Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Classicality with(out) decoherence: Concepts, relation to Markovianity, and a random matrix theory approach

  Philipp Strasberg

  SciPost Phys. 15, 024 (2023) · published 24 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Answers to the question how a classical world emerges from underlying quantum physics are revisited, connected and extended as follows. First, three distinct concepts are compared: decoherence in open quantum systems, consistent/decoherent histories and Kolmogorov consistency. Second, the crucial role of quantum Markovianity (defined rigorously) to connect these concepts is established. Third, using a random matrix theory model, quantum effects are shown to be exponentially suppressed in the measurement statistics of slow and coarse observables despite the presence of large amount of coherences. This is also numerically exemplified, and it highlights the potential and importance of non-integrability and chaos for the emergence of classicality.

  3 citations

• Entropy of causal diamond ensembles

  Ted Jacobson, Manus R. Visser

  SciPost Phys. 15, 023 (2023) · published 24 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We define a canonical ensemble for a gravitational causal diamond by introducing an artificial York boundary inside the diamond with a fixed induced metric and temperature, and evaluate the partition function using a saddle point approximation. For Einstein gravity with zero cosmological constant there is no exact saddle with a horizon, however the portion of the Euclidean diamond enclosed by the boundary arises as an approximate saddle in the high-temperature regime, in which the saddle horizon approaches the boundary. This high-temperature partition function provides a statistical interpretation of the recent calculation of Banks, Draper and Farkas, in which the entropy of causal diamonds is recovered from a boundary term in the on-shell Euclidean action. In contrast, with a positive cosmological constant, as well as in Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity with or without a cosmological constant, an exact saddle exists with a finite boundary temperature, but in these cases the causal diamond is determined by the saddle rather than being selected a priori.

  5 citations

• Chaos enhancement in large-spin chains

  Yael Lebel, Lea F. Santos, Yevgeny Bar Lev

  SciPost Phys. 15, 022 (2023) · published 21 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the chaotic properties of a large-spin XXZ chain with onsite disorder and a small number of excitations above the fully polarized state. We show that while the classical limit, which is reached for large spins, is chaotic, enlarging the spin suppresses quantum chaos features. We examine ways to facilitate chaos by introducing additional terms to the Hamiltonian. Interestingly, perturbations that are diagonal in the basis of product states in the $z$-direction do not lead to significant enhancement of chaos, while off-diagonal perturbations restore chaoticity for large spins, so that only three excitations are required to achieve strong level repulsion and ergodic eigenstates.

• High-precision muon decay predictions for ALP searches

  Pulak Banerjee, Antonio Coutinho, Tim Engel, Andrea Gurgone, Adrian Signer, Yannick Ulrich

  SciPost Phys. 15, 021 (2023) · published 21 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present an improved theoretical prediction of the positron energy spectrum for the polarised Michel decay $\mu^+\to e^+ \nu_e\bar{\nu}_\mu$. In addition to the full next-to-next-to-leading order correction of order $\alpha^2$ in the electromagnetic coupling, we include logarithmically enhanced terms at even higher orders. Logarithms due to collinear emission are included at next-to-leading accuracy up to order $\alpha^4$. At the endpoint of the Michel spectrum, soft photon emission results in large logarithms that are resummed up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We apply our results in the context of the MEG II and Mu3e experiments to estimate the impact of the theory error on the branching ratio sensitivity for the lepton-flavour-violating decay $\mu^+\to e^+ X$ of a muon into an axion-like particle $X$.

  4 citations

• Pressure-induced transitions in FePS$_3$: Structural, magnetic and electronic properties

  Shiyu Deng, Siyu Chen, Bartomeu Monserrat, Emilio Artacho, Siddharth S. Saxena

  SciPost Phys. 15, 020 (2023) · published 20 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  FePS$_3$ is a prototype van der Waals layered antiferromagnet and a Mott insulator under ambient conditions, which has been recently reported to go through a pressure-induced dimensionality crossover and an insulator-to-metal transition. These transitions also lead to the appearance of a novel magnetic metallic state. To further understand these emergent structural and physical properties, we have performed a first-principles study using van der Waals and Hubbard $U$ corrected density functional theory including a random structure search. Our computational study attempts to interpret the experimental coexistence of the low- and intermediate-pressure phases and we predict a novel high-pressure phase with distinctive dimensionality and different possible origins of metallicity.

