Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Greedy optimization of the geometry of Majorana Josephson junctions

  André Melo, Tanko Tanev, Anton R. Akhmerov

  SciPost Phys. 14, 047 (2023) · published 23 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Josephson junctions in a two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit coupling are a promising candidate to realize topological superconductivity. While it is known that the geometry of the junction strongly influences the size of the topological gap, the question of how to construct optimal geometries remains unexplored. We introduce a greedy numerical algorithm to optimize the shape of Majorana junctions. The core of the algorithm relies on perturbation theory and is embarrassingly parallel, which allows it to explore the design space efficiently. By introducing stochastic variations in the junction Hamiltonian, we avoid overfitting geometries to specific system parameters. Furthermore, we constrain the optimizer to produce smooth geometries by applying image filtering and fabrication resolution constraints. We run the algorithm in various setups and find that it reliably produces geometries with increased topological gaps over large parameter ranges. The results are robust to variations in the optimization starting point and the presence of disorder, which suggests the optimizer is capable of finding global maxima.

  8 citations

• Low-temperature electron mobility in doped semiconductors with high dielectric constant

  Khachatur G. Nazaryan, Mikhail Feigel'man

  SciPost Phys. 14, 046 (2023) · published 23 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose and study theoretically a new mechanism of electron-impurity scattering in doped seminconductors with large dielectric constant. It is based upon the idea of vector character of deformations caused in the crystalline lattice by any point defects siting asymmetrically in the unit cell. In result, local lattice compression due to the elastic deformations decay as $1/r^2$ with distance from impurity. Electron scattering (due to standard deformation potential) on such defects leads to low-temperature mobility $\mu(n)$ scaling with electron density $n$ of the form $\mu(n) \propto n^{-2/3}$ that is close to experimental observations on a number of relevant materials.

  1 citation

• Catalogue of phonon modes in several cuprate high-temperature superconductors from density functional theory

  Noah J. Jabusch, Pavan Dayal, Alexander F. Kemper

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 018 (2023) · published 23 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Cuprates are promising candidates for study in developing higher temperature superconductors. A thorough understanding of a material's phonon modes enables further investigation of its emergent properties, however, no complete reference of the phonon modes exists. Here, using density functional theory, we evaluate the phonon frequencies and atomic displacements for $\text{La}_2\text{CuO}_4$, $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CuO}_6$, and $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CaCu}_2\text{O}_8$, in their tetragonal structures. The phonon modes for all materials agree with those expected from space group symmetry and display instabilities corresponding to known low-temperature structural phase transitions.

• Topological quantum phase transition of nickelocene on Cu(100)

  Germán G. Blesio, Rok Žitko, Luis O. Manuel, Armando A. Aligia

  SciPost Phys. 14, 042 (2023) · published 21 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Local quantum phase transitions driven by Kondo correlations have been theoretically proposed in several magnetic nanosystems; however, clear experimental signatures are scant. Modeling a nickelocene molecule on a Cu(100) substrate as a two-orbital Anderson impurity with single-ion anisotropy coupled to two conduction bands, we find that recent scanning tunneling spectra reveal the existence of a topological quantum phase transition from the usual local Fermi liquid with high zero-bias conductance to a non-Landau Fermi liquid, characterized by a non-trivial quantized Luttinger integral, with a small conductance. The effects of intermediate valence, finite temperature, and structural relaxation of the molecule position allow us to explain the different observed behaviors.

  7 citations

• Non-coplanar magnetism, topological density wave order and emergent symmetry at half-integer filling of moiré Chern bands

  Patrick H. Wilhelm, Thomas C. Lang, Mathias S. Scheurer, Andreas M. Läuchli

  SciPost Phys. 14, 040 (2023) · published 20 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Twisted double- and mono-bilayer graphene are graphene-based moiré materials hosting strongly correlated fermions in a gate-tunable conduction band with a topologically non-trivial character. Using unbiased exact diagonalization complemented by unrestricted Hartree-Fock calculations, we find that the strong electron-electron interactions lead to a non-coplanar magnetic state, which has the same symmetries as the tetrahedral antiferromagnet on the triangular lattice and can be thought of as a skyrmion lattice commensurate with the moiré scale, competing with a set of ferromagnetic, topological charge density waves featuring an approximate emergent O(3) symmetry, "rotating" the different charge density wave states into each other. Direct comparison with exact diagonalization reveals that the ordered phases are accurately described within the unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation. Exhibiting a finite charge gap and Chern number $|C|=1$, the formation of charge density wave order which is intimately connected to a skyrmion lattice phase is consistent with recent experiments on these systems.

