Publications

Order by: publication date number of 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.

  8 citations

• Phonon dressing of a facilitated one-dimensional Rydberg lattice gas

  Matteo Magoni, Paolo P. Mazza, Igor Lesanovsky

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 041 (2022) · published 23 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the dynamics of a one-dimensional Rydberg lattice gas under facilitation (anti-blockade) conditions which implements a so-called kinetically constrained spin system. Here an atom can only be excited to a Rydberg state when one of its neighbors is already excited. Once two or more atoms are simultaneously excited mechanical forces emerge, which couple the internal electronic dynamics of this many-body system to external vibrational degrees of freedom in the lattice. This electron-phonon coupling results in a so-called phonon dressing of many-body states which in turn impacts on the facilitation dynamics. In our theoretical study we focus on a scenario in which all energy scales are sufficiently separated such that a perturbative treatment of the coupling between electronic and vibrational states is possible. This allows to analytically derive an effective Hamiltonian for the evolution of consecutive clusters of Rydberg excitations in the presence of phonon dressing. We analyze the spectrum of this Hamiltonian and show -- by employing Fano resonance theory -- that the interaction between Rydberg excitations and lattice vibrations leads to the emergence of slowly decaying bound states that inhibit fast relaxation of certain initial states.

  8 citations

• Strongly-interacting bosons at 2D-1D dimensional crossover

  Hepeng Yao, Lorenzo Pizzino, Thierry Giamarchi

  SciPost Phys. 15, 050 (2023) · published 7 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study a two dimensional (2D) system of interacting quantum bosons, subjected to a continuous periodic potential in one direction. The correlation of such system exhibits a dimensional crossover between a canonical 2D behavior with Berezinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) properties and a one-dimensional (1D) behavior when the potential is large and splits the system in essentially independent tubes. The latter is in the universality class of Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids (TLL). Using a continuous quantum Monte Carlo method, we investigate this dimensional crossover by computing longitudinal and transverse superfluid fraction as well as the superfluid correlation as a function of temperature, interactions and potential. Especially, we find the correlation function evolves from BKT to TLL type, with special intermediate behaviors appearing at the dimensional crossover. We discuss how the consequences of the dimensional crossover can be investigated in cold atomic gases experiments.

  8 citations

• Snell's Law for a vortex dipole in a Bose-Einstein condensate

  Michael M. Cawte, Xiaoquan Yu, Brian P. Anderson, Ashton S. Bradley

  SciPost Phys. 6, 032 (2019) · published 13 March 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A quantum vortex dipole, comprised of a closely bound pair of vortices of equal strength with opposite circulation, is a spatially localized travelling excitation of a planar superfluid that carries linear momentum, suggesting a possible analogy with ray optics. We investigate numerically and analytically the motion of a quantum vortex dipole incident upon a step-change in the background superfluid density of an otherwise uniform two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate. Due to the conservation of fluid momentum and energy, the incident and refracted angles of the dipole satisfy a relation analogous to Snell's law, when crossing the interface between regions of different density. The predictions of the analogue Snell's law relation are confirmed for a wide range of incident angles by systematic numerical simulations of the Gross-Piteavskii equation. Near the critical angle for total internal reflection, we identify a regime of anomalous Snell's law behaviour where the finite size of the dipole causes transient capture by the interface. Remarkably, despite the extra complexity of the surface interaction, the incoming and outgoing dipole paths obey Snell's law.

  8 citations

• Mobile impurities in integrable models

  Andrew S. Campbell, Dimitri M. Gangardt

  SciPost Phys. 3, 015 (2017) · published 22 August 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use a mobile impurity or depleton model to study elementary excitations in one-dimensional integrable systems. For Lieb-Liniger and bosonic Yang-Gaudin models we express two phenomenological parameters characterising renormalised interactions of mobile impurities with superfluid background: the number of depleted particles, $N$ and the superfluid phase drop $\pi J$ in terms of the corresponding Bethe Ansatz solution and demonstrate, in the leading order, the absence of two-phonon scattering resulting in vanishing rates of inelastic processes such as viscosity experienced by the mobile impurities

  7 citations

• Statistical Floquet prethermalization of the Bose-Hubbard model

  Emanuele G. Dalla Torre, David Dentelski

  SciPost Phys. 11, 040 (2021) · published 24 August 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The manipulation of many-body systems often involves time-dependent forces that cause unwanted heating. One strategy to suppress heating is to use time-periodic (Floquet) forces at large driving frequencies. For quantum spin systems with bounded spectra, it was shown rigorously that the heating rate is exponentially small in the driving frequency. Recently, the exponential suppression of heating has also been observed in an experiment with ultracold atoms, realizing a periodically driven Bose-Hubbard model. This model has an unbounded spectrum and, hence, is beyond the reach of previous theoretical approaches. Here, we study this model with two semiclassical approaches valid, respectively, at large and weak interaction strengths. In both limits, we compute the heating rates by studying the statistical probability to encounter a many-body resonance, and obtain a quantitative agreement with the exact diagonalization of the quantum model. Our approach demonstrates the relevance of statistical arguments to Floquet perthermalization of interacting many-body quantum systems.

