Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Non-hermitian holography

  Daniel Areán, Karl Landsteiner, Ignacio Salazar Landea

  SciPost Phys. 9, 032 (2020) · published 3 September 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Quantum theory can be formulated with certain non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. An anti-linear involution, denoted by PT, is a symmetry of such Hamiltonians. In the PT-symmetric regime the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian is related to a Hermitian one by a Hermitian similarity transformation. We extend the concept of non-Hermitian quantum theory to gauge-gravity duality. Non-Hermiticity is introduced via boundary conditions in asymptotically AdS spacetimes. At zero temperature the PT phase transition is identified as the point at which the solutions cease to be real. Surprisingly at finite temperature real black holes solutions can be found well outside the quasi-Hermitian regime. These backgrounds are however unstable to fluctuations which establishes the persistence of the holographic dual of the PT phase transition at finite temperature.

  11 citations

• Who is a Migrant? Abandoning the Nation-state Point of View in the Study of Migration

  Stephan Scheel, Martina Tazzioli

  Mig. Pol. 1, 002 (2022) · published 4 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This article develops an alternative definition of a migrant that embraces the perspective of mobility. Starting from the observation that the term ‘migrant’ has become a stigmatizing label that problematizes the mobility or the residency of people designated as such, we in-vestigate the implications of nation-state centered conceptions of migration which define migration as movement from nation-state A to nation-state B. By asking ‘Who is a migrant in Europe today?’ we show that nation-state centered understandings of migration rest on a deeply entrenched methodological nationalism and implicate three epistemological traps that continue to shape much of the research on migration: first, the naturalization of the in-ternational nation-state order that results, secondly, in the ontologisation of ‘migrants’ as ready-available objects of research, while facilitating, thirdly, the framing of migration as problem of government. To overcome these epistemological traps, we develop an alternative conception of migration that, inspired by the autonomy of migration approach, adopts the perspective of mobility while highlighting the constitutive role that nation-states’ bordering practices play in the enactment of some people as migrants. Importantly, this definition al-lows to turn the study of instances of migrantisation into an analytical lens for investigating transformations in contemporary border and citizenship regimes.

  11 citations

• Perturbative and nonperturbative studies of CFTs with MN global symmetry

  Johan Henriksson, Andreas Stergiou

  SciPost Phys. 11, 015 (2021) · published 16 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Fixed points in three dimensions described by conformal field theories with $MN_{m,n}= O(m)^n\rtimes S_n$ global symmetry have extensive applications in critical phenomena. Associated experimental data for $m=n=2$ suggest the existence of two non-trivial fixed points, while the $\varepsilon$ expansion predicts only one, resulting in a puzzling state of affairs. A recent numerical conformal bootstrap study has found two kinks for small values of the parameters $m$ and $n$, with critical exponents in good agreement with experimental determinations in the $m=n=2$ case. In this paper we investigate the fate of the corresponding fixed points as we vary the parameters $m$ and $n$. We find that one family of kinks approaches a perturbative limit as $m$ increases, and using large spin perturbation theory we construct a large $m$ expansion that fits well with the numerical data. This new expansion, akin to the large $N$ expansion of critical $O(N)$ models, is compatible with the fixed point found in the $\varepsilon$ expansion. For the other family of kinks, we find that it persists only for $n=2$, where for large $m$ it approaches a non-perturbative limit with $\Delta_\phi\approx 0.75$. We investigate the spectrum in the case $MN_{100,2}$ and find consistency with expectations from the lightcone bootstrap.

  11 citations

• Doping-dependent competition between superconductivity and polycrystalline charge density waves

  Sergio Caprara, Marco Grilli, José Lorenzana, Brigitte Leridon

  SciPost Phys. 8, 003 (2020) · published 8 January 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  From systematic analysis of the high pulsed magnetic field resistance data of La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_{4}$ thin films, we extract an experimental phase diagram for several doping values ranging from the very underdoped to the very overdoped regimes. Our analysis highlights a competition between charge density waves and superconductivity which is ubiquitous between $x=0.08$ and $x=0.19$ and produces the previously observed double step transition. When suppressed by a strong magnetic field, superconductivity is resilient for two specific doping ranges centered around respectively $x\approx 0.09$ and $x\approx 0.19$ and the characteristic temperature for the onset of the competing charge density wave phase is found to vanish above $x = 0.19$. At $x=1/8$ the two phases are found to coexist exactly at zero magnetic field.

  11 citations

• Transport through interacting defects and lack of thermalisation

  Giuseppe Del Vecchio Del Vecchio, Andrea De Luca, Alvise Bastianello

  SciPost Phys. 12, 060 (2022) · published 14 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider 1D integrable systems supporting ballistic propagation of excitations, perturbed by a localised defect that breaks most conservation laws and induces chaotic dynamics. Focusing on classical systems, we study an out-of-equilibrium protocol engineered activating the defect in an initially homogeneous and far from the equilibrium state. We find that large enough defects induce full thermalisation at their center, but nonetheless the outgoing flow of carriers emerging from the defect is non-thermal due to a generalization of the celebrated Boundary Thermal Resistance effect, occurring at the edges of the chaotic region. Our results are obtained combining ab-initio numerical simulations for relatively small-sized defects, with the solution of the Boltzmann equation, which becomes exact in the scaling limit of large, but weak defects.

