Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Pseudogap metal and magnetization plateau from doping moiré Mott insulator

  Yang Zhang, Liang Fu

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 038 (2023) · published 22 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The problem of doping Mott insulators is of fundamental importance and long-standing interest in the study of strongly correlated electron systems. The advent of semiconductor based moiré materials opens a new ground for simulating the Hubbard model on the triangular lattice and exploring its rich phase diagram as a function of doping and external magnetic field. Based on our recent identification of spin polaron quasiparticle in Mott insulator, in this work we predict the emergence of a pseudogap metal phase at small doping below half filling and an intermediate range of fields, which exhibits a single-particle gap and a doping-dependent magnetization plateau.

  12 citations

• Dynamical localization and slow thermalization in a class of disorder-free periodically driven one-dimensional interacting systems

  Sreemayee Aditya, Diptiman Sen

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 083 (2023) · published 30 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study if the interplay between dynamical localization and interactions in periodically driven quantum systems can give rise to anomalous thermalization behavior. Specifically, we consider one-dimensional models with interacting spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor hopping and density-density interactions, and a periodically driven on-site potential with spatial periodicity m=2 and m=4. At a dynamical localization point, these models evade thermalization either due to the presence of an extensive number of conserved quantities (for weak interactions) or due to the kinetic constraints caused by drive-induced resonances (for strong interactions). Our models therefore illustrate interesting mechanisms for generating constrained dynamics in Floquet systems which are difficult to realize in an undriven system.

  12 citations

• Critical colored-RVB states in the frustrated quantum Heisenberg model on the square lattice

  Didier Poilblanc, Matthieu Mambrini, Sylvain Capponi

  SciPost Phys. 7, 041 (2019) · published 2 October 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a family of SU(2)-symmetric Projected Entangled Paired States (PEPS) on the square lattice, defining colored-Resonating Valence Bond (RVB) states, to describe the quantum disordered phase of the $J_1-J_2$ frustrated Heisenberg model.For $J_2/J_1\sim 0.55$ we show the emergence of critical (algebraic) dimer-dimer correlations -- typical of Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) points of quantum dimer models on bipartite lattices -- while, simultaneously, the spin-spin correlation length remains short. Our findings are consistent with a spin liquid or a weak Valence Bond Crystal in the neighborhood of an RK point.

  12 citations

• Emergent orbital magnetization in Kitaev quantum magnets

  Saikat Banerjee, Shi-Zeng Lin

  SciPost Phys. 14, 127 (2023) · published 24 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Unambiguous identification of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL) in materials remains a huge challenge despite many encouraging signs from various measurements. To facilitate the experimental detection of the Kiteav QSL, here we propose to use remnant charge response in Mott insulators hosting QSL to identify the key signatures of QSL. We predict an emergent orbital magnetization in a Kitaev system in an external magnetic field. The direction of the orbital magnetization can be flipped by rotating the external magnetic field in the honeycomb plane. The orbital magnetization is demonstrated explicitly through a detailed microscopic analysis of the multiorbital Hubbard-Kanamori Hamiltonian and also supported by a phenomenological picture. We first derive the localized electrical loop current operator in terms of the spin degrees of freedom. Thereafter, utilizing the Majorana representation, we estimate the loop currents in the ground state of the chiral Kitaev QSL state, and obtain the consequent current textures, which are responsible for the emergent orbital magnetization. Finally, we discuss the possible experimental techniques to visualize the orbital magnetization which can be considered as the signatures of the underlying excitations.

  12 citations

• Quantum order-by-disorder induced phase transition in Rydberg ladders with staggered detuning

  Madhumita Sarkar, Mainak Pal, Arnab Sen, Krishnendu Sengupta

  SciPost Phys. 14, 004 (2023) · published 16 January 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  $^{87}{\rm Rb}$ atoms are known to have long-lived Rydberg excited states with controllable excitation amplitude (detuning) and strong repulsive van der Waals interaction $V_{{\bf r} {\bf r'}}$ between excited atoms at sites ${\bf r}$ and ${\bf r'}$. Here we study such atoms in a two-leg ladder geometry in the presence of both staggered and uniform detuning with amplitudes $\Delta$ and $\lambda$ respectively. We show that when $V_{{\bf r r'}} \gg(\ll) \Delta, \lambda$ for $|{\bf r}-{\bf r'}|=1(>1)$, these ladders host a plateau for a wide range of $\lambda/\Delta$ where the ground states are selected by a quantum order-by-disorder mechanism from a macroscopically degenerate manifold of Fock states with fixed Rydberg excitation density $1/4$. Our study further unravels the presence of an emergent Ising transition stabilized via the order-by-disorder mechanism inside the plateau. We identify the competing terms responsible for the transition and estimate a critical detuning $\lambda_c/\Delta=1/3$ which agrees well with exact-diagonalization based numerical studies. We also study the fate of this transition for a realistic interaction potential $V_{{\bf r} {\bf r'}} = V_0 /|{\bf r}-{\bf r'}|^6$, demonstrate that it survives for a wide range of $V_0$, and provide analytic estimate of $\lambda_c$ as a function of $V_0$. This allows for the possibility of a direct verification of this transition in standard experiments which we discuss.

