Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Looking for structure in the cobordism conjecture

  David Andriot, Nils Carqueville, Niccolò Cribiori

  SciPost Phys. 13, 071 (2022) · published 28 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The cobordism conjecture of the swampland program states that the bordism group of quantum gravity must be trivial. We investigate this statement in several directions, on both the mathematical and physical side. We consider the Whitehead tower construction as a possible organising principle for the topological structures entering the formulation of the conjecture. We discuss why and how to include geometric structures in bordism groups, such as higher U(1)-bundles with connection. The inclusion of magnetic defects is also addressed in some detail. We further elaborate on how the conjecture could predict Kaluza--Klein monopoles, and we study the gravity decoupling limit in the cobordism conjecture, with a few observations on NSNS string backgrounds. We end with comments in relation to T-duality, as well as the finiteness conjecture.

  10 citations

• Supersolid phase of a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate: A perturbation approach

  Giovanni Italo Martone, Sandro Stringari

  SciPost Phys. 11, 092 (2021) · published 17 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The phase diagram of a Bose-Einstein condensate with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling includes a stripe phase with supersolid features. In this work we develop a perturbation approach to study the ground state and the Bogoliubov modes of this phase, holding for small values of the Raman coupling. We obtain analytical predictions for the most relevant observables (including the periodicity of stripes, sound velocities, compressibility, and magnetic susceptibility) which are in excellent agreement with the exact (non perturbative) numerical results, obtained for significantly large values of the coupling. We further unveil the nature of the two gapless Bogoliubov modes in the long-wavelength limit. We find that the spin branch of the spectrum, corresponding in this limit to the dynamics of the relative phase between the two spin components, describes a translation of the fringes of the equilibrium density profile, thereby providing the crystal Goldstone mode typical of a supersolid configuration. Finally, using sum-rule arguments, we show that the superfluid density can be experimentally accessed by measuring the ratio of the sound velocities parallel and perpendicular to the direction of the spin-orbit coupling.

  10 citations

• Foliated-exotic duality in fractonic BF theories

  Kantaro Ohmori, Shutaro Shimamura

  SciPost Phys. 14, 164 (2023) · published 21 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  There has been proposed two continuum descriptions of fracton systems: foliated quantum field theories (FQFTs) and exotic quantum field theories. Certain fracton systems are believed to admit descriptions by both, and hence a duality is expected between such a class of FQFTs and exotic QFTs. In this paper we study this duality in detail for concrete examples in $2+1$ and $3+1$ dimensions. In the examples, both sides of the continuum theories are of $BF$-type, and we find the explicit correspondences of gauge-invariant operators, gauge fields, parameters, and allowed singularities and discontinuities. This deepens the understanding of dualities in fractonic quantum field theories.

  10 citations

• Common framework and quadratic Bethe equations for rational Gaudin magnets in arbitrarily oriented magnetic fields

  Alexandre Faribault, Hugo Tschirhart

  SciPost Phys. 3, 009 (2017) · published 4 August 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work we demonstrate a simple way to implement the quantum inverse scattering method to find eigenstates of spin-1/2 XXX Gaudin magnets in an arbitrarily oriented magnetic field. The procedure differs vastly from the most natural approach which would be to simply orient the spin quantisation axis in the same direction as the magnetic field through an appropriate rotation. Instead, we define a modified realisation of the rational Gaudin algebra and use the quantum inverse scattering method which allows us, within a slightly modified implementation, to build an algebraic Bethe ansatz using the same unrotated reference state (pseudovacuum) for any external field. This common framework allows us to easily write determinant expressions for certain scalar products which would be highly non-trivial in the rotated system approach.

  10 citations

• Long-distance entanglement in Motzkin and Fredkin spin chains

  Luca Dell'Anna

  SciPost Phys. 7, 053 (2019) · published 22 October 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We derive some entanglement properties of the ground states of two classes of quantum spin chains described by the Fredkin model, for half-integer spins, and the Motzkin model, for integer ones. Since the ground states of the two models are known analytically, we can calculate the entanglement entropy, the negativity and the quantum mutual information exactly. We show, in particular, that these systems exhibit long-distance entanglement, namely two disjoint regions of the chains remain entangled even when the separation is sent to infinity, i.e. these systems are not affected by decoherence. This strongly entangled behavior, occurring both for colorful versions of the models (with spin larger than 1/2 or 1, respectively) and for colorless cases (spin 1/2 and 1), is consistent with the violation of the cluster decomposition property. Moreover we show that this behavior involves disjoint segments located both at the edges and in the bulk of the chains.