  1 citation

• Bloch-Lorentz magnetoresistance oscillations in delafossites

  Kostas Vilkelis, Lin Wang, Anton Akhmerov

  SciPost Phys. 15, 019 (2023) · published 20 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Recent measurements of the out-of-plane magnetoresistance of delafossites (PdCoO$_2$ and PtCoO$_2$) observed oscillations closely resembling the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Here, we show that the magnetoresistance oscillations are explained by the Bloch-like oscillations of the out-of-plane electron trajectories. We develop a semiclassical theory of these Bloch-Lorentz oscillations and show that they are a consequence of the ballistic motion and quasi-2D dispersion of delafossites. Our model identifies the sample wall scattering to be the most likely factor limiting the visibility of these Bloch-Lorentz oscillations in existing experiments.

• Accelerating equilibrium spin-glass simulations using quantum annealers via generative deep learning

  Giuseppe Scriva, Emanuele Costa, Benjamin McNaughton, Sebastiano Pilati

  SciPost Phys. 15, 018 (2023) · published 20 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Adiabatic quantum computers, such as the quantum annealers commercialized by D-Wave Systems Inc., are routinely used to tackle combinatorial optimization problems. In this article, we show how to exploit them to accelerate equilibrium Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations of computationally challenging spin-glass models at low but finite temperatures. This is achieved by training generative neural networks on data produced by a D-Wave quantum annealer, and then using them to generate smart proposals for the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. In particular, we explore hybrid schemes by combining single spin-flip and neural proposals, as well as D-Wave and classical Monte Carlo training data. The hybrid algorithm outperforms the single spin-flip Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. It is competitive with parallel tempering in terms of correlation times, with the significant benefit of a much shorter equilibration time.

  1 citation

• Higher-form subsystem symmetry breaking: Subdimensional criticality and fracton phase transitions

  Brandon C. Rayhaun, Dominic J. Williamson

  SciPost Phys. 15, 017 (2023) · published 19 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Subsystem symmetry has emerged as a powerful organizing principle for unconventional quantum phases of matter, most prominently fracton topological orders. Here, we focus on a special subclass of such symmetries, known as higher-form subsystem symmetries, which allow us to adapt tools from the study of conventional topological phases to the fracton setting. We demonstrate that certain transitions out of familiar fracton phases, including the X-cube model, can be understood in terms of the spontaneous breaking of higher-form subsystem symmetries. We find simple pictures for these seemingly complicated fracton topological phase transitions by relating them in an exact manner, via gauging, to spontaneous higher-form subsystem symmetry breaking phase transitions of decoupled stacks of lower-dimensional models. We harness this perspective to construct a sequence of unconventional subdimensional critical points in two and three spatial dimensions based on the stacking and gauging of canonical models with higher-form symmetry. Through numerous examples, we illustrate the ubiquity of coupled layer constructions in theories with higher-form subsystem symmetries.

  5 citations

• Exceptional points in the Baxter-Fendley free parafermion model

  Robert A. Henry, Murray T. Batchelor

  SciPost Phys. 15, 016 (2023) · published 19 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Certain spin chains, such as the quantum Ising chain, have free fermion spectra which can be expressed as the sum of decoupled two-level fermionic systems. Free parafermions are a generalisation of this idea to $\mathbb{Z}_N$-symmetric clock models. In 1989 Baxter discovered a non-Hermitian but $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric model directly generalising the Ising chain, which was later described by Fendley as a free parafermion spectrum. By extending the model's magnetic field parameter to the complex plane, it is shown that a series of exceptional points emerges, where the quasienergies defining the free spectrum become degenerate. An analytic expression for the locations of these points is derived, and various numerical investigations are performed. These exceptional points also exist in the Ising chain with a complex transverse field. Although the model is not in general $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric at these exceptional points, their proximity can have a profound impact on the model on the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric real line. Furthermore, in certain cases an exceptional point may appear on the real line (with negative field).

  2 citations

• Universal Chern number statistics in random matrix fields

  Or Swartzberg, Michael Wilkinson, Omri Gat

  SciPost Phys. 15, 015 (2023) · published 19 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the probability distribution of Chern numbers (quantum Hall conductance integers) for a parametric version of the GUE random matrix ensemble, which is a model for a chaotic or disordered system. The numerically-calculated single-band Chern number statistics agree well with predictions based on an earlier study [O. Gat and M. Wilkinson, SciPost Phys., 10, 149, (2021)] of the statistics of the quantum adiabatic curvature, when the parametric correlation length is small. However, contrary to an earlier conjecture, we find that the gap Chern numbers are correlated, and that the correlation is weak but slowly-decaying. Also, the statistics of weighted sums of Chern numbers differs markedly from predictions based upon the hypothesis that gap Chern numbers are uncorrelated. All our results are consistent with the universality hypothesis described in the earlier paper, including in the previously unstudied regime of large correlation length, where the Chern statistics is highly non-Gaussian.