  12 citations

• Out-of-equilibrium phase transitions induced by Floquet resonances in a periodically quench-driven XY spin chain

  Sergio Enrique Tapias Arze, Pieter W. Claeys, Isaac Pérez Castillo, Jean-Sébastien Caux

  SciPost Phys. Core 3, 001 (2020) · published 22 July 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the dynamics of an XY spin chain subjected to an external transverse field which is periodically quenched between two values. By deriving an exact expression of the Floquet Hamiltonian for this out-of-equilibrium protocol with arbitrary driving frequencies, we show how, after an unfolding of the Floquet spectrum, the parameter space of the system is characterized by alternations between local and non-local regions, corresponding respectively to the absence and presence of Floquet resonances. The boundary lines between regions are obtained analytically from avoided crossings in the Floquet quasi-energies and are observable as phase transitions in the synchronized state. The transient behaviour of dynamical averages of local observables similarly undergoes a transition, showing either a rapid convergence towards the synchronized state in the local regime, or a rather slow one exhibiting persistent oscillations in the non-local regime, where explicit decay coefficients are presented.

  12 citations

• From "weak" to "strong" hole confinement in a Mott insulator

  Krzysztof Bieniasz, Piotr Wrzosek, Andrzej M. Oles, Krzysztof Wohlfeld

  SciPost Phys. 7, 066 (2019) · published 27 November 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the problem of a single hole in an Ising antiferromagnet and, using the magnon expansion and analytical methods, determine the expansion coefficients of its wave function in the magnon basis. In the 1D case, the hole is "weakly" confined in a potential well and the magnon coefficients decay exponentially in the absence of a string potential. This behavior is in sharp contrast to the 2D square plane where the hole is "strongly" confined by a string potential and the magnon coefficients decay superexponentially. The latter is identified here to be a fingerprint of the strings in doped antiferromagnets that can be recognized in the numerical or cold atom simulations of the 2D doped Hubbard model. Finally, we attribute the differences between the 1D and 2D cases to the magnon-magnon interactions being crucially important in a 1D spin system.

  12 citations

• Probing Chern number by opacity and topological phase transition by a nonlocal Chern marker

  Paolo Molignini, Bastien Lapierre, Ramasubramanian Chitra, Wei Chen

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 059 (2023) · published 29 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In 2D semiconductors and insulators, the Chern number of the valence band Bloch state is an important quantity that has been linked to various material properties, such as the topological order. We elaborate that the opacity of 2D materials to circularly polarized light over a wide range of frequencies, measured in units of the fine structure constant, can be used to extract a spectral function that frequency-integrates to the Chern number, offering a simple optical experiment to measure it. This method is subsequently generalized to finite temperature and locally on every lattice site by a linear response theory, which helps to extract the Chern marker that maps the Chern number to lattice sites. The long range response in our theory corresponds to a Chern correlator that acts like the internal fluctuation of the Chern marker, and is found to be enhanced in the topologically nontrivial phase. Finally, from the Fourier transform of the valence band Berry curvature, a nonlocal Chern marker is further introduced, whose decay length diverges at topological phase transitions and therefore serves as a faithful indicator of the transitions, and moreover can be interpreted as a Wannier state correlation function. The concepts discussed in this work explore multi-faceted aspects of topology and should help address the impact of system inhomogeneities.

  12 citations

• Composing topological domain walls and anyon mobility

  Peter Huston, Fiona Burnell, Corey Jones, David Penneys

  SciPost Phys. 15, 076 (2023) · published 4 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Topological domain walls separating 2+1 dimensional topologically ordered phases can be understood in terms of Witt equivalences between the UMTCs describing anyons in the bulk topological orders. However, this picture does not provide a framework for decomposing stacks of multiple domain walls into superselection sectors — i.e., into fundamental domain wall types that cannot be mixed by any local operators. Such a decomposition can be understood using an alternate framework in the case that the topological order is anomaly-free, in the sense that it can be realized by a commuting projector lattice model. By placing these Witt equivalences in the context of a 3-category of potentially anomalous (2+1)D topological orders, we develop a framework for computing the decomposition of parallel topological domain walls into indecomposable superselection sectors, extending the previous understanding to topological orders with non-trivial anomaly. We characterize the superselection sectors in terms of domain wall particle mobility, which we formalize in terms of tunnelling operators. The mathematical model for the 3-category of topological orders is the 3-category of fusion categories enriched over a fixed unitary modular tensor category.

  12 citations

• Pairing of holes by confining strings in antiferromagnets

  Fabian Grusdt, Eugene Demler, Annabelle Bohrdt

  SciPost Phys. 14, 090 (2023) · published 2 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In strongly correlated quantum materials, the behavior of charge carriers is dominated by strong electron-electron interactions. These can lead to insulating states with spin order, and upon doping to competing ordered states including unconventional superconductivity. The underlying pairing mechanism remains poorly understood however, even in strongly simplified theoretical models. Recent advances in quantum simulation allow to study pairing in paradigmatic settings, e.g. in the $t-J$ and $t-J_z$ Hamiltonians. Even there, the most basic properties of paired states of only two dopants, such as their dispersion relation and excitation spectra, remain poorly studied in many cases. Here we provide new analytical insights into a possible string-based pairing mechanism of mobile holes in an antiferromagnet. We analyze an effective model of partons connected by a confining string and calculate the spectral properties of bound states. Our model is equally relevant for understanding Hubbard-Mott excitons consisting of a bound doublon-hole pair or confined states of dynamical matter in lattice gauge theories, which motivates our study of different parton statistics. Although an accurate semi-analytic estimation of binding energies is challenging, our theory provides a detailed understanding of the internal structure of pairs. For example, in a range of settings we predict heavy states of immobile pairs with flat-band dispersions - including for the lowest-energy $d$-wave pair of fermions. Our findings shed new light on the long-standing question about the origin of pairing and competing orders in high-temperature superconductors.

  11 citations