Publications

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• Gauge theory for topological waves in continuum fluids with odd viscosity

  Keisuke Fujii, Yuto Ashida

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 058 (2025) · published 28 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider two-dimensional continuum fluids with odd viscosity under a chiral body force. The chiral body force makes the low-energy excitation spectrum of the fluids gapped, and the odd viscosity allows us to introduce the first Chern number of each energy band in the fluids. Employing a mapping between hydrodynamic variables and U(1) gauge field strengths, we derive a U(1) gauge theory for topologically nontrivial waves. The resulting U(1) gauge theory is given by the Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory with an additional term associated with odd viscosity. We then explicitly solve the equations of motion for the gauge fields in the presence of the boundary and find edge mode solutions. We finally confirm the bulk-boundary correspondence in the context of continuum systems.

• Gapped phases in (2+1)d with non-invertible symmetries: Part I

  Lakshya Bhardwaj, Daniel Pajer, Sakura Schäfer-Nameki, Apoorv Tiwari, Alison Warman, Jingxiang Wu

  SciPost Phys. 19, 056 (2025) · published 26 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use the Symmetry Topological Field Theory (SymTFT) to study and classify gapped phases in (2+1)d for a class of categorical symmetries, referred to as being of bosonic type. The SymTFTs for these symmetries are given by twisted and untwisted (3+1)d Dijkgraaf-Witten (DW) theories for finite groups $G$. A finite set of boundary conditions (BCs) of these DW theories is well-known: these simply involve imposing Dirichlet and Neumann conditions on the (3+1)d gauge fields. We refer to these as minimal BCs. The key new observation here is that for each DW theory, there exists an infinite number of other BCs, that we call non-minimal BCs. These non-minimal BCs are all obtained by a 'theta construction', which involves stacking the Dirichlet BC with 3d TFTs having $G$ 0-form symmetry, and gauging the diagonal $G$ symmetry. On the one hand, using the non-minimal BCs as symmetry BCs gives rise to an infinite number of non-invertible symmetries having the same SymTFT, while on the other hand, using the non-minimal BCs as physical BCs in the sandwich construction gives rise to an infinite number of (2+1)d gapped phases for each such non-invertible symmetry. Our analysis is thoroughly exemplified for $G=\mathbb{Z}_2$ and more generally any finite abelian group, for which the resulting non-invertible symmetries and their gapped phases already reveal an immensely rich structure.

  9 citations

• Visions in quantum gravity

  Luca Buoninfante, Benjamin Knorr, K. Sravan Kumar, Alessia Platania, Damiano Anselmi, Ivano Basile, N. Emil J. Bjerrum-Bohr, Robert Brandenberger, Mariana Carrillo González, Anne-Christine Davis, Bianca Dittrich, Paolo Di Vecchia, John F. Donoghue, Fay Dowker, Gia Dvali, Astrid Eichhorn, Steven B. Giddings, Alessandra Gnecchi, Giulia Gubitosi, Lavinia Heisenberg, Renata Kallosh, Alexey S. Koshelev, Stefano Liberati, Renate Loll, Leonardo Modesto, Paulo Moniz, Daniele Oriti, Olga Papadoulaki, Jan M. Pawlowski, Roberto Percacci, Lesław Rachwał, Mairi Sakellariadou, Alberto Salvio, Kellogg Stelle, Sumati Surya, Arkady Tseytlin, Neil Turok, Thomas Van Riet, Richard P. Woodard

  SciPost Phys. Comm. Rep. 11 (2025) · published 25 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  To deepen our understanding of Quantum Gravity and its connections with black holes and cosmology, building a common language and exchanging ideas across different approaches is crucial. The Nordita Program "Quantum Gravity: from gravitational effective field theories to ultraviolet complete approaches" created a platform for extensive discussions, aimed at pinpointing both common grounds and sources of disagreements, with the hope of generating ideas and driving progress in the field. This contribution summarizes the twelve topical discussions held during the program and collects individual thoughts of speakers and panelists on the future of the field in light of these discussions.

  1 citation

• Twisted gauging and topological sectors in (2+1)d Abelian lattice gauge theories

  Bram Vancraeynest-De Cuiper, Clement Delcamp

  SciPost Phys. 19, 054 (2025) · published 22 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Given a two-dimensional quantum lattice model with an Abelian gauge theory interpretation, we investigate a duality operation that amounts to gauging its invertible 1-form symmetry, followed by gauging the resulting 0-form symmetry in a twisted way via a choice of discrete torsion. Using tensor networks, we introduce explicit lattice realisations of the so-called condensation defects, which are obtained by gauging the 1-form symmetry along submanifolds of spacetime, and employ the same calculus to realise the duality operators. By leveraging these tensor network operators, we compute the non-trivial interplay between symmetry-twisted boundary conditions and charge sectors under the duality operation, enabling us to construct isometries relating the dual Hamiltonians. Whenever a lattice gauge theory is left invariant under the duality operation, we explore the possibility of promoting the self-duality to an internal symmetry. We argue that this results in a symmetry structure that encodes the 2-representations of a 2-group.

