Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Boundary modes in the Chamon model

  Weslei B. Fontana, Rodrigo G. Pereira

  SciPost Phys. 15, 010 (2023) · published 17 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the fracton phase described by the Chamon model in a manifold with a boundary. The new processess and excitations emerging at the boundary can be understood by means of a diagrammatic framework. From a continuum perspective, the boundary theory is described by a set of scalar fields in similarity with standard $K$-matrix Chern-Simons theory. The continuum theory recovers the gapped boundaries of the lattice model once we include sufficiently strong interactions that break charge conservation. The analysis of the perturbative relevance of the leading interactions reveals a regime in which the Chamon model can have a stable gapless fractonic phase at its boundary.

  7 citations

• Gapful electrons in a vortex core in granular superconductors

  Dmitry E. Kiselov, Mikhail A. Skvortsov, Mikhail V. Feigel'man

  SciPost Phys. 15, 008 (2023) · published 12 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We calculate the quasiparticle density of states (DoS) inside the vortex core in a granular superconductor, generalizing the classical solution applicable for dirty superconductors. A discrete version of the Usadel equation for a vortex is derived and solved numerically for a broad range of parameters. Electron DoS is found to be gapful when the coherence length $\xi$ becomes comparable to the distance between neighboring grains $l$. Minigap magnitude $E_g$ grows from zero at $\xi \approx 1.4 l$ to third of superconducting gap $\Delta_0 $ at $\xi \approx 0.5 l$. The absence of low-energy excitations is the main ingredient needed to understand strong suppression of microwave dissipation recently observed in a mixed state of granular Al.

  3 citations

• Exact one-particle density matrix for SU(N) fermionic matter-waves in the strong repulsive limit

  Andreas Osterloh, Juan Polo, Wayne J. Chetcuti, Luigi Amico

  SciPost Phys. 15, 006 (2023) · published 11 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a gas of repulsive $N$-component fermions confined in a ring-shaped potential, subjected to an effective magnetic field. For large repulsion strengths, we work out a Bethe ansatz scheme to compute the two-point correlation matrix and then the one-particle density matrix. Our results hold in the mesoscopic regime of finite but sufficiently large number of particles and system size that are not accessible by numerics. We access the momentum distribution of the system and analyse its specific dependence of interaction, magnetic field and number of components $N$. In the context of cold atoms, the exact computation of the correlation matrix to determine the interference patterns that are produced by releasing cold atoms from ring traps is carried out.

  3 citations

• Anomaly of $(2+1)$-dimensional symmetry-enriched topological order from $(3+1)$-dimensional topological quantum field theory

  Weicheng Ye, Liujun Zou

  SciPost Phys. 15, 004 (2023) · published 10 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Symmetry acting on a (2+1)$D$ topological order can be anomalous in the sense that they possess an obstruction to being realized as a purely (2+1)$D$ on-site symmetry. In this paper, we develop a (3+1)$D$ topological quantum field theory to calculate the anomaly indicators of a (2+1)$D$ topological order with a general symmetry group $G$, which may be discrete or continuous, Abelian or non-Abelian, contain anti-unitary elements or not, and permute anyons or not. These anomaly indicators are partition functions of the (3+1)$D$ topological quantum field theory on a specific manifold equipped with some $G$-bundle, and they are expressed using the data characterizing the topological order and the symmetry actions. Our framework is applied to derive the anomaly indicators for various symmetry groups, including $\mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2$, $\mathbb{Z}_2^T\times\mathbb{Z}_2^T$, $SO(N)$, $O(N)^T$, $SO(N)\times \mathbb{Z}_2^T$, etc, where $\mathbb{Z}_2$ and $\mathbb{Z}_2^T$ denote a unitary and anti-unitary order-2 group, respectively, and $O(N)^T$ denotes a symmetry group $O(N)$ such that elements in $O(N)$ with determinant $-1$ are anti-unitary. In particular, we demonstrate that some anomaly of $O(N)^T$ and $SO(N)\times \mathbb{Z}_2^T$ exhibit symmetry-enforced gaplessness, i.e., they cannot be realized by any symmetry-enriched topological order. As a byproduct, for $SO(N)$ symmetric topological orders, we derive their $SO(N)$ Hall conductance.

  3 citations

• Nonlinear sigma model description of deconfined quantum criticality in arbitrary dimensions

  Da-Chuan Lu

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 047 (2023) · published 6 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this paper, we propose using the nonlinear sigma model (NLSM) with the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) term as a general description of deconfined quantum critical points that separate two spontaneously symmetry-breaking (SSB) phases in arbitrary dimensions. In particular, we discuss the suitable choice of the target space of the NLSM, which is in general the homogeneous space G/K, where $G$ is the UV symmetry and $K$ is generated by ${\mathfrak k}={\mathfrak h}_1\cap {\mathfrak h}_2$, and ${\mathfrak h}_i$ is the Lie algebra of the unbroken symmetry in each SSB phase. With this specific target space, the symmetry defects in both SSB phases are on equal footing, and their intertwinement is captured by the WZW term. The DQCP transition is then tuned by proliferating the symmetry defects. By coupling the $G/K$ NLSM with the WZW term to the background gauge field, the 't Hooft anomaly of this theory can be determined. The bulk symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase that cancels the anomaly is described by the relative Chern-Simons term in odd spacetime dimensions or mixed $\theta$ term in even dimensions. We construct and discuss a series of models with Grassmannian symmetry defects in 3+1d. We also provide the fermionic model that reproduces the $G/K$ NLSM with the WZW term.

