Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Archimedean screw in driven chiral magnets

  Nina del Ser, Lukas Heinen, Achim Rosch

  SciPost Phys. 11, 009 (2021) · published 13 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In chiral magnets a magnetic helix forms where the magnetization winds around a propagation vector $\boldsymbol{q}$. We show theoretically that a magnetic field $\boldsymbol{B}_\perp(t) \perp \boldsymbol{q}$, which is spatially homogeneous but oscillating in time, induces a net rotation of the texture around $\boldsymbol{q}$. This rotation is reminiscent of the motion of an Archimedean screw and is equivalent to a translation with velocity $v_{screw}$ parallel to $\boldsymbol{q}$. Due to the coupling to a Goldstone mode, this non-linear effect arises for arbitrarily weak $\boldsymbol{B}_\perp(t) $ with $v_{screw} \propto |{\boldsymbol{B}_\perp}|^2$ as long as pinning by disorder is absent. The effect is resonantly enhanced when internal modes of the helix are excited and the sign of $v_{screw}$ can be controlled either by changing the frequency or the polarization of $\boldsymbol{B}_\perp(t)$. The Archimedean screw can be used to transport spin and charge and thus the screwing motion is predicted to induce a voltage parallel to $\boldsymbol{q}$. Using a combination of numerics and Floquet spin wave theory, we show that the helix becomes unstable upon increasing $\boldsymbol{B}_\perp$ forming a `time quasicrystal' which oscillates in space and time for moderately strong drive.

  9 citations

• Impurities in a one-dimensional Bose gas: the flow equation approach

  Fabian Brauneis, Hans-Werner Hammer, Mikhail Lemeshko, Artem G. Volosniev

  SciPost Phys. 11, 008 (2021) · published 13 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A few years ago, flow equations were introduced as a technique for calculating the ground-state energies of cold Bose gases with and without impurities. In this paper, we extend this approach to compute observables other than the energy. As an example, we calculate the densities, and phase fluctuations of one-dimensional Bose gases with one and two impurities. For a single mobile impurity, we use flow equations to validate the mean-field results obtained upon the Lee-Low-Pines transformation. We show that the mean-field approximation is accurate for all values of the boson-impurity interaction strength as long as the phase coherence length is much larger than the healing length of the condensate. For two static impurities, we calculate impurity-impurity interactions induced by the Bose gas. We find that leading order perturbation theory fails when boson-impurity interactions are stronger than boson-boson interactions. The mean-field approximation reproduces the flow equation results for all values of the boson-impurity interaction strength as long as boson-boson interactions are weak.

  20 citations

• Field-induced magnetic states in geometrically frustrated SrEr2O4

  N. Qureshi, O. Fabelo, P. Manuel, D. D. Khalyavin, E. Lhotel, S.X.M. Riberolles, G. Balakrishnan, O. A. Petrenko

  SciPost Phys. 11, 007 (2021) · published 12 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We report an unusual in-field behaviour of SrEr2O4 for a magnetic field applied along two high-symmetry directions, the a and c axes. This geometrically frustrated magnet hosts two crystallographically inequivalent Er ions, Er1 and Er2, that are both located on triangular zigzag ladders, but only one site, Er1, forms a long-range magnetic order at low temperatures in a zero field. We follow the sequence of peculiar field induced states in SrEr2O4 with detailed single-crystal magnetisation and neutron diffraction experiments. On appli- cation of an external field along the c axis, the long-range antiferromagnetic order of the Er1 ions is rapidly destroyed and replaced, in fields between 2 and 5 kOe, by a state with shorter-range correlations. The change in correlation length coincides with a fast increase in magnetisation during the metamagnetic transition above which a long-range order is reestablished and maintained into the high fields. The high-field ferromagnet-like order is characterised by sig- nificantly different magnetic moments on the two Er sites, with the Er1 site dominating the magnetisation process. For the field applied parallel to the a axis, in the field range of 4 to 12 kOe, the planes of diffuse magnetic scat- tering observed in zero field due to the one-dimensional correlations between the Er2 moments are replaced by much more localised but still diffuse features corresponding to the establishment of an up-up-down structure associated with a one-third magnetisation plateau. Above 14 kOe, a ferromagnet-like high-field order is induced following another phase transition. For this direction of the field, the Er2 moments dictate the succession of transitions while the Er1 mo- ments remain significantly less polarised. A complete field polarisation of both Er sites is not achieved even at 50 kOe for either field direction, reflecting the strongly anisotropic nature of magnetisation process in SrEr2O4.

  4 citations

• Freezing In with lepton flavored fermions

  G. D'Ambrosio, Shiuli Chatterjee, Ranjan Laha, Sudhir K Vempati

  SciPost Phys. 11, 006 (2021) · published 12 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dark, chiral fermions carrying lepton flavor quantum numbers are natural candidates for freeze-in. Small couplings with the Standard Model fermions of the order of lepton Yukawas are `automatic' in the limit of Minimal Flavor Violation. In the absence of total lepton number violating interactions, particles with certain representations under the flavor group remain absolutely stable. For masses in the GeV-TeV range, the simplest model with three flavors, leads to signals at future direct detection experiments like DARWIN. Interestingly, freeze-in with a smaller flavor group such as $SU(2)$ is already being probed by XENON1T.

  3 citations

• A NEAT quantum error decoder

  Hugo Théveniaut, Evert van Nieuwenburg

  SciPost Phys. 11, 005 (2021) · published 12 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the use of the evolutionary NEAT algorithm for the optimization of a policy network that performs quantum error decoding on the toric code, with bitflip and depolarizing noise, one qubit at a time. We find that these NEAT-optimized network decoders have similar performance to previously reported machine-learning based decoders, but use roughly three to four orders of magnitude fewer parameters to do so.

