Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The Boring Monopole

  Prateek Agrawal, Michael Nee

  SciPost Phys. 13, 049 (2022) · published 2 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study false vacuum decays catalysed by magnetic monopoles which act as tunnelling sites with exponentially enhanced decay rates. The field profiles describing the decay do not have the typically assumed $O(3)/O(4)$ symmetry, thus requiring an extension of the usual decay rate calculation. To numerically determine the saddle point solutions which describe the tunnelling process we use a new algorithm based on the mountain pass theorem. This method can be applied more widely to phase transitions with reduced symmetry, such as decays away from the zero and infinite temperature limits. Our results show that monopole-catalysed tunnelling can dominate over the homogeneous false vacuum decay for a wide range of parameters, significantly modify the gravitational wave signal or trigger phase transitions which would otherwise never complete. A single boring monopole in our Hubble patch may determine the lifetime of the Standard Model vacuum.

  4 citations

• Generalised Gibbs Ensemble for spherically constrained harmonic models

  Damien Barbier, Leticia F. Cugliandolo, Gustavo S. Lozano, Nicolás Nessi

  SciPost Phys. 13, 048 (2022) · published 2 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We build and analytically calculate the Generalised Gibbs Ensemble partition function of the integrable Soft Neumann Model. This is the model of a classical particle which is constrained to move, on average over the initial conditions, on an $N$ dimensional sphere, and feels the effect of anisotropic harmonic potentials. We derive all relevant averaged static observables in the (thermodynamic) $N\rightarrow\infty$ limit. We compare them to their long-term dynamic averages finding excellent agreement in all phases of a non-trivial phase diagram determined by the characteristics of the initial conditions and the amount of energy injected or extracted in an instantaneous quench. We discuss the implications of our results for the proper Neumann model in which the spherical constraint is imposed strictly.

  2 citations

• Event Generation and Density Estimation with Surjective Normalizing Flows

  Rob Verheyen

  SciPost Phys. 13, 047 (2022) · published 2 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Normalizing flows are a class of generative models that enable exact likelihood evaluation. While these models have already found various applications in particle physics, normalizing flows are not flexible enough to model many of the peripheral features of collision events. Using the framework of Nielsen et al. (2020), we introduce several surjective and stochastic transform layers to a baseline normalizing flow to improve modelling of permutation symmetry, varying dimensionality and discrete features, which are all commonly encountered in particle physics events. We assess their efficacy in the context of the generation of a matrix element-level process, and in the context of anomaly detection in detector-level LHC events.

  24 citations

• Hidden dualities in 1D quasiperiodic lattice models

  Miguel Gonçalves, Bruno Amorim, Eduardo V. Castro, Pedro Ribeiro

  SciPost Phys. 13, 046 (2022) · published 1 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We find that quasiperiodicity-induced transitions between extended and localized phases in generic 1D systems are associated with hidden dualities that generalize the well-known duality of the Aubry-Andr\'e model. These spectral and eigenstate dualities are locally defined near the transition and can, in many cases, be explicitly constructed by considering relatively small commensurate approximants. The construction relies on auxiliary 2D Fermi surfaces obtained as functions of the phase-twisting boundary conditions and of the phase-shifting real-space structure. We show that, around the critical point of the limiting quasiperiodic system, the auxiliary Fermi surface of a high-enough-order approximant converges to a universal form. This allows us to devise a highly-accurate method to obtain mobility edges and duality transformations for generic 1D quasiperiodic systems through their commensurate approximants. To illustrate the power of this approach, we consider several previously studied systems, including generalized Aubry-Andr\'e models and coupled Moir\'e chains. Our findings bring a new perspective to examine quasiperiodicity-induced extended-to-localized transitions in 1D, provide a working criterion for the appearance of mobility edges, and an explicit way to understand the properties of eigenstates close to and at the transition.

  24 citations

• A definition of primary operators in $J\bar T$-deformed CFTs

  Monica Guica

  SciPost Phys. 13, 045 (2022) · published 1 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  $J\bar T$-deformed CFTs provide an interesting example of non-local, yet UV-complete two-dimensional QFTs that are entirely solvable. They have been recently shown to possess an infinite set of symmetries, which are a continuous deformation of the Virasoro-Kac-Moody symmetries of the seed CFT. In this article, we put forth a definition of primary operators in $J\bar T$-deformed CFTs on a cylinder, which are singled out by having CFT-like momentum-space commutation relations with the symmetry generators in the decompatification limit. We show -- based on results we first derive for the case of $J^1 \wedge J^2$-deformed CFTs -- that all correlation functions of such operators in the $J\bar T$-deformed CFT can be computed exactly in terms of the correlation functions of the undeformed CFT and are crossing symmetric in the plane limit. In particular, two and three-point functions are simply given by the corresponding momentum-space correlator in the undeformed CFT, with all dimensions replaced by particular momentum-dependent conformal dimensions. Interestingly, scattering amplitudes off the near-horizon of extremal black holes are known to take a strikingly similar form.

