Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Periodically, Quasi-periodically, and Randomly Driven Conformal Field Theories (II): Furstenberg's Theorem and Exceptions to Heating Phases

  Xueda Wen, Yingfei Gu, Ashvin Vishwanath, Ruihua Fan

  SciPost Phys. 13, 082 (2022) · published 5 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this sequel (to [Phys. Rev. Res. 3, 023044(2021)], arXiv:2006.10072), we study randomly driven $(1+1)$ dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs), a family of quantum many-body systems with soluble non-equilibrium quantum dynamics. The sequence of driving Hamiltonians is drawn from an independent and identically distributed random ensemble. At each driving step, the deformed Hamiltonian only involves the energy-momentum density spatially modulated at a single wavelength and therefore induces a M\"obius transformation on the complex coordinates. The non-equilibrium dynamics is then determined by the corresponding sequence of M\"obius transformations, from which the Lyapunov exponent $\lambda_L$ is defined. We use Furstenberg's theorem to classify the dynamical phases and show that except for a few \emph{exceptional points} that do not satisfy Furstenberg's criteria, the random drivings always lead to a heating phase with the total energy growing exponentially in the number of driving steps $n$ and the subsystem entanglement entropy growing linearly in $n$ with a slope proportional to central charge $c$ and the Lyapunov exponent $\lambda_L$. On the contrary, the subsystem entanglement entropy at an exceptional point could grow as $\sqrt{n}$ while the total energy remains to grow exponentially. In addition, we show that the distributions of the operator evolution and the energy density peaks are also useful characterizations to distinguish the heating phase from the exceptional points: the heating phase has both distributions to be continuous, while the exceptional points could support finite convex combinations of Dirac measures depending on their specific type. In the end, we compare the field theory results with the lattice model calculations for both the entanglement and energy evolution and find remarkably good agreement.

  25 citations

• On the separation of Hall and Ohmic nonlinear responses

  Stepan S. Tsirkin, Ivo Souza

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 039 (2022) · published 8 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The symmetric and antisymmetric parts of the linear conductivity describe the dissipative (Ohmic) and nondissipative (Hall) parts of the current. The Hall current is always transverse to the applied electric field regardless of its orientation; the Ohmic current is purely longitudinal in cubic crystals, but in lower-symmetry crystals it has a transverse component whenever the field is not aligned with a principal axis. In this work, we extend that analysis beyond the linear regime. We consider all possible ways of partitioning the current at any order in the electric field without taking symmetry into account, and find that the Hall vs Ohmic decomposition is the only one that satisfies certain basic requirements. A general prescription is given for achieving that decomposition, and the case of the quadratic conductivity is analyzed in detail. By performing a symmetry analysis we find that in five of the 122 magnetic point groups the quadratic dc conductivity is purely Ohmic and even under time reversal, a type of response that is entirely disorder mediated.

  24 citations

• Kibble–Zurek mechanism in the Ising Field Theory

  Kristóf Hódsági, Marton Kormos

  SciPost Phys. 9, 055 (2020) · published 20 October 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Kibble-Zurek mechanism captures universality when a system is driven through a continuous phase transition. Here we study the dynamical aspect of quantum phase transitions in the Ising Field Theory where the quantum critical point can be crossed in different directions in the two-dimensional coupling space leading to different scaling laws. Using the Truncated Conformal Space Approach, we investigate the microscopic details of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in terms of instantaneous eigenstates in a genuinely interacting field theory. For different protocols, we demonstrate dynamical scaling in the non-adiabatic time window and provide analytic and numerical evidence for specific scaling properties of various quantities. In particular, we argue that the higher cumulants of the excess heat exhibit universal scaling in generic interacting models for a slow enough ramp.

  24 citations

• Optimal compression of quantum many-body time evolution operators into brickwall circuits

  Maurits S. J. Tepaske, Dominik Hahn, David J. Luitz

  SciPost Phys. 14, 073 (2023) · published 17 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Near term quantum computers suffer from a degree of decoherence which is prohibitive for high fidelity simulations with deep circuits. An economical use of circuit depth is therefore paramount. For digital quantum simulation of quantum many-body systems, real time evolution is typically achieved by a Trotter decomposition of the time evolution operator into circuits consisting only of two qubit gates. To match the geometry of the physical system and the CNOT connectivity of the quantum processor, additional SWAP gates are needed. We show that optimal fidelity, beyond what is achievable by simple Trotter decompositions for a fixed gate count, can be obtained by compiling the evolution operator into optimal brickwall circuits for the $S=1/2$ quantum Heisenberg model on chains and ladders, when mapped to one dimensional quantum processors without the need of additional SWAP gates.

  24 citations

• Snowmass2021 cosmic frontier white paper: Ultraheavy particle dark matter

  Daniel Carney, Nirmal Raj, Yang Bai, Joshua Berger, Carlos Blanco, Joseph Bramante, Christopher Cappiello, Maíra Dutra, Reza Ebadi, Kristi Engel, Edward Kolb, J. Patrick Harding, Jason Kumar, Gordan Krnjaic, Rafael F. Lang, Rebecca K. Leane, Benjamin V. Lehmann, Shengchao Li, Andrew J. Long, Gopolang Mohlabeng, Ibles Olcina, Elisa Pueschel, Nicholas L. Rodd, Carsten Rott, Dipan Sengupta, Bibhushan Shakya, Ronald L. Walsworth, Shawn Westerdale

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 075 (2023) · published 6 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We outline the unique opportunities and challenges in the search for "ultraheavy" dark matter candidates with masses between roughly 10 TeV and the Planck scale $m_{\rm pl} ≈ 10^{16}$ TeV. This mass range presents a wide and relatively unexplored dark matter parameter space, with a rich space of possible models and cosmic histories. We emphasize that both current detectors and new, targeted search techniques, via both direct and indirect detection, are poised to contribute to searches for ultraheavy particle dark matter in the coming decade. We highlight the need for new developments in this space, including new analyses of current and imminent direct and indirect experiments targeting ultraheavy dark matter and development of new, ultra-sensitive detector technologies like next-generation liquid noble detectors, neutrino experiments, and specialized quantum sensing techniques.

