Publications

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• Candidate phases for SU(2) adjoint QCD$_4$ with two flavors from $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory

  Clay Córdova, Thomas T. Dumitrescu

  SciPost Phys. 16, 139 (2024) · published 29 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study four-dimensional adjoint QCD with gauge group $SU(2)$ and two Weyl fermion flavors, which has an $SU(2)_R$ chiral symmetry. The infrared behavior of this theory is not firmly established. We explore candidate infrared phases by embedding adjoint QCD into ${\mathcal N}=2$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory deformed by a supersymmetry-breaking scalar mass $M$ that preserves all global symmetries and 't Hooft anomalies. This includes 't Hooft anomalies that are only visible when the theory is placed on manifolds that do not admit a spin structure. The consistency of this procedure is guaranteed by a nonabelian spin-charge relation involving the $SU(2)_R$ symmetry that is familiar from topologically twisted ${\mathcal N}=2$ theories. Since every vacuum on the Coulomb branch of the ${\mathcal N}=2$ theory necessarily matches all 't Hooft anomalies, we can generate candidate phases for adjoint QCD by deforming the theories in these vacua while preserving all symmetries and 't Hooft anomalies. One such deformation is the supersymmetry-breaking scalar mass $M$ itself, which can be reliably analyzed when $M$ is small. In this regime it gives rise to an exotic Coulomb phase without chiral symmetry breaking. By contrast, the theory near the monopole and dyon points can be deformed to realize a candidate phase with monopole-induced confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. The low-energy theory consists of two copies of a $\mathbb{CP}^1$ sigma model, which we analyze in detail. Certain topological couplings that are likely to be present in this $\mathbb{CP}^1$ model turn the confining solitonic string of the model into a topological insulator. We also examine the behavior of various candidate phases under fermion mass deformations. We speculate on the possible large-$M$ behavior of the deformed ${\mathcal N}=2$ theory and conjecture that the $\mathbb{CP}^1$ phase eventually becomes dominant.

  13 citations

• Quantum order-by-disorder induced phase transition in Rydberg ladders with staggered detuning

  Madhumita Sarkar, Mainak Pal, Arnab Sen, Krishnendu Sengupta

  SciPost Phys. 14, 004 (2023) · published 16 January 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  $^{87}{\rm Rb}$ atoms are known to have long-lived Rydberg excited states with controllable excitation amplitude (detuning) and strong repulsive van der Waals interaction $V_{{\bf r} {\bf r'}}$ between excited atoms at sites ${\bf r}$ and ${\bf r'}$. Here we study such atoms in a two-leg ladder geometry in the presence of both staggered and uniform detuning with amplitudes $\Delta$ and $\lambda$ respectively. We show that when $V_{{\bf r r'}} \gg(\ll) \Delta, \lambda$ for $|{\bf r}-{\bf r'}|=1(>1)$, these ladders host a plateau for a wide range of $\lambda/\Delta$ where the ground states are selected by a quantum order-by-disorder mechanism from a macroscopically degenerate manifold of Fock states with fixed Rydberg excitation density $1/4$. Our study further unravels the presence of an emergent Ising transition stabilized via the order-by-disorder mechanism inside the plateau. We identify the competing terms responsible for the transition and estimate a critical detuning $\lambda_c/\Delta=1/3$ which agrees well with exact-diagonalization based numerical studies. We also study the fate of this transition for a realistic interaction potential $V_{{\bf r} {\bf r'}} = V_0 /|{\bf r}-{\bf r'}|^6$, demonstrate that it survives for a wide range of $V_0$, and provide analytic estimate of $\lambda_c$ as a function of $V_0$. This allows for the possibility of a direct verification of this transition in standard experiments which we discuss.

