Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Possible superconductivity from incoherent carriers in overdoped cuprates

  M. Culo, C. Duffy, J. Ayres, M. Berben, Y.-T. Hsu, R. D. H. Hinlopen, B. Bernath, N. E. Hussey

  SciPost Phys. 11, 012 (2021) · published 14 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The non-superconducting state of overdoped cuprates is conjectured to be a strange metal comprising two distinct charge sectors, one governed by coherent quasiparticle excitations, the other seemingly incoherent and characterized by non-quasiparticle (Planckian) dissipation. The zero-temperature superfluid density n_s(0) of overdoped cuprates exhibits an anomalous depletion with increased hole doping p, falling to zero at the edge of the superconducting dome. Over the same doping range, the effective zero-temperature Hall number n_H(0) transitions from p to 1 + p. By taking into account the presence of these two charge sectors, we demonstrate that in the overdoped cuprates Tl2Ba2CuO6+\delta and La2-xSrxCuO4, the growth in n_s(0) as p is decreased from the overdoped side may be compensated by the loss of carriers in the coherent sector. Such a correspondence is contrary to expectations from conventional BCS theory and implies that superconductivity in overdoped cuprates emerges uniquely from the sector that exhibits incoherent transport in the normal state.

  15 citations

• Holography for people with no time

  Henry W. Lin, Juan Maldacena, Liza Rozenberg, Jieru Shan

  SciPost Phys. 14, 150 (2023) · published 12 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the gravitational description of extremal supersymmetric black holes. We point out that the $AdS_2$ near horizon geometry can be used to compute interesting observables, such as correlation functions of operators. In this limit, the Hamiltonian is zero and correlation functions are time independent. We discuss some possible implications for the gravity description of black hole microstates. We also compare with numerical results in a supersymmetric version of SYK. These results can also be interpreted as providing a construction of wormholes joining two extremal black holes. This is the short version of a longer and more technical companion paper [SciPost Phys. 14, 128 (2023)].

  15 citations

• UCN, the ultracold neutron source -- neutrons for particle physics

  Bernhard Lauss, Bertrand Blau

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 5, 004 (2021) · published 6 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Ultracold neutrons provide a unique tool for the study of neutron properties. An overview is given of the ultracold neutron (UCN) source at PSI, which produces the highest UCN intensities to fundamental physics experiments by exploiting the high intensity proton beam in combination with the high UCN yield in solid deuterium at a temperature of 5K. We briefly list important fundamental physics results based on measurements with neutrons at PSI.

  15 citations

• The one-dimensional Bose gas with strong two-body losses: the effect of the harmonic confinement

  Lorenzo Rosso, Alberto Biella, Leonardo Mazza

  SciPost Phys. 12, 044 (2022) · published 28 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the dynamics of a one-dimensional Bose gas in presence of strong two-body losses. In this dissipative quantum Zeno regime, the gas fermionises and its dynamics can be described with a simple set of rate equations. Employing the local density approximation and a Boltzmann-like dynamical equation, the description is easily extended to take into account an external potential. We show that in the absence of confinement the population is depleted in an anomalous way and that the gas behaves as a low-temperature classical gas. The harmonic confinement accelerates the depopulation of the gas and introduces a novel decay regime, which we thoroughly characterise.

  15 citations

• Hyperbolic compactification of M-theory and de Sitter quantum gravity

  G. Bruno De Luca, Eva Silverstein, Gonzalo Torroba

  SciPost Phys. 12, 083 (2022) · published 4 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a mechanism for accelerated expansion of the universe in the generic case of negative-curvature compactifications of M-theory, with minimal ingredients. M-theory on a hyperbolic manifold with small closed geodesics supporting Casimir energy -- along with a single classical source (7-form flux) -- contains an immediate 3-term structure for volume stabilization at positive potential energy. Hyperbolic manifolds are well-studied mathematically, with an important rigidity property at fixed volume. They and their Dehn fillings to more general Einstein spaces exhibit explicit discrete parameters that yield small closed geodesics supporting Casimir energy. The off-shell effective potential derived by M. Douglas incorporates the warped product structure via the constraints of general relativity, screening negative energy. Analyzing the fields sourced by the localized Casimir energy and the available discrete choices of manifolds and fluxes, we find a regime where the net curvature, Casimir energy, and flux compete at large radius and stabilize the volume. Further metric and form field deformations are highly constrained by hyperbolic rigidity and warping effects, leading to calculations giving strong indications of a positive Hessian, and residual tadpoles are small. We test this via explicit back reacted solutions and perturbations in patches including the Dehn filling regions, initiate a neural network study of further aspects of the internal fields, and derive a Maldacena-Nunez style no-go theorem for Anti-de Sitter extrema. A simple generalization incorporating 4-form flux produces axion monodromy inflation. As a relatively simple de Sitter uplift of the large-N M2-brane theory, the construction applies to de Sitter holography as well as to cosmological modeling, and introduces new connections between mathematics and the physics of string/M theory compactifications.

