Publications

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• Dynamic hysteresis across a dissipative multi-mode phase transition

  Marvin Röhrle, Jens Benary, Erik Bernhart, Herwig Ott

  SciPost Phys. 16, 158 (2024) · published 28 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dissipative phase transitions are characteristic features in open quantum systems. Key signatures are the dynamical switching between different states in the vicinity of the phase transition and the appearance of hysteresis. Here, we experimentally study dynamic sweeps across a first order dissipative phase transition in a multi-mode driven-dissipative system. In contrast to previous studies, we perform sweeps of the dissipation strength instead of the driving strength. We extract exponents for the scaling of the hysteresis area in dependence of the sweep time and study the $g^{(2)}(0)$ correlations, which show non-trivial behavior. By changing the temperature of the system we investigate the importance of coherently pumping the system. We compare our results to numerical calculations done for a single mode variant of the system, and find surprisingly good agreement. Furthermore, we identify and discuss the differences between a scan of the dissipation strength and a scan of the driving strength.

• Codebase release r0.1 for PanScales

  Melissa van Beekveld, Mrinal Dasgupta, Basem Kamal El-Menoufi, Silvia Ferrario Ravasio, Keith Hamilton, Jack Helliwell, Alexander Karlberg, Rok Medves, Pier Francesco Monni, Gavin P. Salam, Ludovic Scyboz, Alba Soto-Ontoso, Gregory Soyez, Rob Verheyen

  SciPost Phys. Codebases 31-r0.1 (2024) · published 25 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · src

  In this article, we document version 0.1 of the PANSCALES code for parton shower simulations. With the help of a few examples, we discuss basic usage of the code, including tests of logarithmic accuracy of parton showers. We expose some of the numerical techniques underlying the logarithmic tests and include a description of how users can implement their own showers within the framework. Some of the simpler logarithmic tests can be performed in a few minutes on a modern laptop. As an early step towards phenomenology, we also outline some aspects of a preliminary interface to PYTHIA 8.3, for access to its hard matrix elements and its hadronisation modules.

  1 citation

• Introduction to the PanScales framework, version 0.1

  Melissa van Beekveld, Mrinal Dasgupta, Basem Kamal El-Menoufi, Silvia Ferrario Ravasio, Keith Hamilton, Jack Helliwell, Alexander Karlberg, Rok Medves, Pier Francesco Monni, Gavin P. Salam, Ludovic Scyboz, Alba Soto-Ontoso, Gregory Soyez, Rob Verheyen

  SciPost Phys. Codebases 31 (2024) · published 25 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this article, we document version 0.1 of the PANSCALES code for parton shower simulations. With the help of a few examples, we discuss basic usage of the code, including tests of logarithmic accuracy of parton showers. We expose some of the numerical techniques underlying the logarithmic tests and include a description of how users can implement their own showers within the framework. Some of the simpler logarithmic tests can be performed in a few minutes on a modern laptop. As an early step towards phenomenology, we also outline some aspects of a preliminary interface to PYTHIA 8.3, for access to its hard matrix elements and its hadronisation modules.

  1 citation

• Perturbative unitarity and the wavefunction of the Universe

  Soner Albayrak, Paolo Benincasa, Carlos Duaso Pueyo

  SciPost Phys. 16, 157 (2024) · published 20 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Unitarity of time evolution is one of the basic principles constraining physical processes. Its consequences in the perturbative Bunch-Davies wavefunction in cosmology have been formulated in terms of the cosmological optical theorem. In this paper, we re-analyse perturbative unitarity for the Bunch-Davies wavefunction, focusing on: $i)$ the role of the $i\epsilon$-prescription and its compatibility with the requirement of unitarity; $ii)$ the origin of the different ``cutting rules''; $iii)$ the emergence of the flat-space optical theorem from the cosmological one. We take the combinatorial point of view of the cosmological polytopes, which provide a first-principle description for a large class of scalar graphs contributing to the wavefunctional. The requirement of the positivity of the geometry together with the preservation of its orientation determine the $i\epsilon$-prescription. In kinematic space it translates into giving a small negative imaginary part to all the energies, making the wavefunction coefficients well-defined for any value of their real part along the real axis. Unitarity is instead encoded into a non-convex part of the cosmological polytope, which we name \textit{optical polytope}. The cosmological optical theorem emerges as the equivalence between a specific polytope subdivision of the optical polytope and its triangulations, each of which provides different cutting rules. The flat-space optical theorem instead emerges from the non-convexity of the optical polytope. On the more mathematical side, we provide two definitions of this non-convex geometry, none of them based on the idea of the non-convex geometry as a union of convex ones.

• Krylov complexity in a natural basis for the Schrödinger algebra

  Dimitrios Patramanis, Watse Sybesma

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 037 (2024) · published 20 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate operator growth in quantum systems with two-dimensional Schrödinger group symmetry by studying the Krylov complexity. While feasible for semisimple Lie algebras, cases such as the Schrödinger algebra which is characterized by a semi-direct sum structure are complicated. We propose to compute Krylov complexity for this algebra in a natural orthonormal basis, which produces a pentadiagonal structure of the time evolution operator, contrasting the usual tridiagonal Lanczos algorithm outcome. The resulting complexity behaves as expected. We advocate that this approach can provide insights to other non-semisimple algebras.