  7 citations

• Variational truncated Wigner approximation for weakly interacting Bose fields: Dynamics of coupled condensates

  Christopher D. Mink, Axel Pelster, Jens Benary, Herwig Ott, Michael Fleischhauer

  SciPost Phys. 12, 051 (2022) · published 2 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The truncated Wigner approximation is an established approach that describes the dynamics of weakly interacting Bose gases beyond the mean-field level. Although it allows a quantum field to be expressed by a stochastic c-number field, the simulation of the time evolution is still very demanding for most applications. Here, we develop a numerically inexpensive scheme by approximating the c-number field with a variational ansatz. The dynamics of the ansatz function is described by a tractable set of coupled ordinary stochastic differential equations for the respective variational parameters. We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of a three-dimensional Bose gas in a one-dimensional optical lattice with a transverse isotropic harmonic confinement. The accuracy and computational inexpensiveness of our method are demonstrated by comparing its predictions to experimental data.

  7 citations

• Traveling-wave antenna model for terahertz radiation from laser-plasma interactions

  Jiayu Zhao, Qining Wang, Yuchen Hui, Yamin Chen, Feifan Zhu, Zuanming Jin, Alexander P. Shkurinov, Yan Peng, Yiming Zhu, Songlin Zhuang, Li Lao

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 046 (2022) · published 29 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Generation of terahertz (THz) wave from air plasma induced by femtosecond laser pulses with a single central frequency (the so-called “single-color”) is one of the fundamental interactions between light and matter, and is also the basis of subsequent pumping schemes using two- or multi-color laser fields. Recently, more states of media beyond gas (e.g., atomic cluster and liquid) via photo-ionization have brought new experimental observations of THz radiation, which can no longer be simply attributed to the mainstream model of the transition-Cherenkov radiation (TCR), thus making the whole picture unclear. Here, we revisited the mechanism of this dynamic process in a new view of the traveling-wave antenna (TWA) model. By successfully reproducing the reported far-field THz radiation profiles from various plasma filament arrangements, the wide applicability of the TWA theory has been revealed. On the other hand in the microscopic view, we investigated the plasma oscillation during filamentation aiming at further bridging the plasma filament and the antenna. Accordingly, THz-plasma resonance has been theoretically and experimentally demonstrated as the elementary THz emitter, paving the way towards fully understanding this important single-color plasma based THz source.

  7 citations

• Particle fluctuations and the failure of simple effective models for many-body localized phases

  Maximilian Kiefer-Emmanouilidis, Razmik Unanyan, Michael Fleischhauer, Jesko Sirker

  SciPost Phys. 12, 034 (2022) · published 21 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate and compare the particle number fluctuations in the putative many-body localized (MBL) phase of a spinless fermion model with potential disorder and nearest-neighbor interactions with those in the non-interacting case (Anderson localization) and in effective models where only interaction terms diagonal in the Anderson basis are kept. We demonstrate that these types of simple effective models cannot account for the particle number fluctuations observed in the MBL phase of the microscopic model. This implies that assisted and pair hopping terms---generated when transforming the microscopic Hamiltonian into the Anderson basis---cannot be neglected even at strong disorder and weak interactions. As a consequence, it appears questionable if the microscopic model possesses an exponential number of exactly conserved {\it local} charges. If such a set of conserved local charges does not exist, then particles are expected to ultimately delocalize for any finite disorder strength.

  7 citations

• Higher-order mean-field theory of chiral waveguide QED

  Kasper J. Kusmierek, Sahand Mahmoodian, Martin Cordier, Jakob Hinney, Arno Rauschenbeutel, Max Schemmer, Philipp Schneeweiss, Jürgen Volz, Klemens Hammerer

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 041 (2023) · published 7 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Waveguide QED with cold atoms provides a potent platform for the study of non-equilibrium, many-body, and open-system quantum dynamics. Even with weak coupling and strong photon loss, the collective enhancement of light-atom interactions leads to strong correlations of photons arising in transmission, as shown in recent experiments. Here we apply an improved mean-field theory based on higher-order cumulant expansions to describe the experimentally relevant, but theoretically elusive, regime of weak coupling and strong driving of large ensembles. We determine the transmitted power, squeezing spectra and the degree of second-order coherence, and systematically check the convergence of the results by comparing expansions that truncate cumulants of few-particle correlations at increasing order. This reveals the important role of many-body and long-range correlations between atoms in steady state. Our approach allows to quantify the trade-off between anti-bunching and output power in previously inaccessible parameter regimes. Calculated squeezing spectra show good agreement with measured data, as we present here.

  7 citations