Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Weak ergodicity breaking in non-Hermitian many-body systems

  Qianqian Chen, Shuai A. Chen, Zheng Zhu

  SciPost Phys. 15, 052 (2023) · published 7 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The recent discovery of persistent revivals in the Rydberg-atom quantum simulator has revealed a weakly ergodicity-breaking mechanism dubbed quantum many-body scars, which are a set of nonthermal states embedded in otherwise thermal spectra. Until now, such a mechanism has been mainly studied in Hermitian systems. Here, we establish the non-Hermitian quantum many-body scars and systematically characterize their nature from dynamic revivals, entanglement entropy, physical observables, and energy level statistics. Notably, we find the non-Hermitian quantum many-body scars exhibit significantly enhanced coherent revival dynamics when approaching the exceptional point. The signatures of non-Hermitian scars switch from the real-energy axis to the imaginary-energy axis after a real-to-complex spectrum transition driven by increasing non-Hermiticity, where an exceptional point and a quantum tricritical point emerge simultaneously. We further examine the stability of non-Hermitian quantum many-body scars against external fields, reveal the non-Hermitian quantum criticality and eventually set up the whole phase diagram. The possible connection to the open quantum many-body systems is also explored. Our findings offer insights for realizing long-lived coherent states in non-Hermitian many-body systems.

  8 citations

• Lieb-Schultz-Mattis, Luttinger, and 't Hooft - anomaly matching in lattice systems

  Meng Cheng, Nathan Seiberg

  SciPost Phys. 15, 051 (2023) · published 7 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze lattice Hamiltonian systems whose global symmetries have 't Hooft anomalies. As is common in the study of anomalies, they are probed by coupling the system to classical background gauge fields. For flat fields (vanishing field strength), the nonzero spatial components of the gauge fields can be thought of as twisted boundary conditions, or equivalently, as topological defects. The symmetries of the twisted Hilbert space and their representations capture the anomalies. We demonstrate this approach with a number of examples. In some of them, the anomalous symmetries are internal symmetries of the lattice system, but they do not act on-site. (We clarify the notion of "on-site action.") In other cases, the anomalous symmetries involve lattice translations. Using this approach we frame many known and new results in a unified fashion. In this work, we limit ourselves to 1+1d systems with a spatial lattice. In particular, we present a lattice system that flows to the $c=1$ compact boson system with any radius (no BKT transition) with the full internal symmetry of the continuum theory, with its anomalies and its T-duality. As another application, we analyze various spin chain models and phrase their Lieb-Shultz-Mattis theorem as an 't Hooft anomaly matching condition. We also show in what sense filling constraints like Luttinger theorem can and cannot be viewed as reflecting an anomaly. As a by-product, our understanding allows us to use information from the continuum theory to derive some exact results in lattice model of interest, such as the lattice momenta of the low-energy states.

  34 citations

• Strongly-interacting bosons at 2D-1D dimensional crossover

  Hepeng Yao, Lorenzo Pizzino, Thierry Giamarchi

  SciPost Phys. 15, 050 (2023) · published 7 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study a two dimensional (2D) system of interacting quantum bosons, subjected to a continuous periodic potential in one direction. The correlation of such system exhibits a dimensional crossover between a canonical 2D behavior with Berezinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) properties and a one-dimensional (1D) behavior when the potential is large and splits the system in essentially independent tubes. The latter is in the universality class of Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids (TLL). Using a continuous quantum Monte Carlo method, we investigate this dimensional crossover by computing longitudinal and transverse superfluid fraction as well as the superfluid correlation as a function of temperature, interactions and potential. Especially, we find the correlation function evolves from BKT to TLL type, with special intermediate behaviors appearing at the dimensional crossover. We discuss how the consequences of the dimensional crossover can be investigated in cold atomic gases experiments.