  10 citations

• Cooling phonon modes of a Bose condensate with uniform few body losses

  Isabelle Bouchoule, Max Schemmer, Carsten Henkel

  SciPost Phys. 5, 043 (2018) · published 2 November 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a general analysis of the cooling produced by losses on condensates or quasi-condensates. We study how the occupations of the collective phonon modes evolve in time, assuming that the loss process is slow enough so that each mode adiabatically follows the decrease of the mean density. The theory is valid for any loss process whose rate is proportional to the $j$th power of the density, but otherwise spatially uniform. We cover both homogeneous gases and systems confined in a smooth potential. For a low-dimensional gas, we can take into account the modified equation of state due to the broadening of the cloud width along the tightly confined directions, which occurs for large interactions. We find that at large times, the temperature decreases proportionally to the energy scale $mc^2$, where $m$ is the mass of the particles and $c$ the sound velocity. We compute the asymptotic ratio of these two quantities for different limiting cases: a homogeneous gas in any dimension and a one-dimensional gas in a harmonic trap.

  10 citations

• Phase transitions above the upper critical dimension

  Bertrand Berche, Tim Ellis, Yurij Holovatch, Ralph Kenna

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 60 (2022) · published 12 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These lecture notes provide an overview of the renormalization group (RG) as a successful framework to understand critical phenomena above the upper critical dimension $d_{\rm uc}$. After an introduction to the scaling picture of continuous phase transitions, we discuss the apparent failure of the Gaussian fixed point to capture scaling for Landau mean-field theory, which should hold in the thermodynamic limit above $d_{\rm uc}$. We recount how Fisher's dangerous-irrelevant-variable formalism applied to thermodynamic functions partially repairs the situation but at the expense of hyperscaling and finite-size scaling, both of which were, until recently, believed not to apply above $d_{\rm uc}$. We recall limitations of various attempts to match the RG with analytical and numerical results for Ising systems. We explain how the extension of dangerous irrelevancy to the correlation sector is key to marrying the above concepts into a comprehensive RG scaling picture that renders hyperscaling and finite-size scaling valid in all dimensions. We collect what we believe is the current status of the theory, including some new insights and results. This paper is in grateful memory of Michael Fisher who introduced many of the concepts discussed and who, half a century later, contributed to their advancement.

  10 citations

• From integrability to chaos in quantum Liouvillians

  Álvaro Rubio-García, Rafael A. Molina, Jorge Dukelsky

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 026 (2022) · published 2 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The dynamics of open quantum systems can be described by a Liouvillian, which in the Markovian approximation fulfills the Lindblad master equation. We present a family of integrable many-body Liouvillians based on Richardson-Gaudin models with a complex structure of the jump operators. Making use of this new region of integrability, we study the transition to chaos in terms of a two-parameter Liouvillian. The transition is characterized by the spectral statistics of the complex eigenvalues of the Liouvillian operators using the nearest neighbor spacing distribution and by the ratios between eigenvalue distances.

  10 citations

• Ruling out light axions: The writing is on the wall

  Konstantin A. Beyer, Subir Sarkar

  SciPost Phys. 15, 003 (2023) · published 10 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We revisit the domain wall problem for QCD axion models with more than one quark charged under the Peccei-Quinn symmetry. Symmetry breaking during or after inflation results in the formation of a domain wall network which would cause cosmic catastrophe if it comes to dominate the Universe. The network may be made unstable by invoking a "tilt" in the axion potential due to Planck scale suppressed non-renormalisable operators. Alternatively the random walk of the axion field during inflation can generate a "bias" favouring one of the degenerate vacua, but we find that this mechanism is in practice irrelevant. Consideration of the axion abundance generated by the decay of the wall network then requires the Peccei-Quinn scale to be rather low - thus e.g. ruling out the DFSZ axion with mass below $\sim$ 11 meV, where most experimental searches are in fact focused.

  10 citations

• The equilibrium landscape of the Heisenberg spin chain

  Enej Ilievski, Eoin Quinn

  SciPost Phys. 7, 033 (2019) · published 13 September 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We characterise the equilibrium landscape, the entire manifold of local equilibrium states, of an interacting integrable quantum model. Focusing on the isotropic Heisenberg spin chain, we describe in full generality two complementary frameworks for addressing equilibrium ensembles: the functional integral Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz approach, and the lattice regularisation transfer matrix approach. We demonstrate the equivalence between the two, and in doing so clarify several subtle features of generic equilibrium states. In particular we explain the breakdown of the canonical Y-system, which reflects a hidden structure in the parametrisation of equilibrium ensembles.

  10 citations