Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Artificial event horizons in Weyl semimetal heterostructures and their non-equilibrium signatures

  Christophe De Beule, Solofo Groenendijk, Tobias Meng, Thomas L. Schmidt

  SciPost Phys. 11, 095 (2021) · published 23 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate transport in type-I/type-II Weyl semimetal heterostructures that realize effective black- or white-hole event horizons. We provide an exact solution to the scattering problem at normal incidence and low energies, both for a sharp and a slowly-varying Weyl cone tilt profile. In the latter case, we find two channels with transmission amplitudes analogue to those of Hawking radiation. Whereas the Hawking-like signatures of these two channels cancel in equilibrium, we demonstrate that one can favor the contribution of either channel using a non-equilibrium state, either by irradiating the type-II region or by coupling it to a magnetic lead. This in turn gives rise to a peak in the two-terminal differential conductance which can serve as an experimental indicator of the artificial event horizon.

  14 citations

• Quantum error correction and large $N$

  Alexey Milekhin

  SciPost Phys. 11, 094 (2021) · published 19 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In recent years quantum error correction (QEC) has become an important part of AdS/CFT. Unfortunately, there are no field-theoretic arguments about why QEC holds in known holographic systems. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by studying the error correcting properties of the fermionic sector of various large $N$ theories. Specifically we examine $SU(N)$ matrix quantum mechanics and 3-rank tensor $O(N)^3$ theories. Both of these theories contain large gauge groups. We argue that gauge singlet states indeed form a quantum error correcting code. Our considerations are based purely on large $N$ analysis and do not appeal to a particular form of Hamiltonian or holography.

  3 citations

• Relativistic Landau quantization in non-uniform magnetic field and its applications to white dwarfs and quantum information

  Srishty Aggarwal, Banibrata Mukhopadhyay, Gianluca Gregori

  SciPost Phys. 11, 093 (2021) · published 18 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the two-dimensional motion of relativistic cold electrons in the presence of ‘strictly’ spatially varying magnetic fields satisfying, however, no magnetic monopole condition. We find that the degeneracy of Landau levels, which arises in the case of the constant magnetic field, lifts out when the field is variable and the energy levels of spin-up and spin-down electrons align in an interesting way depending on the nature of change of field. Also the varying magnetic field splits Landau levels of electrons with zero angular momentum from positive angular momentum, unlike the constant field which only can split the levels between positive and negative angular momenta. Exploring Landau quantization in non-uniform magnetic fields is a unique venture on its own and has interdisciplinary implications in the fields ranging from condensed matter to astrophysics to quantum information. As examples, we show magnetized white dwarfs, with varying magnetic fields, involved simultaneously with Lorentz force and Landau quantization affecting the underlying degenerate electron gas, exhibiting a significant violation of the Chandrasekhar mass-limit; and an increase in quantum speed of electrons in the presence of a spatially growing magnetic field.

  3 citations

• Parent Hamiltonians of Jastrow wavefunctions

  Mathieu Beau, Adolfo del Campo

  SciPost Phys. Core 4, 030 (2021) · published 18 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We find the complete family of many-body quantum Hamiltonians with ground-state of Jastrow form involving the pairwise product of a pair function in an arbitrary spatial dimension. The parent Hamiltonian generally includes a two-body pairwise potential as well as a three-body potential. We thus generalize the Calogero-Marchioro construction for the three-dimensional case to arbitrary spatial dimensions. The resulting family of models is further extended to include a one-body term representing an external potential, which gives rise to an additional long-range two-body interaction. Using this framework, we provide the generalization to an arbitrary spatial dimension of well-known systems such as the Calogero-Sutherland and Calogero-Moser models. We also introduce novel models, generalizing the McGuire many-body quantum bright soliton solution to higher dimensions and considering ground-states which involve e.g., polynomial, Gaussian, exponential, and hyperbolic pair functions. Finally, we show how the pair function can be reverse-engineered to construct models with a given potential, such as a pair-wise Yukawa potential, and to identify models governed exclusively by three-body interactions.