  11 citations

• Superintegrable cellular automata and dual unitary gates from Yang-Baxter maps

  Tamás Gombor, Balázs Pozsgay

  SciPost Phys. 12, 102 (2022) · published 22 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider one dimensional block cellular automata, where the local update rules are given by Yang-Baxter maps, which are set theoretical solutions of the Yang-Baxter equations. We show that such systems are superintegrable: they possess an exponentially large set of conserved local charges, such that the charge densities propagate ballistically on the chain. For these quantities we observe a complete absence of "operator spreading". In addition, the models can also have other local charges which are conserved only additively. We discuss concrete models up to local dimensions $N\le 4$, and show that they give rise to rich physical behaviour, including non-trivial scattering of particles and the coexistence of ballistic and diffusive transport. We find that the local update rules are classical versions of the "dual unitary gates" if the Yang-Baxter maps are non-degenerate. We discuss consequences of dual unitarity, and we also discuss a family of dual unitary gates obtained by a non-integrable quantum mechanical deformation of the Yang-Baxter maps.

  10 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.

  10 citations

• Number-resolved imaging of $^{88}$Sr atoms in a long working distance optical tweezer

  Niamh Christina Jackson, Ryan Keith Hanley, Matthew Hill, Frédéric Leroux, Charles S. Adams, Matthew Philip Austin Jones

  SciPost Phys. 8, 038 (2020) · published 10 March 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We demonstrate number-resolved detection of individual strontium atoms in a long working distance low numerical aperture (NA = 0.26) tweezer. Using a camera based on single-photon counting technology, we determine the presence of an atom in the tweezer with a fidelity of 0.989(6) (and loss of 0.13(5)) within a 200 $\mu$s imaging time. Adding continuous narrow-line Sisyphus cooling yields similar fidelity, at the expense of much longer imaging times (30 ms). Under these conditions we determine whether the tweezer contains zero, one or two atoms, with a fidelity $>$0.8 in all cases with the high readout speed of the camera enabling real-time monitoring of the number of trapped atoms. Lastly we show that the fidelity can be further improved by using a pulsed cooling/imaging scheme that reduces the effect of camera dark noise.

  10 citations

• First law and quantum correction for holographic entanglement contour

  Muxin Han, Qiang Wen

  SciPost Phys. 11, 058 (2021) · published 14 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Entanglement entropy satisfies a first law-like relation, which equates the first order perturbation of the entanglement entropy for the region $A$ to the first order perturbation of the expectation value of the modular Hamiltonian, $\delta S_{A}=\delta \langle K_A \rangle$. We propose that this relation has a finer version which states that, the first order perturbation of the entanglement contour equals to the first order perturbation of the contour of the modular Hamiltonian, i.e. $\delta s_{A}(\textbf{x})=\delta \langle k_{A}(\textbf{x})\rangle$. Here the contour functions $s_{A}(\textbf{x})$ and $k_{A}(\textbf{x})$ capture the contribution from the degrees of freedom at $\textbf{x}$ to $S_{A}$ and $K_A$ respectively. In some simple cases $k_{A}(\textbf{x})$ is determined by the stress tensor. We also evaluate the quantum correction to the entanglement contour using the fine structure of the entanglement wedge and the additive linear combination (ALC) proposal for partial entanglement entropy (PEE) respectively. The fine structure picture shows that, the quantum correction to the boundary PEE can be identified as a bulk PEE of certain bulk region. While the \textit{ALC proposal} shows that the quantum correction to the boundary PEE comes from the linear combination of bulk entanglement entropy. We focus on holographic theories with local modular Hamiltonian and configurations of quantum field theories where the \textit{ALC proposal} applies.

  10 citations

• On the Q operator and the spectrum of the XXZ model at root of unity

  Yuan Miao, Jules Lamers, Vincent Pasquier

  SciPost Phys. 11, 067 (2021) · published 22 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXZ chain is a paradigmatic quantum integrable model. Although it can be solved exactly via Bethe ansatz techniques, there are still open issues regarding the spectrum at root of unity values of the anisotropy. We construct Baxter's Q operator at arbitrary anisotropy from a two-parameter transfer matrix associated to a complex-spin auxiliary space. A decomposition of this transfer matrix provides a simple proof of the transfer matrix fusion and Wronskian relations. At root of unity a truncation allows us to construct the Q operator explicitly in terms of finite-dimensional matrices. From its decomposition we derive truncated fusion and Wronskian relations as well as an interpolation-type formula that has been conjectured previously. We elucidate the Fabricius-McCoy (FM) strings and exponential degeneracies in the spectrum of the six-vertex transfer matrix at root of unity. Using a semicyclic auxiliary representation we give a conjecture for creation and annihilation operators of FM strings for all roots of unity. We connect our findings with the 'string-charge duality' in the thermodynamic limit, leading to a conjecture for the imaginary part of the FM string centres with potential applications to out-of-equilibrium physics.

  10 citations