Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Greedy optimization of the geometry of Majorana Josephson junctions

  André Melo, Tanko Tanev, Anton R. Akhmerov

  SciPost Phys. 14, 047 (2023) · published 23 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Josephson junctions in a two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit coupling are a promising candidate to realize topological superconductivity. While it is known that the geometry of the junction strongly influences the size of the topological gap, the question of how to construct optimal geometries remains unexplored. We introduce a greedy numerical algorithm to optimize the shape of Majorana junctions. The core of the algorithm relies on perturbation theory and is embarrassingly parallel, which allows it to explore the design space efficiently. By introducing stochastic variations in the junction Hamiltonian, we avoid overfitting geometries to specific system parameters. Furthermore, we constrain the optimizer to produce smooth geometries by applying image filtering and fabrication resolution constraints. We run the algorithm in various setups and find that it reliably produces geometries with increased topological gaps over large parameter ranges. The results are robust to variations in the optimization starting point and the presence of disorder, which suggests the optimizer is capable of finding global maxima.

  2 citations

• Scrambling under quench

  Adith Sai Aramthottil, Diptarka Das, Suchetan Das, Bidyut Dey

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 021 (2023) · published 28 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We evaluate out of time ordered correlators in certain low dimensional quantum systems at zero temperature, subjected to homogenous quantum quenches. We find that when the Lyapunov exponent exists, it can be identified with the quenched energy. We show that the exponent naturally gets related to the post-quench effective temperature. In the context of sudden quenches the exponent is determined in terms of the quench amplitude while for smooth quenches we observe scalings (both the Kibble-Zurek as well as the fast) of the exponent with the quench rate. The scalings are identical to that of the energy generated during the quench.

  2 citations

• Quantum spin spiral ground state of the ferrimagnetic sawtooth chain

  Roman Rausch, Matthias Peschke, Cassian Plorin, Jürgen Schnack, Christoph Karrasch

  SciPost Phys. 14, 052 (2023) · published 28 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The ferrimagnetic phase of the sawtooth chain with mixed ferromagnetic nearest-neighbour interactions $J$ and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbour interactions $J'$ (within the isotropic Heisenberg model) was previously characterized as a phase with commensurate order. In this paper, we demonstrate that the system in fact exhibits an incommensurate quantum spin spiral. Even though the ground state is translationally invariant in terms of the local spin expectations $\left<{\vec{S}_i}\right>$, the spiral can be detected via the connected spin-spin correlations $\left<{\vec{S}_i\cdot\vec{S}_j}\right>-\left<{\vec{S}_i}\right>\cdot\left<{\vec{S}_j}\right>$ between the apical spins. It has a long wavelength that grows with $J'$ and that soon exceeds finite-system sizes typically employed in numerical simulations. A faithful treatment thus requires the use of state-of-the-art simulations for large, periodic systems. In this work, we are able to accurately treat up to $L=400$ sites (200 unit cells) with periodic boundary conditions using the density-matrix renormaliztion group (DMRG). Exploiting the SU(2) symmetry allows us to directly compute the lowest-energy state for a given total spin. Our results are corroborated by variational uniform matrix product state (VUMPS) calculations, which work directly in the thermodynamic limit at the cost of a lower accuracy.

  2 citations

• Photoemission "experiments" on holographic lattices

  Filip Herček, Vladan Gecin, Mihailo Čubrović

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 027 (2023) · published 6 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We construct a 2D holographic ionic lattice with hyperscaling-violating infrared geometry and study single-electron spectral functions ("ARPES photoemission curves") on this background. The spectra typically show a three-peak structure, where the central peak undergoes a crossover from a sharp but not Fermi-liquid-like quasiparticle to a wide incoherent maximum, and the broad side peaks resemble the Hubbard bands. These findings are partially explained by a perturbative near-horizon analysis of the bulk Dirac equation. Comparing the holographic Green functions in imaginary frequency with the Green functions of the Hubbard model obtained from quantum Monte Carlo, we find that the holographic model provides a very good fit to the Hubbard Green function. However, the information loss when transposing the holographic Green functions to imaginary frequencies implies that a deeper connection to Hubbard-like models remains questionable.

  2 citations

• Temperature dependence of quasiparticle interference in $d$-wave superconductors

  Harun Al Rashid, Garima Goyal, Alireza Akbari, Dheeraj Kumar Singh

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 033 (2023) · published 24 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the temperature dependence of quasiparticle interference in the high $T_c$-cuprates using an exact-diagonalization + Monte-Carlo based scheme to simulate the $d$-wave superconducting order parameter. The quasiparticle interference patterns have features largely resulting from the scattering vectors of the octet model at lower temperature. Our findings suggest that the features of quasiparticle interference in the pseudogap region of the phase diagram are also dominated by the set of scattering vectors belonging to the octet model because of the persisting antinodal gap beyond the superconducting transition $T_c$. However, beyond a temperature when the antinodal gap becomes very small, a set of scattering vectors different from those belonging to the octet model are responsible for the quasiparticle interference patterns. With a rise in temperature, the patterns are increasingly broadened.