  8 citations

• Constant-time quantum algorithm for homology detection in closed curves

  Nhat A. Nghiem Vu, Xianfeng David Gu, Tzu-Chieh Wei

  SciPost Phys. 15, 049 (2023) · published 4 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Given a loop or more generally 1-cycle $r$ of size L on a closed two-dimensional manifold or surface, represented by a triangulated mesh, a question in computational topology asks whether or not it is homologous to zero. We frame and tackle this problem in the quantum setting. Given an oracle that one can use to query the inclusion of edges on a closed curve, we design a quantum algorithm for such a homology detection with a constant running time, with respect to the size or the number of edges on the loop $r$, requiring only a single usage of oracle. In contrast, classical algorithm requires $\Omega(L)$ oracle usage, followed by a linear time processing and can be improved to logarithmic by using a parallel algorithm. Our quantum algorithm can be extended to check whether two closed loops belong to the same homology class. Furthermore, it can be applied to a specific problem in the homotopy detection, namely, checking whether two curves are not homotopically equivalent on a closed two-dimensional manifold.

• Quantum chaos in interacting Bose-Bose mixtures

  Tran Duong Anh-Tai, Mathias Mikkelsen, Thomas Busch, Thomás Fogarty

  SciPost Phys. 15, 048 (2023) · published 4 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The appearance of chaotic quantum dynamics significantly depends on the symmetry properties of a system, and in cold atomic systems many of these can be experimentally controlled. In this work, we systematically study the emergence of quantum chaos in a minimal system describing one-dimensional harmonically trapped Bose-Bose mixtures by tuning the particle-particle interactions. Using an improved exact diagonalization scheme, we examine the transition from integrability to chaos when the inter-component interaction changes from weak to strong. Our study is based on the analysis of the level spacing distribution and the distribution of the matrix elements of observables in terms of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis and their dynamics. We show that one can obtain strong signatures of chaos by increasing the inter-component interaction strength and breaking the symmetry of intra-component interactions.

  4 citations

• Cornering extended Starobinsky inflation with CMB and SKA

  Tanmoy Modak, Lennart Röver, Björn Malte Schäfer, Benedikt Schosser, Tilman Plehn

  SciPost Phys. 15, 047 (2023) · published 3 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Starobinsky inflation is an attractive, fundamental model to explain the Planck measurements, and its higher-order extension may allow us to probe quantum gravity effects. We show that future CMB data combined with the 21cm intensity map from SKA will meaningfully probe such an extended Starobinsky model. A combined analysis will provide a precise measurement and intriguing insight into inflationary dynamics, even accounting for correlations with astrophysical parameters.

  4 citations

• Nonequilibrium phases of ultracold bosons with cavity-induced dynamic gauge fields

  Arkadiusz Kosior, Helmut Ritsch, Farokh Mivehvar

  SciPost Phys. 15, 046 (2023) · published 3 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Gauge fields are a central concept in fundamental theories of physics, and responsible for mediating long-range interactions between elementary particles. Recently, it has been proposed that dynamical gauge fields can be naturally engineered by photons in composite, neutral quantum gas-cavity systems using suitable atom-photon interactions. Here we comprehensively investigate nonequilibrium dynamical phases appearing in a two-leg bosonic lattice model with leg-dependent, dynamical complex tunnelings mediated by cavity-assisted two-photon Raman processes. The system constitutes a minimal dynamical flux-lattice model. We study fixed points of the equations of motion and their stability, the resultant dynamical phase diagram, and the corresponding phase transitions and bifurcations. Notably, the phase diagram features a plethora of nonequilibrium dynamical phases including limit-cycle and chaotic phases. In the end, we relate regular periodic dynamics (i.e., limit-cycle phases) of the system to time crystals.

  10 citations

• Universality in Anderson localization on random graphs with varying connectivity