  1 citation

• Lattice random walks and quantum A-period conjecture

  Li Gan

  SciPost Phys. 19, 053 (2025) · published 21 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We derive explicit closed-form expressions for the generating function $C_N(A)$, which enumerates classical closed random walks on square and triangular lattices with $N$ steps and a signed area $A$, characterized by the number of moves in each hopping direction. This enumeration problem is mapped to the trace of powers of anisotropic Hofstadter-like Hamiltonian and is connected to the cluster coefficients of exclusion particles: Exclusion strength parameter $g = 2$ for square lattice walks, and a mixture of $g = 1$ and $g = 2$ for triangular lattice walks. By leveraging the intrinsic link between the Hofstadter model and high energy physics, we propose a conjecture connecting the above signed area enumeration $C_N(A)$ in statistical mechanics to the quantum A-period of associated toric Calabi–Yau threefold in topological string theory: Square lattice walks correspond to local $\mathbb{F}_0$ geometry, while triangular lattice walks are associated with local $\mathcal{B}_3$.

  1 citation

• Regge limit of one-loop string amplitudes

  Pinaki Banerjee, Lorenz Eberhardt, Sebastian Mizera

  SciPost Phys. 19, 052 (2025) · published 21 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the high-energy limit of $2 \to 2$ one-loop string amplitudes at fixed momentum transfer. For the closed string, the high-energy behavior of the amplitudes can be determined from Regge theory just like in field theory, as was first discussed by Amati, Ciafaloni and Veneziano. However, field theory intuition partially breaks down for the open-string amplitude, where amplitudes can exhibit surprising asymptotics in the high-energy limit depending on the topology of the diagram. We call this phenomenon Regge attenuation. We extract Regge limits by a combination of unitarity cuts and saddle-point analysis. We show that the leading contribution of the planar open-string amplitude is sufficiently simple that we can extract it at any loop order. This allows us to resum the genus expansion in a certain limit and demonstrate that the leading Regge trajectory remains linear in that limit.

  1 citation

• Entanglement asymmetry in periodically driven quantum systems

  Tista Banerjee, Suchetan Das, Krishnendu Sengupta

  SciPost Phys. 19, 051 (2025) · published 21 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the dynamics of entanglement asymmetry in periodically driven quantum systems. Using a periodically driven XY chain as a model for a driven integrable quantum system, we provide semi-analytic results for the behavior of the dynamics of the entanglement asymmetry, $\Delta S$, as a function of the drive frequency. Our analysis identifies special drive frequencies at which the driven XY chain exhibits dynamic symmetry restoration and displays quantum Mpemba effect over a long timescale; we identify an emergent approximate symmetry in its Floquet Hamiltonian which plays a crucial role for realization of both these phenomena. We follow these results by numerical computation of $\Delta S$ for the non-integrable driven Rydberg atom chain and obtain similar emergent-symmetry-induced symmetry restoration and quantum Mpemba effect in the prethermal regime for such a system. Finally, we provide an exact analytic computation of the entanglement asymmetry for a periodically driven conformal field theory (CFT) on a strip. Such a driven CFT, depending on the drive amplitude and frequency, exhibits two distinct phases, heating and non-heating, that are separated by a critical line. Our results show that for $m$ cycles of a periodic drive with time period $T$, $\Delta S \sim \ln mT$ [$\ln (\ln mT)$] in the heating phase [on the critical line] for a generic CFT; in contrast, in the non-heating phase, $\Delta S$ displays small amplitude oscillations around it's initial value as a function of $mT$. We provide a phase diagram for the behavior of $\Delta S$ for such driven CFTs as a function of the drive frequency and amplitude.

  3 citations

• Physics-informed neural networks viewpoint for solving the Dyson-Schwinger equations of quantum electrodynamics

  Rodrigo Carmo Terin

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 054 (2025) · published 20 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) are employed to solve the Dyson-Schwinger equations of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in Euclidean space, with a focus on the non-perturbative generation of the fermion's dynamical mass function in the Landau gauge. By inserting the integral equation directly into the loss function, our PINN framework enables a single neural network to learn a continuous and differentiable representation of the mass function over a spectrum of momenta. Also, we benchmark our approach against a traditional numerical algorithm showing the main differences among them. Our novel strategy, which is expected to be extended to other quantum field theories, is the first step towards forefront applications of machine learning in high-level theoretical physics.

• Twisted S-duality

  Surya Raghavendran, Philsang Yoo

  SciPost Phys. 19, 049 (2025) · published 20 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study an $\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{Z})$ symmetry of a variant of BCOV theory in three complex dimensions. Using conjectural descriptions of twists of superstrings in terms of topological strings, we argue that this action can be thought of as a version of S-duality that preserves an $\mathrm{SU}(3)$-invariant twist of type IIB supergravity. We analyze how $\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{Z})$ acts on various deformations of the holomorphic-topological twist of 4-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric gauge theory, which come from residual supertranslations and superconformal symmetries, and are of relevance to geometric Langlands theory and gauge-theoretic constructions of the Yangian.

• Finiteness and the emergence of dualities

  Matilda Delgado, Damian van de Heisteeg, Sanjay Raman, Ethan Torres, Cumrun Vafa, Kai Xu

  SciPost Phys. 19, 047 (2025) · published 19 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We argue that the finiteness of quantum gravity amplitudes in fully compactified theories (at least in supersymmetric cases) leads to a bottom-up prediction for the existence of non-trivial dualities. In particular, finiteness requires the moduli space of massless fields to be compactifiable, meaning that its volume must be finite or at least grow no faster than that of Euclidean space. Moreover, we relate the compactifiability of moduli spaces to the condition that the lattice of charged objects transform in a semisimple representation under the action of the duality group. These ideas are supported by a wide variety of string theory examples.

  3 citations