Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Mobility control as state-making in civil war: Forcing exit, selective return and strategic laissez-faire

  Christiane Fröhlich, Lea Müller-Funk

  Mig. Pol. 2, 001 (2023) · published 27 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This paper addresses the question of how different actors attempt to control mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings. Mobility in civil wars is often considered a political act by the various actors involved: Leaving the country can be perceived as an act of opposition, as can moving between territories which are controlled by different, opposing factions. Drawing on literature on strategic displacement and migration politics and combining this with empirical insights from the ongoing wars in Libya and Syria, the paper identifies three mechanisms of mobility control in civil war settings: forcing exit, selective return as a form of expulsion, and strategic laissez-faire as the intentional absence of regulation regarding displacement and return. The analysis reveals that all three mechanisms are employed by state actor(s), rebels, and militias, and can be understood as elements of a new (post)war order that includes some citizens while excluding others depending on perceptions of political threats. We interpret the three mechanisms as ways in which actors in civil war settings attempt to manipulate a country’s demography in their own favour in a process of state-making. The paper is based on fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2021 in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Tunisia.

  7 citations

• Holographic S-fold theories at one loop

  Connor Behan

  SciPost Phys. 12, 149 (2022) · published 6 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A common feature of tree-level holography is that a correlator in one theory can serve as a generating function for correlators in another theory with less continuous symmetry. This is the case for a family of 4d CFTs with eight supercharges which have protected operators dual to gluons in the bulk. The most recent additions to this family were defined using S-folds which combine a spatial identification with an action of the S-duality group in type IIB string theory. Differences between these CFTs which have a dynamical origin first become manifest at one loop. To explore this phenomenon at the level of anomalous dimensions, we use the AdS unitarity method to bootstrap a one-loop double discontinuity. Compared to previous studies, the subsequent analysis is performed without any assumption about which special functions are allowed. Instead, the Casimir singular and Casimir regular terms are extracted iteratively in order to move from one Regge trajectory to the next. Our results show that anomalous dimensions in the presence of an S-fold are no longer rational functions of the spin.

  7 citations

• NISQ Algorithm for Hamiltonian simulation via truncated Taylor series

  Jonathan Wei Zhong Lau, Tobias Haug, Leong Chuan Kwek, Kishor Bharti

  SciPost Phys. 12, 122 (2022) · published 8 April 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Simulating the dynamics of many-body quantum systems is believed to be one of the first fields that quantum computers can show a quantum advantage over classical computers. Noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) algorithms aim at effectively using the currently available quantum hardware. For quantum simulation, various types of NISQ algorithms have been proposed with individual advantages as well as challenges. In this work, we propose a new algorithm, truncated Taylor quantum simulator (TQS), that shares the advantages of existing algorithms and alleviates some of the shortcomings. Our algorithm does not have any classical-quantum feedback loop and bypasses the barren plateau problem by construction. The classical part in our hybrid quantum-classical algorithm corresponds to a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP) with a single quadratic equality constraint, which admits a semidefinite relaxation. The QCQP based classical optimization was recently introduced as the classical step in quantum assisted eigensolver (QAE), a NISQ algorithm for the Hamiltonian ground state problem. Thus, our work provides a conceptual unification between the NISQ algorithms for the Hamiltonian ground state problem and the Hamiltonian simulation. We recover differential equation-based NISQ algorithms for Hamiltonian simulation such as quantum assisted simulator (QAS) and variational quantum simulator (VQS) as particular cases of our algorithm. We test our algorithm on some toy examples on current cloud quantum computers. We also provide a systematic approach to improve the accuracy of our algorithm.

  7 citations

• Complete set of quasi-conserved quantities for spinning particles around Kerr

  Geoffrey Compère, Adrien Druart

  SciPost Phys. 12, 012 (2022) · published 10 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We revisit the conserved quantities of the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Tulczyjew equations describing the motion of spinning particles on a fixed background. Assuming Ricci-flatness and the existence of a Killing-Yano tensor, we demonstrate that besides the two non-trivial quasi-conserved quantities, i.e. conserved at linear order in the spin, found by R\"udiger, non-trivial quasi-conserved quantities are in one-to-one correspondence with non-trivial mixed-symmetry Killing tensors. We prove that no such stationary and axisymmetric mixed-symmetry Killing tensor exists on the Kerr geometry. We discuss the implications for the motion of spinning particles on Kerr spacetime where the quasi-constants of motion are shown not to be in complete involution.