  5 citations

• Supersolid phase of a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate: A perturbation approach

  Giovanni Italo Martone, Sandro Stringari

  SciPost Phys. 11, 092 (2021) · published 17 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The phase diagram of a Bose-Einstein condensate with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling includes a stripe phase with supersolid features. In this work we develop a perturbation approach to study the ground state and the Bogoliubov modes of this phase, holding for small values of the Raman coupling. We obtain analytical predictions for the most relevant observables (including the periodicity of stripes, sound velocities, compressibility, and magnetic susceptibility) which are in excellent agreement with the exact (non perturbative) numerical results, obtained for significantly large values of the coupling. We further unveil the nature of the two gapless Bogoliubov modes in the long-wavelength limit. We find that the spin branch of the spectrum, corresponding in this limit to the dynamics of the relative phase between the two spin components, describes a translation of the fringes of the equilibrium density profile, thereby providing the crystal Goldstone mode typical of a supersolid configuration. Finally, using sum-rule arguments, we show that the superfluid density can be experimentally accessed by measuring the ratio of the sound velocities parallel and perpendicular to the direction of the spin-orbit coupling.

  8 citations

• Emergent supersymmetry on the edges

  Jin-Beom Bae, Sungjay Lee

  SciPost Phys. 11, 091 (2021) · published 16 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The WZW models describe the dynamics of the edge modes of Chern-Simons theories in three dimensions. We explore the WZW models which can be mapped to supersymmetric theories via the generalized Jordan-Wigner transformation. Some of such models have supersymmetric Ramond vacua, but the others break the supersymmetry spontaneously. We also make a comment on recent proposals that the Read-Rezayi states at filling fraction $\nu=1/2,~2/3$ are able to support supersymmetry.

  13 citations

• Integrating micromagnets and hybrid nanowires for topological quantum computing

  Malcolm J. A. Jardine, John P. T. Stenger, Yifan Jiang, Eline J. de Jong, Wenbo Wang, Ania C. Bleszynski Jayich, Sergey M. Frolov

  SciPost Phys. 11, 090 (2021) · published 12 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Majorana zero modes are expected to arise in semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems, with potential topological quantum computing applications. One limitation of this approach is the need for a relatively high external magnetic field that should also change direction at the nanoscale. This proposal considers devices that incorporate micromagnets to address this challenge. We perform numerical simulations of stray magnetic fields from different micromagnet configurations, which are then used to solve for Majorana wavefunctions. Several devices are proposed, starting with the basic four-magnet design to align magnetic field with the nanowire and scaling up to nanowire T-junctions. The feasibility of the approach is assessed by performing magnetic imaging of prototype patterns.

  6 citations

• Can we make sense out of "Tensor Field Theory"?

  Vincent Rivasseau, Fabien Vignes-Tourneret

  SciPost Phys. Core 4, 029 (2021) · published 11 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We continue the constructive program about tensor field theory through the next natural model, namely the rank five tensor theory with quartic melonic interactions and propagator inverse of the Laplacian on $U(1)^5$. We make a first step towards its construction by establishing its power counting, identifying the divergent graphs and performing a careful study of (a slight modification of) its RG flow. Thus we give strong evidence that this just renormalizable tensor field theory is non perturbatively asymptotically free.

  1 citation

• Analytic conformal bootstrap and Virasoro primary fields in the Ashkin-Teller model

  Nikita Nemkov, Sylvain Ribault

  SciPost Phys. 11, 089 (2021) · published 9 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We revisit the critical two-dimensional Ashkin-Teller model, i.e. the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ orbifold of the compactified free boson CFT at $c=1$. We solve the model on the plane by computing its three-point structure constants and proving crossing symmetry of four-point correlation functions. We do this not only for affine primary fields, but also for Virasoro primary fields, i.e. higher twist fields and degenerate fields. This leads us to clarify the analytic properties of Virasoro conformal blocks and fusion kernels at $c=1$. We show that blocks with a degenerate channel field should be computed by taking limits in the central charge, rather than in the conformal dimension. In particular, Al. Zamolodchikov's simple explicit expression for the blocks that appear in four-twist correlation functions is only valid in the non-degenerate case: degenerate blocks, starting with the identity block, are more complicated generalized theta functions.

• "Spectrally gapped" random walks on networks: a Mean First Passage Time formula

  Silvia Bartolucci, Fabio Caccioli, Francesco Caravelli, Pierpaolo Vivo

  SciPost Phys. 11, 088 (2021) · published 4 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We derive an approximate but explicit formula for the Mean First Passage Time of a random walker between a source and a target node of a directed and weighted network. The formula does not require any matrix inversion, and it takes as only input the transition probabilities into the target node. It is derived from the calculation of the average resolvent of a deformed ensemble of random sub-stochastic matrices $H=\langle H\rangle +\delta H$, with $\langle H\rangle$ rank-$1$ and non-negative. The accuracy of the formula depends on the spectral gap of the reduced transition matrix, and it is tested numerically on several instances of (weighted) networks away from the high sparsity regime, with an excellent agreement.

  5 citations