  Piotr Sierant, Maciej Lewenstein, Antonello Scardicchio

  SciPost Phys. 15, 045 (2023) · published 3 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We perform a thorough and complete analysis of the Anderson localization transition on several models of random graphs with regular and random connectivity. The unprecedented precision and abundance of our exact diagonalization data (both spectra and eigenstates), together with new finite size scaling and statistical analysis of the graph ensembles, unveils a universal behavior which is described by two simple, integer, scaling exponents. A by-product of such analysis is a reconciliation of the tension between the results of perturbation theory coming from strong disorder and earlier numerical works, which seemed to suggest that there should be a non-ergodic region above a given value of disorder $W_{E}$ which is strictly less than the Anderson localization critical disorder $W_C$, and that of other works which suggest that there is no such region. We find that, although no separate $W_{E}$ exists from $W_C$, the length scale at which fully developed ergodicity is found diverges like $|W-W_C|^{-1}$, while the critical length over which delocalization develops is $\sim |W-W_C|^{-1/2}$. The separation of these two scales at the critical point allows for a true non-ergodic, delocalized region. In addition, by looking at eigenstates and studying leading and sub-leading terms in system size-dependence of participation entropies, we show that the former contain information about the non-ergodicity volume which becomes non-trivial already deep in the delocalized regime. We also discuss the quantitative similarities between the Anderson transition on random graphs and many-body localization transition.

  17 citations

• Coupled Fredkin and Motzkin chains from quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models

  Zhao Zhang, Israel Klich

  SciPost Phys. 15, 044 (2023) · published 2 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We generalize the area-law violating models of Fredkin and Motzkin spin chains into two dimensions by building quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models with correlated interactions. The Hamiltonian is frustration free, and its projectors generate ergodic dynamics within the subspace of height configuration that are non negative. The ground state is a volume- and color-weighted superposition of classical bi-color vertex configurations with non-negative heights in the bulk and zero height on the boundary. The entanglement entropy between subsystems has a phase transition as the $q$-deformation parameter is tuned, which is shown to be robust in the presence of an external field acting on the color degree of freedom. The ground state undergoes a quantum phase transition between area- and volume-law entanglement phases with a critical point where entanglement entropy scales as a function $L\log L$ of the linear system size $L$. Intermediate power law scalings between $L\log L$ and $L^2$ can be achieved with an inhomogeneous deformation parameter that approaches 1 at different rates in the thermodynamic limit. For the $q>1$ phase, we construct a variational wave function that establishes an upper bound on the spectral gap that scales as $q^{-L^3/8}$.

  2 citations

• Partons as unique ground states of quantum Hall parent Hamiltonians: The case of Fibonacci anyons

  Mostafa Tanhayi Ahari, Sumanta Bandyopadhyay, Zohar Nussinov, Alexander Seidel, Gerardo Ortiz

  SciPost Phys. 15, 043 (2023) · published 2 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present microscopic, multiple Landau level, (frustration-free and positive semi-definite) parent Hamiltonians whose ground states, realizing different quantum Hall fluids, are parton-like and whose excitations display either Abelian or non-Abelian braiding statistics. We prove ground state energy monotonicity theorems for systems with different particle numbers in multiple Landau levels, demonstrate S-duality in the case of toroidal geometry, and establish complete sets of zero modes of special Hamiltonians stabilizing parton-like states, specifically at filling factor $\nu=2/3$. The emergent Entangled Pauli Principle (EPP), introduced in [Phys. Rev. B 98, 161118(R) (2018)] and which defines the "DNA" of the quantum Hall fluid, is behind the exact determination of the topological characteristics of the fluid, including charge and braiding statistics of excitations, and effective edge theory descriptions. When the closed-shell condition is satisfied, the densest (i.e., the highest density and lowest total angular momentum) zero-energy mode is a unique parton state. We conjecture that parton-like states generally span the subspace of many-body wave functions with the two-body $M$-clustering property within any given number of Landau levels, that is, wave functions with $M$th-order coincidence plane zeroes and both holomorphic and anti-holomorphic dependence on variables. General arguments are supplemented by rigorous considerations for the $M=3$ case of fermions in four Landau levels. For this case, we establish that the zero mode counting can be done by enumerating certain patterns consistent with an underlying EPP. We apply the coherent state approach of [Phys. Rev. X 1, 021015 (2011)] to show that the elementary (localized) bulk excitations are Fibonacci anyons. This demonstrates that the DNA associated with fractional quantum Hall states encodes all universal properties. Specifically, for parton-like states, we establish a link with tensor network structures of finite bond dimension that emerge via root level entanglement.

  3 citations