  15 citations

• Hyperbolic nodal band structures and knot invariants

  Marcus Stålhammar, Lukas Rødland, Gregory Arone, Jan Carl Budich, Emil J. Bergholtz

  SciPost Phys. 7, 019 (2019) · published 8 August 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We extend the list of known band structure topologies to include a large family of hyperbolic nodal links and knots, occurring both in conventional Hermitian systems where their stability relies on discrete symmetries, and in the dissipative non-Hermitian realm where the knotted nodal lines are generic and thus stable towards any small perturbation. We show that these nodal structures, taking the forms of Turk's head knots, appear in both continuum- and lattice models with relatively short-ranged hopping that is within experimental reach. To determine the topology of the nodal structures, we devise an efficient algorithm for computing the Alexander polynomial, linking numbers and higher order Milnor invariants based on an approximate and well controlled parameterisation of the knot.

  15 citations

• Molecular dynamics simulation of entanglement spreading in generalized hydrodynamics

  Márton Mestyán, Vincenzo Alba

  SciPost Phys. 8, 055 (2020) · published 9 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a molecular dynamics method, the so-called flea gas for computing the evolution of entanglement after inhomogeneous quantum quenches in an integrable quantum system. In such systems the evolution of local observables is described at large space-time scales by the Generalized Hydrodynamics approach, which is based on the presence of stable, ballistically propagating quasiparticles. Recently it was shown that the GHD approach can be joined with the quasiparticle picture of entanglement evolution, providing results for entanglement growth after inhomogeneous quenches. Here we apply the flea gas simulation of GHD to obtain numerical results for entanglement growth. We implement the flea gas dynamics for the gapped anisotropic Heisenberg XXZ spin chain, considering quenches from globally homogeneous and piecewise homogeneous initial states. While the flea gas method applied to the XXZ chain is not exact even in the scaling limit (in contrast to the Lieb--Liniger model), it yields a very good approximation of analytical results for entanglement growth in the cases considered. Furthermore, we obtain the {\it full-time} dynamics of the mutual information after quenches from inhomogeneous settings, for which no analytical results are available.

  15 citations

• Replica Bethe Ansatz solution to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation on the half-line

  Alexandre Krajenbrink, Pierre Le Doussal

  SciPost Phys. 8, 035 (2020) · published 4 March 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation for the stochastic growth of an interface of height $h(x,t)$ on the positive half line with boundary condition $\partial_x h(x,t)|_{x=0}=A$. It is equivalent to a continuum directed polymer (DP) in a random potential in half-space with a wall at $x=0$ either repulsive $A>0$, or attractive $A<0$. We provide an exact solution, using replica Bethe ansatz methods, to two problems which were recently proved to be equivalent [Parekh, arXiv:1901.09449]: the droplet initial condition for arbitrary $A \geqslant -1/2$, and the Brownian initial condition with a drift for $A=+\infty$ (infinite hard wall). We study the height at $x=0$ and obtain (i) at all time the Laplace transform of the distribution of its exponential (ii) at infinite time, its exact probability distribution function (PDF). These are expressed in two equivalent forms, either as a Fredholm Pfaffian with a matrix valued kernel, or as a Fredholm determinant with a scalar kernel. For droplet initial conditions and $A> - \frac{1}{2}$ the large time PDF is the GSE Tracy-Widom distribution. For $A= \frac{1}{2}$, the critical point at which the DP binds to the wall, we obtain the GOE Tracy-Widom distribution. In the critical region, $A+\frac{1}{2} = \epsilon t^{-1/3} \to 0$ with fixed $\epsilon = \mathcal{O}(1)$, we obtain a transition kernel continuously depending on $\epsilon$. Our work extends the results obtained previously for $A=+\infty$, $A=0$ and $A=- \frac{1}{2}$.

  15 citations

• Quantum gravity, renormalizability and diffeomorphism invariance

  Tim R. Morris

  SciPost Phys. 5, 040 (2018) · published 30 October 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that the Wilsonian renormalization group (RG) provides a natural regularisation of the Quantum Master Equation such that to first order the BRST algebra closes on local functionals spanned by the eigenoperators with constant couplings. We then apply this to quantum gravity. Around the Gaussian fixed point, RG properties of the conformal factor of the metric allow the construction of a Hilbert space $\mathfrak{L}$ of renormalizable interactions, non-perturbative in $\hbar$, and involving arbitrarily high powers of the gravitational fluctuations. We show that diffeomorphism invariance is violated for interactions that lie inside $\mathfrak{L}$, in the sense that only a trivial quantum BRST cohomology exists for interactions at first order in the couplings. However by taking a limit to the boundary of $\mathfrak{L}$, the couplings can be constrained to recover Newton's constant, and standard realisations of diffeomorphism invariance, whilst retaining renormalizability. The limits are sufficiently flexible to allow this also at higher orders. This leaves open a number of questions that should find their answer at second order. We develop much of the framework that will allow these calculations to be performed.

  15 citations

• Page curves and bath deformations

  Elena Caceres, Arnab Kundu, Ayan K. Patra, Sanjit Shashi

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 033 (2022) · published 13 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the black hole information problem within a semiclassically gravitating AdS$_d$ black hole coupled to and in equilibrium with a $d$-dimensional thermal conformal bath. We deform the bath state by a relevant scalar deformation, triggering a holographic RG flow whose “trans-IR” region deforms from a Schwarzschild geometry to a Kasner universe. The setup manifests two independent scales which control both the extent of coarse-graining and the entanglement dynamics when counting Hawking degrees of freedom in the bath. In tuning either, we find nontrivial changes to the Page time and Page curve. We consequently view the Page curve as a probe of the holographic RG flow, with a higher Page time manifesting as a result of increased coarse-graining of the bath degrees of freedom.

  15 citations