  13 citations

• Gate-induced decoupling of surface and bulk state properties in selectively-deposited Bi$_2$Te$_3$ nanoribbons

  Daniel Rosenbach, Kristof Moors, Abdur R. Jalil, Jonas Kölzer, Erik Zimmermann, Jürgen Schubert, Soraya Karimzadah, Gregor Mussler, Peter Schüffelgen, Detlev Grützmacher, Hans Lüth, Thomas Schäpers

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 017 (2022) · published 30 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Three-dimensional topological insulators (TIs) host helical Dirac surface states at the interface with a trivial insulator. In quasi-one-dimensional TI nanoribbon structures the wave function of surface charges extends phase-coherently along the perimeter of the nanoribbon, resulting in a quantization of transverse surface modes. Furthermore, as the inherent spin-momentum locking results in a Berry phase offset of $\pi$ of self-interfering charge carriers an energy gap within the surface state dispersion appears and all states become spin-degenerate. We investigate and compare the magnetic field dependent surface state dispersion in selectively deposited Bi$_2$Te$_3$ TI micro- and nanoribbon structures by analysing the gate voltage dependent magnetoconductance at cryogenic temperatures. While in wide microribbon devices the field effect mainly changes the amount of bulk charges close to the top surface we identify coherent transverse surface states along the perimeter of the nanoribbon devices responding to a change in top gate potential. We quantify the energetic spacing in between these quantized transverse subbands by using an electrostatic model that treats an initial difference in charge carrier densities on the top and bottom surface as well as remaining bulk charges. In the gate voltage dependent transconductance we find oscillations that change their relative phase by $\pi$ at half-integer values of the magnetic flux quantum applied coaxial to the nanoribbon, which is a signature for a magnetic flux dependent topological phase transition in narrow, selectively deposited TI nanoribbon devices.

  13 citations

• Delocalization transition in low energy excitation modes of vector spin glasses

  Silvio Franz, Flavio Nicoletti, Giorgio Parisi, Federico Ricci-Tersenghi

  SciPost Phys. 12, 016 (2022) · published 12 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the energy minima of the fully-connected $m$-components vector spin glass model at zero temperature in an external magnetic field for $m\ge 3$. The model has a zero temperature transition from a paramagnetic phase at high field to a spin glass phase at low field. We study the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Hessian in the minima of the Hamiltonian. The spectrum is gapless both in the paramagnetic and in the spin glass phase, with a pseudo-gap behaving as $\lambda^{m-1}$ in the paramagnetic phase and as $\sqrt{\lambda}$ at criticality and in the spin glass phase. Despite the long-range nature of the model, the eigenstates close to the edge of the spectrum display quasi-localization properties. We show that the paramagnetic to spin glass transition corresponds to delocalization of the edge eigenvectors. We solve the model by the cavity method in the thermodynamic limit. We also perform numerical minimization of the Hamiltonian for $N\le 2048$ and compute the spectral properties, that show very strong corrections to the asymptotic scaling approaching the critical point.

  13 citations

• Schur sector of Argyres-Douglas theory and $W$-algebra

  Dan Xie, Wenbin Yan

  SciPost Phys. 10, 080 (2021) · published 30 March 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the Schur index, the Zhu's $C_2$ algebra, and the Macdonald index of a four dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ Argyres-Douglas (AD) theories from the structure of the associated two dimensional $W$-algebra. The Schur index is derived from the vacuum character of the corresponding $W$-algebra and can be rewritten in a very simple form, which can be easily used to verify properties like level-rank dualities, collapsing levels, and S-duality conjectures. The Zhu's $C_2$ algebra can be regarded as a ring associated with the Schur sector, and a surprising connection between certain Zhu's $C_2$ algebra and the Jacobi algebra of a hypersurface singularity is discovered. Finally, the Macdonald index is computed from the Kazhdan filtration of the $W$-algebra.