  2 citations

• Solution of master equations by fermionic-duality: Time-dependent charge and heat currents through an interacting quantum dot proximized by a superconductor

  Lara C. Ortmanns, Maarten R. Wegewijs, Janine Splettstoesser

  SciPost Phys. 14, 095 (2023) · published 4 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze the time-dependent solution of master equations by exploiting fermionic duality, a dissipative symmetry applicable to a large class of open systems describing quantum transport. Whereas previous studies mostly exploited duality relations after partially solving the evolution equations, we here systematically exploit the invariance under the fermionic duality mapping from the very beginning when setting up these equations. Moreover, we extend the resulting simplifications -so far applied to the local state evolution- to non-local observables such as transport currents. We showcase the exploitation of fermionic duality for a quantum dot with strong interaction -covering both the repulsive and attractive case- proximized by contact with a large-gap superconductor which is weakly probed by charge and heat currents into a wide-band normal-metal electrode. We derive the complete time-dependent analytical solution of this problem involving non-equilibrium Cooper pair transport, Andreev bound states and strong interaction. Additionally exploiting detailed balance we show that even for this relatively complex problem the evolution towards the stationary state can be understood analytically in terms of the stationary state of the system itself via its relation to the stationary state of a dual system with inverted Coulomb interaction, superconducting pairing and applied voltages.

  2 citations

• Microwave response of type-II superconductors at weak pinning

  B. V. Pashinsky, Mikhail V. Feigel'man, Anton V. Andreev

  SciPost Phys. 14, 096 (2023) · published 4 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Theory of linear microwave response of thin films of type-II superconductors in the mixed state is developed taking into account random spatial fluctuations of the parameters of the system, such as the order parameter, diffusion coefficient, or film thickness. In the regime of collective pinning the microwave response of the system exhibits strong frequency dispersion, arising from nonequilibrium vortex core quasiparticles. The corresponding contribution to the ac conductivity is controlled by the inelastic relaxation time, and may exceed the usual Bardeen-Stephen conductivity. It is caused by the Debye-type inelastic relaxation. Debye mechanism of microwave losses may be responsible for strong effects of electromagnetic noise upon dc conductivity in the mixed state at low temperatures.

  2 citations

• Network construction of non-Abelian chiral spin liquids

  Hernan B. Xavier, Claudio Chamon, Rodrigo G. Pereira

  SciPost Phys. 14, 105 (2023) · published 10 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use a network of chiral junctions to construct a family of topological chiral spin liquids in two spatial dimensions. The chiral spin liquid phase harbors SU(2)$_k$ anyons, which stem from the underlying SU(2)$_k$ WZW models that describe the constituent spin chains of the network. The network exhibits quantized spin and thermal Hall conductances. We illustrate our construction by inspecting the topological properties of the SU(2)$_2$ model. We find that this model has emergent Ising anyons, with spinons acting as vortex excitations that bind Majorana zero modes. We also show that the ground state of this network is threefold degenerate on the torus, asserting its non-Abelian character. Our results shed new light on the stability of non-Abelian topological phases in artificial quantum materials.

  2 citations

• Arrested development and fragmentation in strongly-interacting Floquet systems

  Matthew Wampler, Israel Klich

  SciPost Phys. 14, 145 (2023) · published 7 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We explore how interactions can facilitate classical like dynamics in models with sequentially activated hopping. Specifically, we add local and short range interaction terms to the Hamiltonian and ask for conditions ensuring the evolution acts as a permutation on initial local number Fock states. We show that at certain values of hopping and interactions, determined by a set of Diophantine equations, such evolution can be realized. When only a subset of the Diophantine equations is satisfied the Hilbert space can be fragmented into frozen states, states obeying cellular automata like evolution, and subspaces where evolution mixes Fock states and is associated with eigenstates exhibiting high entanglement entropy and level repulsion.

  2 citations

• Competition between frustration and spin dimensionality in the classical antiferromagnetic $n$-vector model with arbitrary $n$

  Nikolaos P. Konstantinidis

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 042 (2023) · published 8 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A new method to characterize the strength of magnetic frustration is proposed by calculating the minimum dimensionality of the absolute ground states of the classical nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic $n$-vector model with arbitrary $n$. Platonic solids in three and four dimensions and Archimedean solids have lowest-energy configurations in a number of spin dimensions equal to their real-space dimensionality. Fullerene molecules and geodesic icosahedra can produce ground states in as many as five spin dimensions. Frustration is also characterized by the maximum value of the round-state energy when the exchange interactions are allowed to vary.

  2 citations