial discretization of the single-cone Dirac Hamiltonian on the surface of a topological insulator or superconductor needs a special "staggered" grid, to avoid the appearance of a spurious second cone in the Brillouin zone. We adapt the Stacey discretization from lattice gauge theory to produce a generalized eigenvalue problem, of the form ${\mathcal H}\psi=E {\mathcal P}\psi$, with Hermitian tight-binding operators ${\mathcal H}$, ${\mathcal P}$, a locally conserved particle current, and preserved chiral and symplectic symmetries. This permits the study of the spectral statistics of Dirac fermions in each of the four symmetry classes A, AII, AIII, and D.

  9 citations

• One step replica symmetry breaking and extreme order statistics of logarithmic REMs

  Xiangyu Cao, Yan V. Fyodorov, Pierre Le Doussal

  SciPost Phys. 1, 011 (2016) · published 19 December 2016 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Building upon the one-step replica symmetry breaking formalism, duly understood and ramified, we show that the sequence of ordered extreme values of a general class of Euclidean-space logarithmically correlated random energy models (logREMs) behave in the thermodynamic limit as a randomly shifted decorated exponential Poisson point process. The distribution of the random shift is determined solely by the large-distance ("infra-red", IR) limit of the model, and is equal to the free energy distribution at the critical temperature up to a translation. the decoration process is determined solely by the small-distance ("ultraviolet", UV) limit, in terms of the biased minimal process. Our approach provides connections of the replica framework to results in the probability literature and sheds further light on the freezing/duality conjecture which was the source of many previous results for log-REMs. In this way we derive the general and explicit formulae for the joint probability density of depths of the first and second minima (as well its higher-order generalizations) in terms of model-specific contributions from UV as well as IR limits. In particular, we show that the second min statistics is largely independent of details of UV data, whose influence is seen only through the mean value of the gap. For a given log-correlated field this parameter can be evaluated numerically, and we provide several numerical tests of our theory using the circular model of $1/f$-noise.

  9 citations

• Critical energy landscape of linear soft spheres

  Silvio Franz, Antonio Sclocchi, Pierfrancesco Urbani

  SciPost Phys. 9, 012 (2020) · published 23 July 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that soft spheres interacting with a linear ramp potential when overcompressed beyond the jamming point fall in an amorphous solid phase which is critical, mechanically marginally stable and share many features with the jamming point itself. In the whole phase, the relevant local minima of the potential energy landscape display an isostatic contact network of perfectly touching spheres whose statistics is controlled by an infinite lengthscale. Excitations around such energy minima are non-linear, system spanning, and characterized by a set of non-trivial critical exponents. We perform numerical simulations to measure their values and show that, while they coincide, within numerical precision, with the critical exponents appearing at jamming, the nature of the corresponding excitations is richer. Therefore, linear soft spheres appear as a novel class of finite dimensional systems that self-organize into new, critical, marginally stable, states.

  9 citations

• Adaptive numerical solution of Kadanoff-Baym equations

  Francisco Meirinhos, Michael Kajan, Johann Kroha, Tim Bode

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 030 (2022) · published 27 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A time-stepping scheme with adaptivity in both the step size and the integration order is presented in the context of non-equilibrium dynamics described via Kadanoff-Baym equations. The accuracy and effectiveness of the algorithm are analysed by obtaining numerical solutions of exactly solvable models. We find a significant reduction in the number of time-steps compared to fixed-step methods. Due to the at least quadratic scaling of Kadanoff-Baym equations, reducing the amount of steps can dramatically increase the accessible integration time, opening the door for the study of long-time dynamics in interacting systems. A selection of illustrative examples is provided, among them interacting and open quantum systems as well as classical stochastic processes. An open-source implementation of our algorithm in the scientific-computing language Julia is made available.

  9 citations

• Hydrodynamics of higher-rank gauge theories

  Marvin Qi, Oliver Hart, Aaron J. Friedman, Rahul Nandkishore, Andrew Lucas

  SciPost Phys. 14, 029 (2023) · published 8 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We extend recent work on hydrodynamics with global multipolar symmetries — known as "fracton hydrodynamics" — to systems in which the multipolar symmetries are gauged. We refer to the latter as "fracton magnetohydrodynamics", in analogy to conventional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), which governs systems with gauged charge conservation. We show that fracton MHD arises naturally from higher-rank Maxwell's equations and in systems with one-form symmetries obeying certain constraints; while we focus on "minimal" higher-rank generalizations of MHD that realize diffusion, our methods may also be used to identify other, more exotic hydrodynamic theories (e.g., with magnetic subdiffusion). In contrast to semi-microscopic derivations of MHD, our approach elucidates the origin of the hydrodynamic modes by identifying the corresponding higher-form symmetries. Being rooted in symmetries, the hydrodynamic modes may persist even when the semi-microscopic equations no longer provide an accurate description of the system.

  9 citations