  2 citations

• Loops in 4+1d topological phases

  Xie Chen, Arpit Dua, Po-Shen Hsin, Chao-Ming Jian, Wilbur Shirley, Cenke Xu

  SciPost Phys. 15, 001 (2023) · published 6 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  2+1d topological phases are well characterized by the fusion rules and braiding/exchange statistics of fractional point excitations. In 4+1d, some topological phases contain only fractional loop excitations. What kind of loop statistics exist? We study the 4+1d gauge theory with 2-form $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field (the loop-only toric code) and find that while braiding statistics between two different types of loops can be nontrivial, the self "exchange" statistics are all trivial. In particular, we show that the electric, magnetic, and dyonic loop excitations in the 4+1d toric code are not distinguished by their self-statistics. They tunnel into each other across 3+1d invertible domain walls which in turn give explicit unitary circuits that map the loop excitations into each other. The SL(2,$\mathbb{Z}_2$) symmetry that permutes the loops, however, cannot be consistently gauged and we discuss the associated obstruction in the process. Moreover, we discuss a gapless boundary condition dubbed the "fractional Maxwell theory" and show how it can be Higgsed into gapped boundary conditions. We also discuss the generalization of these results from the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge group to $\mathbb{Z}_N$.

  13 citations

• Dark matter searches and energy accumulation and release in materials

  Sergey Pereverzev

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 009 (2023) · published 3 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Efforts to identify dark matter by detecting nuclear recoils produced by dark matter particles reveal low-energy backgrounds of unknown origin in different types of detectors. In many cases, energy accumulation and delayed burst-like releases of stored energy could provide an explanation. These dynamics follow Prigogine's ideas on systems with energy flow and the general Self-Organized Criticality scenario. We compare these models with properties of excess backgrounds in cryogenic solid-state detectors, relaxation processes in glasses and crystals, our observations of delayed luminescence in NaI(Tl), and make predictions for more phenomena present in these systems and in superconducting photon detectors and qubits. Experiments to create accurate phenomenological models are needed.

• Quantum local random networks and the statistical robustness of quantum scars

  Federica Maria Surace, Marcello Dalmonte, Alessandro Silva

  SciPost Phys. 14, 174 (2023) · published 29 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the emergence of quantum scars in a general ensemble of random Hamiltonians (of which the PXP is a particular realization), that we refer to as quantum local random networks. We find a class of scars, that we call "statistical", and we identify specific signatures of the localized nature of these eigenstates by analyzing a combination of indicators of quantum ergodicity and properties related to the network structure of the model. Within this parallelism, we associate the emergence of statistical scars to the presence of "motifs" in the network, that reflects how these are associated to links with anomalously small connectivity. Most remarkably, statistical scars appear at well-defined values of energy, predicted solely on the base of network theory. We study the scaling of the number of statistical scars with system size: by continuously changing the connectivity of the system we find that there is a transition from a regime where the constraints are too weak for scars to exist for large systems to a regime where constraints are stronger and the number of statistical scars increases with system size. This allows to define the concept of "statistical robustness" of quantum scars.

  7 citations

• Cavity induced collective behavior in the polaritonic ground state

  Vasil Rokaj, Simeon I. Mistakidis, H. R. Sadeghpour

  SciPost Phys. 14, 167 (2023) · published 22 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Cavity quantum electrodynamics provides an ideal platform to engineer and control light-matter interactions with polariton quasiparticles. In this work, we investigate collective phenomena in a system of many particles in a harmonic trap coupled to a homogeneous cavity vacuum field. The system couples collectively to the cavity field, through its center of mass, and collective polariton states emerge. The cavity field mediates pairwise long-range interactions and enhances the effective mass of the particles. This leads to an enhancement of localization in the matter ground state density, which features a maximum when light and matter are on resonance, and demonstrates a Dicke-like, collective behavior with the particle number. The light-matter interaction also modifies the photonic properties of the polariton system, as the ground state is populated with bunched photons. In addition, it is shown that the diamagnetic $A^2$ term is necessary for the stability of the system, as otherwise the superradiant ground state instability occurs. We demonstrate that coherent transfer of polaritonic population is possible with an external magnetic field and by monitoring the Landau-Zener transition probability.

  11 citations

• Low-energy excitations and transport functions of the one-dimensional Kondo insulator

  Robert Peters, Roman Rausch

  SciPost Phys. 14, 166 (2023) · published 21 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using variational matrix product states, we analyze the finite temperature behavior of a half-filled periodic Anderson model in one dimension, a prototypical model of a Kondo insulator. We present an extensive analysis of single-particle Green's functions, two-particle Green's functions, and transport functions creating a broad picture of the low-temperature properties. We confirm the existence of energetically low-lying spin excitations in this model and study their energy-momentum dispersion and temperature dependence. We demonstrate that charge-charge correlations at the Fermi energy exhibit a different temperature dependence than spin-spin correlations. While energetically low-lying spin excitations emerge approximately at the Kondo temperature, which exponentially depends on the interaction strength, charge correlations vanish already at high temperatures. Furthermore, we analyze the charge and thermal conductivity at finite temperatures by calculating the time-dependent current-current correlation functions. While both charge and thermal conductivity can be fitted for all interaction strengths by gapped systems with a renormalized band gap, the gap in the system describing the thermal conductivity is generally smaller than the system describing the charge conductivity. Thus, two-particle correlations affect the charge and heat conductivities in a different way resulting in a temperature region where the charge conductivity of this one-dimensional Kondo insulator is already decreasing while the heat conductivity is still increasing.

  4 citations