  9 citations

• Learning Summary Statistics for Bayesian Inference with Autoencoders

  Carlo Albert, Simone Ulzega, Firat Ozdemir, Fernando Perez-Cruz, Antonietta Mira

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 043 (2022) · published 1 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  For stochastic models with intractable likelihood functions, approximate Bayesian computation offers a way of approximating the true posterior through repeated comparisons of observations with simulated model outputs in terms of a small set of summary statistics. These statistics need to retain the information that is relevant for constraining the parameters but cancel out the noise. They can thus be seen as thermodynamic state variables, for general stochastic models. For many scientific applications, we need strictly more summary statistics than model parameters to reach a satisfactory approximation of the posterior. Therefore, we propose to use the inner dimension of deep neural network based Autoencoders as summary statistics. To create an incentive for the encoder to encode all the parameter-related information but not the noise, we give the decoder access to explicit or implicit information on the noise that has been used to generate the training data. We validate the approach empirically on two types of stochastic models.

  1 citation

• Integrable quadratic structures in peakon models

  J. Avan, L. Frappat, E. Ragoucy

  SciPost Phys. 13, 044 (2022) · published 31 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose realizations of the Poisson structures for the Lax representations of three integrable $n$-body peakon equations, Camassa--Holm, Degasperis--Procesi and Novikov. The Poisson structures derived from the integrability structures of the continuous equations yield quadratic forms for the $r$-matrix representation, with the Toda molecule classical $r$-matrix playing a prominent role. We look for a linear form for the $r$-matrix representation. Aside from the Camassa--Holm case, where the structure is already known, the two other cases do not allow such a presentation, with the noticeable exception of the Novikov model at $n=2$. Generalized Hamiltonians obtained from the canonical Sklyanin trace formula for quadratic structures are derived in the three cases.

  1 citation

• Asymptotically matched quasi-circular inspiral and transition-to-plunge in the small mass ratio expansion

  Geoffrey Compère, Lorenzo Küchler

  SciPost Phys. 13, 043 (2022) · published 31 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In the small mass ratio expansion and on the equatorial plane, the two-body problem for point particles in general relativity admits a quasi-circular inspiral motion followed by a transition-to-plunge motion. We first derive the equations governing the quasi-circular inspiral in the Kerr background at adiabatic, post-adiabatic and post-post-adiabatic orders in the slow-timescale expansion in terms of the self-force and we highlight the structure of the equations of motion at higher subleading orders. We derive in parallel the equations governing the transition-to-plunge motion to any subleading order, and demonstrate that they are governed by sourced linearized Painlev\'e transcendental equations of the first kind. The first ten perturbative orders do not require any further developments in self-force theory, as they are determined by the second-order self-force. We propose a scheme that matches the slow-timescale expansion of the inspiral with the transition-to-plunge motion to all perturbative orders in the overlapping region exterior to the last stable orbit where both expansions are valid. We explicitly verify the validity of the matching conditions for a large set of coefficients involved, on the one hand, in the adiabatic or post-adiabatic inspiral and, on the other hand, in the leading, subleading or higher subleading transition-to-plunge motion. This result is instrumental for deriving gravitational waveforms within the self-force formalism beyond the innermost stable circular orbit.

  8 citations

• Gluon condensates and effective gluon mass

  Jan Horak, Friederike Ihssen, Joannis Papavassiliou, Jan M. Pawlowski, Axel Weber, Christof Wetterich

  SciPost Phys. 13, 042 (2022) · published 31 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Lattice simulations along with studies in continuum QCD indicate that non-perturbative quantum fluctuations lead to an infrared regularisation of the gluon propagator in covariant gauges in the form of an effective mass-like behaviour. In the present work we propose an analytic understanding of this phenomenon in terms of gluon condensation through a dynamical version of the Higgs mechanism, leading to the emergence of color condensates. Within the functional renormalisation group approach we compute the effective potential of covariantly constant field strengths, whose non-trivial minimum is related to the color condensates. In the physical case of an SU(3) gauge group this is an octet condensate. The value of the gluon mass obtained through this procedure compares very well to lattice results and the mass gap arising from alternative dynamical scenarios.

  17 citations

• Activity driven transport in harmonic chains

  Ion Santra, Urna Basu

  SciPost Phys. 13, 041 (2022) · published 30 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The transport properties of an extended system driven by active reservoirs is an issue of paramount importance, which remains virtually unexplored. Here we address this issue, for the first time, in the context of energy transport between two active reservoirs connected by a chain of harmonic oscillators. The couplings to the active reservoirs, which exert correlated stochastic forces on the boundary oscillators, lead to fascinating behavior of the energy current and kinetic temperature profile even for this linear system. We analytically show that the stationary active current (i) changes non-monotonically as the activity of the reservoirs are changed, leading to a negative differential conductivity (NDC), and (ii) exhibits an unexpected direction reversal at some finite value of the activity drive. The origin of this NDC is traced back to the Lorentzian frequency spectrum of the active reservoirs. We provide another physical insight to the NDC using nonequilibrium linear response formalism for the example of a dichotomous active force. We also show that despite an apparent similarity of the kinetic temperature profile to the thermally driven scenario, no effective thermal picture can be consistently built in general. However, such a picture emerges in the small activity limit, where many of the well-known results are recovered.

  13 citations