  16 citations

• Quenched random mass disorder in the large N theory of vector bosons

  Han Ma

  SciPost Phys. 14, 039 (2023) · published 17 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the critical bosonic O(N) vector model with quenched random mass disorder in the large N limit. Due to the replicated action which is sometimes not bounded from below, we avoid the replica trick and adopt a traditional approach to directly compute the disorder averaged physical observables. At $N=\infty$, we can exactly solve the disordered model. The resulting low energy behavior can be described by two scale invariant theories, one of which has an intrinsic scale. At finite $N$, we find that the previously proposed attractive disordered fixed point at $d=2$ continues to exist at $d=2+\epsilon$ spatial dimensions. We also studied the system in the $3<d<4$ spatial dimensions where the disorder is relevant at the Gaussian fixed point. However, no physical attractive fixed point is found right below four spatial dimensions. Nevertheless, the stable fixed point at $2+\epsilon$ dimensions can still survive at $d=3$ where the system has experimental realizations. Some critical exponents are predicted in order to be checked by future numerics and experiments.

  1 citation

• Itinerant ferromagnetism in dilute SU(N) Fermi gases

  Jordi Pera, Joaquim Casulleras, Jordi Boronat

  SciPost Phys. 14, 038 (2023) · published 17 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present exact analytic results for the energy of a SU(N) repulsive Fermi gas as a function of the spin-channel occupation at second order in the gas parameter. This is an extension of previous results that now incorporates the degree of polarization of the system. Therefore, the magnetic properties of the gas can be obtained, free from numerical uncertainties. For spin 1/2 we find that second-order corrections change the itinerant ferromagnetic transition from continuous to first-order. Instead, for spin larger than 1/2 the phase transition is always of first-order type. The transition critical density reduces when the spin increases, making the phase transition more accessible to experiments with ultracold dilute Fermi gases. Estimations for Fermi gases of Yb and Sr with spin 5/2 and 9/2, respectively, are reported.

  7 citations

• Quantum tricriticality of incommensurate phase induced by quantum strings in frustrated Ising magnetism

  Zheng Zhou (周正), Changle Liu (刘长乐), Dong-Xu Liu (刘东旭), Zheng Yan (严正), Yan Chen (陈焱), Xue-Feng Zhang (张学锋)

  SciPost Phys. 14, 037 (2023) · published 16 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Incommensurability plays a critical role in many strongly correlated systems. In some cases, the origin of such exotic order can be theoretically understood in the framework of 1d line-like topological excitations known as "quantum strings". Here we study an extended transverse field Ising model on a triangular lattice. Using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the spatial anisotropy can stabilize an incommensurate phase out of the commensurate clock order. Our results for the structure factor and the string density exhibit a linear relationship between incommensurate ordering wave vector and the density of quantum strings, which is reminiscent of hole density in under-doped cuprate superconductors. When introducing the next-nearest-neighbor interaction, we observe a quantum tricritical point out of the incommensurate phase. After carefully analyzing the ground state energies within different string topological sectors, we conclude that this tricriticality is non-trivially caused by effective long-range inter-string interactions with two competing terms following different decaying behaviors.

  8 citations

• Lifshitz symmetry: Lie algebras, spacetimes and particles

  José Figueroa-O'Farrill, Ross Grassie, Stefan Prohazka

  SciPost Phys. 14, 035 (2023) · published 15 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study and classify Lie algebras, homogeneous spacetimes and coadjoint orbits (``particles'') of Lie groups generated by spatial rotations, temporal and spatial translations and an additional scalar generator. As a first step we classify Lie algebras of this type in arbitrary dimension. Among them is the prototypical Lifshitz algebra, which motivates this work and the name "Lifshitz Lie algebras". We classify homogeneous spacetimes of Lifshitz Lie groups. Depending on the interpretation of the additional scalar generator, these spacetimes fall into three classes: 1. ($d+2$)-dimensional Lifshitz spacetimes which have one additional holographic direction; 2. ($d+1$)-dimensional Lifshitz—Weyl spacetimes which can be seen as the boundary geometry of the spacetimes in (1) and where the scalar generator is interpreted as an anisotropic dilation; 3. and $(d+1)$-dimensional aristotelian spacetimes with one scalar charge, including exotic fracton-like symmetries that generalise multipole algebras. We also classify the possible central extensions of Lifshitz Lie algebras and we discuss the homogeneous symplectic manifolds of Lifshitz Lie groups in terms of coadjoint orbits.

  8 citations

• Composite-boson formalism applied to strongly bound fermion pairs in a one-dimensional trap

  Martín D. Jiménez, Eloisa Cuestas, Ana P. Majtey, Cecilia Cormick

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 012 (2023) · published 14 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze a system of fermions in a one dimensional harmonic trap with attractive delta-interactions between different fermions species, as an approximate description of experiments involving atomic dimers. We solve the problem of two fermion pairs numerically using the so-called "coboson formalism" as an alternative to techniques which are based on the single-particle basis. This allows us to explore the strongly bound regime, approaching the limit of infinite attraction in which the composite particles behave as hard-core bosons. Our procedure is computationally inexpensive and illustrates how the coboson toolbox is useful for ultracold atom systems even in absence of condensation.

  4 citations