Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Mean string field theory: Landau-Ginzburg theory for 1-form symmetries

  Nabil Iqbal, John McGreevy

  SciPost Phys. 13, 114 (2022) · published 22 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  By analogy with the Landau-Ginzburg theory of ordinary zero-form symmetries, we introduce and develop a Landau-Ginzburg theory of one-form global symmetries, which we call mean string field theory. The basic dynamical variable is a string field -- defined on the space of closed loops -- that can be used to describe the creation, annihilation, and condensation of effective strings. Like its zero-form cousin, the mean string field theory provides a useful picture of the phase diagram of broken and unbroken phases. We provide a transparent derivation of the area law for charged line operators in the unbroken phase and describe the dynamics of gapless Goldstone modes in the broken phase. The framework also provides a theory of topological defects of the broken phase and a description of the phase transition that should be valid above an upper critical dimension, which we discuss. We also discuss general consequences of emergent one-form symmetries at zero and finite temperature.

  18 citations

• Resurgence and renormalons in the one-dimensional Hubbard model

  Marcos Mariño, Tomás Reis

  SciPost Phys. 13, 113 (2022) · published 22 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use resurgent analysis to study non-perturbative aspects of the one-dimensional, multicomponent Hubbard model with an attractive interaction and arbitrary filling. In the two-component case, we show that the leading Borel singularity of the perturbative series for the ground-state energy is determined by the energy gap, as expected for superconducting systems. This singularity turns out to be of the renormalon type, and we identify a class of diagrams leading to the correct factorial growth. As a consequence of our analysis, we propose an explicit expression for the energy gap at weak coupling in the multi-component Hubbard model, at next-to-leading order in the coupling constant. In the two-component, half-filled case, we use the Bethe ansatz solution to determine the full trans-series for the ground state energy, and the exact form of its Stokes discontinuity.

  2 citations

• Electrostatic solution of massless quenches in Luttinger liquids

  Paola Ruggiero, Pasquale Calabrese, Thierry Giamarchi, Laura Foini

  SciPost Phys. 13, 111 (2022) · published 18 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The study of non-equilibrium dynamics of many-body systems after a quantum quench received a considerable boost and a deep theoretical understanding from the path integral formulation in imaginary time. However, the celebrated problem of a quench in the Luttinger parameter of a one dimensional quantum critical system (massless quench) has so far only been solved in the real-time Heisenberg picture. In order to bridge this theoretical gap and to understand on the same ground massive and massless quenches, we study the problem of a gaussian field characterized by a coupling parameter $K$ within a strip and a different one $K_0$ in the remaining two semi-infinite planes. We give a fully analytical solution using the electrostatic analogy with the problem of a dielectric material within a strip surrounded by an infinite medium of different dielectric constant, and exploiting the method of charge images. After analytic continuation, this solution allows us to obtain all the correlation functions after the quench within a path integral approach in imaginary time, thus recovering and generalizing the results in real time. Furthermore, this imaginary-time approach establishes a remarkable connection between the quench and the famous problem of the conductivity of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid coupled to two semi-infinite leads: the two are in fact related by a rotation of the spacetime coordinates.

  4 citations

• Stabilizing the Laughlin state of light: Dynamics of hole fractionalization

  Pavel D. Kurilovich, Vladislav D. Kurilovich, José Lebreuilly, Steven M. Girvin

  SciPost Phys. 13, 107 (2022) · published 14 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Particle loss is the ultimate challenge for preparation of strongly correlated many-body states of photons. An established way to overcome the loss is to employ a stabilization setup that autonomously injects new photons in place of the lost ones. However, as we show, the effectiveness of such a stabilization setup is compromised for fractional quantum Hall states. There, a hole formed by a lost photon can separate into several remote quasiholes none of which can be refilled by injecting a photon locally. By deriving an exact expression for the steady-state density matrix, we demonstrate that isolated quasiholes proliferate in the steady state which damages the quality of the state preparation. The motion of quasiholes leading to their separation is allowed by a repeated process in which a photon is first lost and then quickly refilled in the vicinity of the quasihole. We develop the theory of this dissipative quasihole dynamics and show that it has diffusive character. Our results demonstrate that fractionalization might present an obstacle for both creation and stabilization of strongly-correlated states with photons.

  5 citations

• Thermal and dissipative effects on the heating transition in a driven critical system

  Kenny Choo, Bastien Lapierre, Clemens Kuhlenkamp, Apoorv Tiwari, Titus Neupert, Ramasubramanian Chitra

  SciPost Phys. 13, 104 (2022) · published 4 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the dissipative dynamics of a periodically driven inhomogeneous critical lattice model in one dimension. The closed system dynamics starting from pure initial states is well-described by a driven Conformal Field Theory (CFT), which predicts the existence of both heating and non-heating phases in such systems. Heating is inhomogeneous and is manifested via the emergence of black-hole like horizons in the system. The robustness of this CFT phenomenology when considering thermal initial states and open systems remains elusive. First, we present analytical results for the Floquet CFT time evolution for thermal initial states. Moreover, using exact calculations of the time evolution of the lattice density matrix, we demonstrate that for short and intermediate times, the closed system phase diagram comprising heating and non-heating phases, persists for thermal initial states on the lattice. Secondly, in the fully open system with boundary dissipators, we show that the nontrivial spatial structure of the heating phase survives particle-conserving and non-conserving dissipations through clear signatures in mutual information and energy density evolution.