  13 citations

• A roadmap for bootstrapping critical gauge theories: decoupling operators of conformal field theories in $d>2$ dimensions

  Yin-Chen He, Junchen Rong, Ning Su

  SciPost Phys. 11, 111 (2021) · published 22 December 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose a roadmap for bootstrapping conformal field theories (CFTs) described by gauge theories in dimensions $d>2$. In particular, we provide a simple and workable answer to the question of how to detect the gauge group in the bootstrap calculation. Our recipe is based on the notion of \emph{decoupling operator}, which has a simple (gauge) group theoretical origin, and is reminiscent of the null operator of $2d$ Wess-Zumino-Witten CFTs in higher dimensions. Using the decoupling operator we can efficiently detect the rank (i.e. color number) of gauge groups, e.g., by imposing gap conditions in the CFT spectrum. We also discuss the physics of the equation of motion, which has interesting consequences in the CFT spectrum as well. As an application of our recipes, we study a prototypical critical gauge theory, namely the scalar QED which has a $U(1)$ gauge field interacting with critical bosons. We show that the scalar QED can be solved by conformal bootstrap, namely we have obtained its kinks and islands in both $d=3$ and $d=2+\epsilon$ dimensions.

  13 citations

• Closed hierarchy of Heisenberg equations in integrable models with Onsager algebra

  Oleg Lychkovskiy

  SciPost Phys. 10, 124 (2021) · published 1 June 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dynamics of a quantum system can be described by coupled Heisenberg equations. In a generic many-body system these equations form an exponentially large hierarchy that is intractable without approximations. In contrast, in an integrable system a small subset of operators can be closed with respect to commutation with the Hamiltonian. As a result, the Heisenberg equations for these operators can form a smaller closed system amenable to an analytical treatment. We demonstrate that this indeed happens in a class of integrable models where the Hamiltonian is an element of the Onsager algebra. We explicitly solve the system of Heisenberg equations for operators from this algebra. Two specific models are considered as examples: the transverse field Ising model and the superintegrable chiral 3-state Potts model.

  13 citations

• Toward density functional theory on quantum computers?

  Bruno Senjean, Saad Yalouz, Matthieu Saubanère

  SciPost Phys. 14, 055 (2023) · published 30 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Quantum Chemistry and Physics have been pinpointed as killer applications for quantum computers, and quantum algorithms have been designed to solve the Schrödinger equation with the wavefunction formalism. It is yet limited to small systems, as their size is dictated by the number of qubits available. Computations on large systems rely mainly on mean-field-type approaches such as density functional theory, for which no quantum advantage has been envisioned so far. In this work, we question this a priori by proposing a counter-intuitive mapping from the non-interacting to an auxiliary interacting Hamiltonian that may provide the desired advantage.

  13 citations

• Magnetic impurity in a one-dimensional few-fermion system

  Lukas Rammelmüller, David Huber, Matija Čufar, Joachim Brand, Hans-Werner Hammer, Artem G. Volosniev

  SciPost Phys. 14, 006 (2023) · published 24 January 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a numerical analysis of spin-$\tfrac{1}{2}$ fermions in a one-dimensional harmonic potential in the presence of a magnetic point-like impurity at the center of the trap. The model represents a few-body analogue of a magnetic impurity in the vicinity of an $s$-wave superconductor. Already for a few particles we find a ground-state level crossing between sectors with different fermion parities. We interpret this crossing as a few-body precursor of a quantum phase transition, which occurs when the impurity "breaks" a Cooper pair. This picture is further corroborated by analyzing density-density correlations in momentum space. Finally, we discuss how the system may be realized with existing cold-atoms platforms.

  13 citations

• Many-body localization in the Fock space of natural orbitals

  Wouter Buijsman, Vladimir Gritsev, Vadim Cheianov

  SciPost Phys. 4, 038 (2018) · published 25 June 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the eigenstates of a paradigmatic model of many-body localization in the Fock basis constructed out of the natural orbitals. By numerically studying the participation ratio, we identify a sharp crossover between different phases at a disorder strength close to the disorder strength at which subdiffusive behaviour sets in, significantly below the many-body localization transition. We repeat the analysis in the conventionally used computational basis, and show that many-body localized eigenstates are much stronger localized in the Fock basis constructed out of the natural orbitals than in the computational basis.

  13 citations