  1 citation

• EFT and the SUSY index on the 2nd sheet

  Davide Cassani, Zohar Komargodski

  SciPost Phys. 11, 004 (2021) · published 9 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The counting of BPS states in four-dimensional ${\cal N}=1$ theories has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. For superconformal theories, these states are in one-to-one correspondence with local operators in various short representations. The generating function for this counting problem has branch cuts and hence several Cardy-like limits, which are analogous to high-temperature limits. Particularly interesting is the second sheet, which has been shown to capture the microstates and phases of supersymmetric black holes in AdS$_5$. Here we present a 3d Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach to the high-temperature limit on the second sheet. We use the EFT to derive the behavior of the index at orders $\beta^{-2},\beta^{-1},\beta^0$. We also make a conjecture for $O(\beta)$, where we argue that the expansion truncates up to exponentially small corrections. An important point is the existence of vector multiplet zero modes, unaccompanied by massless matter fields. The runaway of Affleck-Harvey-Witten is however avoided by a non-perturbative confinement mechanism. This confinement mechanism guarantees that our results are robust.

  42 citations

• Entanglement, non-hermiticity, and duality

  Li-Mei Chen, Shuai A. Chen, Peng Ye

  SciPost Phys. 11, 003 (2021) · published 9 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Usually duality process keeps energy spectrum invariant. In this paper, we provide a duality, which keeps entanglement spectrum invariant, in order to diagnose quantum entanglement of non-Hermitian non-interacting fermionic systems. We limit our attention to non-Hermitian systems with a complete set of biorthonormal eigenvectors and an entirely real energy spectrum. The original system has a reduced density matrix $\rho_\mathrm{o}$ and the real space is partitioned via a projecting operator $\mathcal{R}_{\mathrm o}$. After dualization, we obtain a new reduced density matrix $\rho_{\mathrm{d}}$ and a new real space projector $\mathcal{R}_{\mathrm d}$. Remarkably, entanglement spectrum and entanglement entropy keep invariant. Inspired by the duality, we defined two types of non-Hermitian models, upon $\mathcal R_{\mathrm{o}}$ is given. In type-I exemplified by the ``non-reciprocal model'', there exists at least one duality such that $\rho_{\mathrm{d}}$ is Hermitian. In other words, entanglement information of type-I non-Hermitian models with a given $\mathcal{R}_{\mathrm{o}}$ is entirely controlled by Hermitian models with $\mathcal{R}_{\mathrm{d}}$. As a result, we are allowed to apply known results of Hermitian systems to efficiently obtain entanglement properties of type-I models. On the other hand, the duals of type-II models, exemplified by ``non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model'', are always non-Hermitian. For the practical purpose, the duality provides a potentially \textit{efficient} computation route to entanglement of non-Hermitian systems. Via connecting different models, the duality also sheds lights on either trivial or nontrivial role of non-Hermiticity played in quantum entanglement, paving the way to potentially systematic classification and characterization of non-Hermitian systems from the entanglement perspective.

  19 citations

• Quantum field theory and the Bieberbach conjecture

  Parthiv Haldar, Aninda Sinha, Ahmadullah Zahed

  SciPost Phys. 11, 002 (2021) · published 8 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  An intriguing correspondence between ingredients in geometric function theory related to the famous Bieberbach conjecture (de Branges' theorem) and the non-perturbative crossing symmetric representation of 2-2 scattering amplitudes of identical scalars is pointed out. Using the dispersion relation and unitarity, we are able to derive several inequalities, analogous to those which arise in the discussions of the Bieberbach conjecture. We derive new and strong bounds on the ratio of certain Wilson coefficients and demonstrate that these are obeyed in one-loop $\phi^4$ theory, tree level string theory as well as in the S-matrix bootstrap. Further, we find two sided bounds on the magnitude of the scattering amplitude, which are shown to be respected in all the contexts mentioned above. Translated to the usual Mandelstam variables, for large $|s|$, fixed $t$, the upper bound reads $|\mathcal{M}(s,t)|\lesssim |s^2|$. We discuss how Szegö's theorem corresponds to a check of univalence in an EFT expansion, while how the Grunsky inequalities translate into nontrivial, nonlinear inequalities on the Wilson coefficients.

  32 citations

• Local detailed balance

  Christian Maes

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 32 (2021) · published 6 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We review the physical meaning and mathematical implementation of the condition of local detailed balance for a class of nonequilibrium mesoscopic processes. A central concept is that of fluctuating entropy flux for which the steady average gives the mean entropy production rate. We repeat how local detailed balance is essentially equivalent to the widely discussed fluctuation relations for that entropy flux and hence is at most "only half of the story."

  47 citations

• Gravitational waves from an axion-dark photon system: A lattice study

  Wolfram Ratzinger, Pedro Schwaller, Ben A. Stefanek

  SciPost Phys. 11, 001 (2021) · published 6 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work, we present a lattice study of an axion - dark photon system in the early Universe and show that the stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background produced by this system may be probed by future GW experiments across a vast range of frequencies. The numerical simulation on the lattice allows us to take into account non-linear backreaction effects and enables us to accurately predict the final relic abundance of the axion or axion-like particle (ALP) as well as its inhomogeneities, and gives a more precise prediction of the GW spectrum. Importantly, we find that the GW spectrum has more power at high momenta due to $2\rightarrow1$ processes. Furthermore, we find the degree of polarization of the peak of the GW spectrum depends on the ALP-dark photon coupling and that the polarization can be washed out or even flipped for large values thereof. In line with recent results in the literature, we find the ALP relic abundance may be suppressed by two orders of magnitude and discuss possible extensions of the model that expand the viable parameter space. Finally, we discuss the possibility to probe ultralight ALP dark matter via spectral distortions of the CMB.

  19 citations