• Symmetry energy in holographic QCD

  Lorenzo Bartolini, Sven Bjarke Gudnason

  SciPost Phys. 16, 156 (2024) · published 19 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the symmetry energy (SE), an important quantity in nuclear physics, in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model and in a much simpler hard-wall model of holographic QCD. The SE is the energy contribution to the nucleus due to having an unequal number of neutrons and protons. Using a homogeneous Ansatz representing smeared instantons and quantizing their isospin, we extract the SE and the proton fraction assuming charge neutrality and beta-equilibrium, using quantization of the isospin zeromode. We also show the equivalence between our method adapted from solitons and the usual way of the isospin controlled by a chemical potential at the holographic boundary. We find that the SE can be well described in the WSS model if we allow for a larger 't Hooft coupling and lower Kaluza-Klein scale than is normally used in phenomenological fits.

• Large N instantons from topological strings

  Marcos Mariño, Ramon Miravitllas

  SciPost Phys. 16, 155 (2024) · published 19 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The $1/N$ expansion of matrix models is asymptotic, and it requires non-perturbative corrections due to large $N$ instantons. Explicit expressions for large $N$ instanton amplitudes are known in the case of Hermitian matrix models with one cut, but not in the multi-cut case. We show that the recent exact results on topological string instanton amplitudes provide the non-perturbative contributions of large $N$ instantons in generic multi-cut, Hermitian matrix models. We present a detailed test in the case of the cubic matrix model by considering the asymptotics of its $1/N$ expansion, which we obtain at relatively high genus for a generic two-cut background. These results can be extended to certain non-conventional matrix models which admit a topological string theory description. As an application, we determine the large $N$ instanton corrections for the free energy of ABJM theory on the three-sphere, which correspond to D-brane instanton corrections in superstring theory. We also illustrate the applications of topological string instantons in a more mathematical setting by considering orbifold Gromov-Witten invariants. By focusing on the example of ${\mathbb C}^3/{\mathbb Z}_3$, we show that they grow doubly-factorially with the genus and we obtain and test explicit asymptotic formulae for them.

• State diagrams to determine tree tensor network operators

  Richard M. Milbradt, Qunsheng Huang, Christian B. Mendl

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 036 (2024) · published 19 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This work is concerned with tree tensor network operators (TTNOs) for representing quantum Hamiltonians. We first establish a mathematical framework connecting tree topologies with state diagrams. Based on these, we devise an algorithm for constructing a TTNO given a Hamiltonian. The algorithm exploits the tensor product structure of the Hamiltonian to add paths to a state diagram, while combining local operators if possible. We test the capabilities of our algorithm on random Hamiltonians for a given tree structure. Additionally, we construct explicit TTNOs for nearest neighbour interactions on a tree topology. Furthermore, we derive a bound on the bond dimension of tensor operators representing arbitrary interactions on trees. Finally, we consider an open quantum system in the form of a Heisenberg spin chain coupled to bosonic bath sites as a concrete example. We find that tree structures allow for lower bond dimensions of the Hamiltonian tensor network representation compared to a matrix product operator structure. This reduction is large enough to reduce the number of total tensor elements required as soon as the number of baths per spin reaches 3.

• Immigration Detention at Sea: maritime migration governance in Australia and the sanctioning of indefinite detention for the purpose of removal

  Andonea Jon Dickson

  Mig. Pol. 3, 002 (2024) · published 19 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Over the past four decades, maritime geographies have become prominent sites of migration governance. While there is important scholarly work on these spaces, charting changing techniques of control and containment, what continues to demand attention is the governance that works through systematically keeping people seeking asylum mobile at sea. This article focuses on Australia, examining the coerced mobilities that follow interdictions at sea and their carceral nature. I interrogate the High Court case, CPCF v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, which addresses the extended maritime detention of 157 people seeking asylum in June 2014. Through analysing the language used in this case, such as the conclusion by the majority that “to detain” a person at sea mandates a concomitant duty “to take” that person somewhere, I highlight how coerced mobility has become central to Australia’s strategy of maritime migration governance and how this has come to legitimate detention at sea without any clear time limitation. This will reveal the extent to which carcerality informs migration governance in Australia’s maritime geographies.

• Non-invertible symmetries and LSM-type constraints on a tensor product Hilbert space

  Nathan Seiberg, Sahand Seifnashri, Shu-Heng Shao

  SciPost Phys. 16, 154 (2024) · published 17 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We discuss the exact non-invertible Kramers-Wannier symmetry of 1+1d lattice models on a tensor product Hilbert space of qubits. This symmetry is associated with a topological defect and a conserved operator, and the latter can be presented as a matrix product operator. Importantly, unlike its continuum counterpart, the symmetry algebra involves lattice translations. Consequently, it is not described by a fusion category. In the presence of this defect, the symmetry algebra involving parity/time-reversal is realized projectively, which is reminiscent of an anomaly. Different Hamiltonians with the same lattice non-invertible symmetry can flow in their continuum limits to infinitely many different fusion categories (with different Frobenius-Schur indicators), including, as a special case, the Ising CFT. The non-invertible symmetry leads to a constraint similar to that of Lieb-Schultz-Mattis, implying that the system cannot have a unique gapped ground state. It is either in a gapless phase or in a gapped phase with three (or a multiple of three) ground states, associated with the spontaneous breaking of the lattice non-invertible symmetry.

  1 citation