  24 citations

• Self-stabilized Bose polarons

  Richard Schmidt, Tilman Enss

  SciPost Phys. 13, 054 (2022) · published 8 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The mobile impurity in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a paradigmatic many-body problem. For weak interaction between the impurity and the BEC, the impurity deforms the BEC only slightly and it is well described within the Fröhlich model and the Bogoliubov approximation. For strong local attraction this standard approach, however, fails to balance the local attraction with the weak repulsion between the BEC particles and predicts an instability where an infinite number of bosons is attracted toward the impurity. Here we present a solution of the Bose polaron problem beyond the Bogoliubov approximation which includes the local repulsion between bosons and thereby stabilizes the Bose polaron even near and beyond the scattering resonance. We show that the Bose polaron energy remains bounded from below across the resonance and the size of the polaron dressing cloud stays finite. Our results demonstrate how the dressing cloud replaces the attractive impurity potential with an effective many-body potential that excludes binding. We find that at resonance, including the effects of boson repulsion, the polaron energy depends universally on the effective range. Moreover, while the impurity contact is strongly peaked at positive scattering length, it remains always finite. Our solution highlights how Bose polarons are self-stabilized by repulsion, providing a mechanism to understand quench dynamics and nonequilibrium time evolution at strong coupling.

  24 citations

• QGOpt: Riemannian optimization for quantum technologies

  Ilia A. Luchnikov, Alexander Ryzhov, Sergey N. Filippov, Henni Ouerdane

  SciPost Phys. 10, 079 (2021) · published 30 March 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Many theoretical problems in quantum technology can be formulated and addressed as constrained optimization problems. The most common quantum mechanical constraints such as, e.g., orthogonality of isometric and unitary matrices, CPTP property of quantum channels, and conditions on density matrices, can be seen as quotient or embedded Riemannian manifolds. This allows to use Riemannian optimization techniques for solving quantum-mechanical constrained optimization problems. In the present work, we introduce QGOpt, the library for constrained optimization in quantum technology. QGOpt relies on the underlying Riemannian structure of quantum-mechanical constraints and permits application of standard gradient based optimization methods while preserving quantum mechanical constraints. Moreover, QGOpt is written on top of TensorFlow, which enables automatic differentiation to calculate necessary gradients for optimization. We show two application examples: quantum gate decomposition and quantum tomography.

  24 citations

• Classification of chiral fermionic CFTs of central charge $\le$ 16

  Philip Boyle Smith, Ying-Hsuan Lin, Yuji Tachikawa, Yunqin Zheng

  SciPost Phys. 16, 058 (2024) · published 27 February 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We classify two-dimensional purely chiral unitary conformal field theories which are defined on two-dimensional surfaces equipped with spin structure and have central charge less than or equal to $16$, and discuss their duality webs. This result can be used to confirm that the list of non-supersymmetric ten-dimensional heterotic string theories found in the late 1980s is complete and does not miss any exotic example.

  24 citations

• Topological holography: The example of the D2-D4 brane system

  Nafiz Ishtiaque, Seyed Faroogh Moosavian, Yehao Zhou

  SciPost Phys. 9, 017 (2020) · published 5 August 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose a toy model for holographic duality. The model is constructed by embedding a stack of $N$ D2-branes and $K$ D4-branes (with one dimensional intersection) in a 6D topological string theory. The world-volume theory on the D2-branes (resp. D4-branes) is 2D BF theory (resp. 4D Chern-Simons theory) with $\mathrm{GL}_N$ (resp. $\mathrm{GL}_K$) gauge group. We propose that in the large $N$ limit the BF theory on $\mathbb{R}^2$ is dual to the closed string theory on $\mathbb R^2 \times \mathbb R_+ \times S^3$ with the Chern-Simons defect on $\mathbb R \times \mathbb R_+ \times S^2$. As a check for the duality we compute the operator algebra in the BF theory, along the D2-D4 intersection -- the algebra is the Yangian of $\mathfrak{gl}_K$. We then compute the same algebra, in the guise of a scattering algebra, using Witten diagrams in the Chern-Simons theory. Our computations of the algebras are exact (valid at all loops). Finally, we propose a physical string theory construction of this duality using a D3-D5 brane configuration in type IIB -- using supersymmetric twist and $\Omega$-deformation.

  24 citations

• Quantum echo dynamics in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model

  Silvia Pappalardi, Anatoli Polkovnikov, Alessandro Silva

  SciPost Phys. 9, 021 (2020) · published 19 August 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Understanding the footprints of chaos in quantum-many-body systems has been under debate for a long time. In this work, we study the echo dynamics of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model with transverse field under effective time reversal. We investigate numerically its quantum and semiclassical dynamics. We explore how chaotic many-body quantum physics can lead to exponential divergence of the echo of observables and we show that it is a result of three requirements: i) the collective nature of the observable, ii) a properly chosen initial state and iii) the existence of a well-defined chaotic semi-classical (large-$N$) limit. Under these conditions, the echo grows exponentially up to the Ehrenfest time, which scales logarithmically with the number of spins $N$. In this regime, the echo is well described by the semiclassical (truncated Wigner) approximation. We also discuss a short-range version of the SK model, where the Ehrenfest time does not depend on $N$ and the quantum echo shows only polynomial growth. Our findings provide new insights on scrambling and echo dynamics and how to observe it experimentally.

  24 citations