  7 citations

• A gauge theory for shallow water

  David Tong

  SciPost Phys. 14, 102 (2023) · published 9 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The shallow water equations describe the horizontal flow of a thin layer of fluid with varying height. We show that the equations can be rewritten as a $d=2+1$ dimensional Abelian gauge theory. The magnetic field corresponds to the conserved height of the fluid, while the electric charge corresponds to the conserved vorticity. In a certain linearised approximation, the shallow water equations reduce to relativistic Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory. This describes Poincaré waves. The chiral edge modes of the theory are identified as coastal Kelvin waves.

  7 citations

• The Space of Integrable Systems from Generalised $T\bar{T}$-Deformations

  Benjamin Doyon, Joseph Durnin, Takato Yoshimura

  SciPost Phys. 13, 072 (2022) · published 28 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We introduce an extension of the generalised $T\bar{T}$-deformation described by Smirnov-Zamolodchikov, to include the complete set of extensive charges. We show that this gives deformations of S-matrices beyond CDD factors, generating arbitrary functional dependence on momenta. We further derive from basic principles of statistical mechanics the flow equations for the free energy and all free energy fluxes. From this follows, without invoking the microscopic Bethe ansatz or other methods from integrability, that the thermodynamics of the deformed models are described by the integral equations of the thermodynamic Bethe-Ansatz, and that the exact average currents take the form expected from generalised hydrodynamics, both in the classical and quantum realms.

  7 citations

• Effects of intraspecific cooperative interactions in large ecosystems

  Ada Altieri, Giulio Biroli

  SciPost Phys. 12, 013 (2022) · published 11 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze the role of the Allee effect, a positive correlation between population density and mean individual fitness, for ecological communities formed by a large number of species. Our study is performed using the generalized Lotka-Volterra model with random interactions between species. We obtain the phase diagram and analyze the nature of the multiple equilibria phase. Remarkable differences emerge with respect to the logistic growth case, thus revealing the major role played by the functional response in determining aggregate behaviours of ecosystems.

  7 citations

• Sixfold fermion near the Fermi level in cubic PtBi2

  S. Thirupathaiah, Y. S. Kushnirenk, K. Koepernik, B. R. Piening, B. Buechner, S. Aswartham, J. van den Brink, S. V. Borisenko, I. C. Fulga

  SciPost Phys. 10, 004 (2021) · published 11 January 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that the cubic compound PtBi2, is a topological semimetal hosting a sixfold band touching point in close proximity to the Fermi level. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we map the bandstructure of the system, which is in good agreement with results from density functional theory. Further, by employing a low energy effective Hamiltonian valid close to the crossing point, we study the effect of a magnetic field on the sixfold fermion. The latter splits into a total of twenty Weyl cones for a Zeeman field oriented in the diagonal, [111] direction. Our results mark cubic PtBi2, as an ideal candidate to study the transport properties of gapless topological systems beyond Dirac and Weyl semimetals.

  7 citations

• jVMC: Versatile and performant variational Monte Carlo leveraging automated differentiation and GPU acceleration

  Markus Schmitt, Moritz Reh

  SciPost Phys. Codebases 2 (2022) · published 23 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The introduction of Neural Quantum States (NQS) has recently given a new twist to variational Monte Carlo (VMC). The ability to systematically reduce the bias of the wave function ansatz renders the approach widely applicable. However, performant implementations are crucial to reach the numerical state of the art. Here, we present a Python codebase that supports arbitrary NQS architectures and model Hamiltonians. Additionally leveraging automatic differentiation, just-in-time compilation to accelerators, and distributed computing, it is designed to facilitate the composition of efficient NQS algorithms.

  7 citations

• Generalized eigenproblem without fermion doubling for Dirac fermions on a lattice

  M. J. Pacholski, G. Lemut, J. Tworzydło, C. W. J. Beenakker

  SciPost Phys. 11, 105 (2021) · published 14 December 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The spatial discretization of the single-cone Dirac Hamiltonian on the surface of a topological insulator or superconductor needs a special "staggered" grid, to avoid the appearance of a spurious second cone in the Brillouin zone. We adapt the Stacey discretization from lattice gauge theory to produce a generalized eigenvalue problem, of the form ${\mathcal H}\psi=E {\mathcal P}\psi$, with Hermitian tight-binding operators ${\mathcal H}$, ${\mathcal P}$, a locally conserved particle current, and preserved chiral and symplectic symmetries. This permits the study of the spectral statistics of Dirac fermions in each of the four symmetry classes A, AII, AIII, and D.

  7 citations