  2 citations

• Gifts from anomalies: Exact results for Landau phase transitions in metals

  Zhengyan Darius Shi, Hart Goldman, Dominic V. Else, T. Senthil

  SciPost Phys. 13, 102 (2022) · published 1 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Non-Fermi liquid phenomena arise naturally near critical points of Landau ordering transitions in metallic systems, where strong fluctuations of a bosonic order parameter destroy coherent quasiparticles. Despite progress in developing controlled perturbative techniques, much of the low energy physics of such metallic quantum critical points remains poorly understood. We demonstrate that exact, non-perburbative results can be obtained for both optical transport and static susceptibilities in "Hertz-Millis" theories of Fermi surfaces coupled to critical bosons. Such models possess a large emergent symmetry and anomaly structure, which we leverage to fix these quantities. In particular, we show that in the infrared limit, the boson self energy at zero wave vector, $\mathbf{q}=0$, is a constant independent of frequency, and the real part of the optical conductivity, $\sigma(\omega)$, is purely a delta function Drude peak with no other corrections. Therefore, further frequency dependence in the boson self energy or optical conductivity can only come from irrelevant operators in a clean system. Exact relations between Fermi liquid parameters as the critical point is approached from the disordered phase are also obtained. The absence of a universal, power law frequency dependence in the boson self energy contrasts with previous perturbative calculations, and we explain the origin of this difference.

  15 citations

• Hilbert space fragmentation in a 2D quantum spin system with subsystem symmetries

  Alexey Khudorozhkov, Apoorv Tiwari, Claudio Chamon, Titus Neupert

  SciPost Phys. 13, 098 (2022) · published 19 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a 2D quantum spin model with ring-exchange interaction that has subsystem symmetries associated to conserved magnetization along rows and columns of a square lattice, which implies the conservation of the global dipole moment. In a certain regime, the model is non-integrable, but violates the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis through an extensive Hilbert space fragmentation, including an exponential number of inert subsectors with trivial dynamics, arising from kinetic constraints. While subsystem symmetries are quite restrictive for the dynamics, we show that they alone cannot account for such a number of inert states, even with infinite-range interactions. We present a procedure for constructing shielding structures that can separate and disentangle dynamically active regions from each other. Notably, subsystem symmetries allow the thickness of the shields to be dependent only on the interaction range rather than on the size of the active regions, unlike in the case of generic dipole-conserving systems.

  14 citations

• Joule heating in bad and slow metals

  Paolo Glorioso, Sean A. Hartnoll

  SciPost Phys. 13, 095 (2022) · published 12 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Heat supplied to a metal is absorbed by the electrons and then transferred to the lattice. In conventional metals energy is released to the lattice by phonons emitted from the Lindhard continuum. However in a 'bad' metal, with short mean free path, the low energy Lindhard continuum is destroyed. Furthermore in a 'slow' metal, with Fermi velocity less than the sound velocity, particle-hole pairs are kinematically unable to emit phonons. To describe energy transfer to the lattice in these cases we obtain a general Kubo formula for the energy relaxation rate in terms of the electronic density spectral weight $\text{Im} \, G^R_{nn}(\omega_k,k)$ evaluated on the phonon dispersion $\omega_k$. We apply our Kubo formula to the high temperature Hubbard model, using recent data from quantum Monte Carlo and experiments in ultracold atoms to characterize $\text{Im} \, G^R_{nn}(\omega_k,k)$. We furthermore use recent data from electron energy-loss spectroscopy to estimate the energy relaxation rate of the cuprate strange metal to a high energy optical phonon. As a second, distinct, application of our formalism we consider 'slow' metals. These are defined to have Fermi velocity less than the sound velocity, so that particle-hole pairs are kinematically unable to emit phonons. We obtain an expression for the energy relaxation rate of a slow metal in terms of the optical conductivity.

• Topological states in double monolayer graphene

  Ying-Hai Wu

  SciPost Phys. 13, 094 (2022) · published 12 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Motivated by the experiments on double monolayer graphene that observe a variety of fractional quantum Hall states [Liu et al., Nat. Phys. 15, 893 (2019); Li et al., Nat. Phys. 15, 898 (2019)], we study the special setting in which two monolayers have different areas. It has not been considered before and allows us to construct a class of exotic topological states. The elementary excitations of these states do not carry fractional charges but obey fractional statistics. This is in sharp contrast to all previously studied cases, where the two properties are intimately connected and serve as hallmarks of fractional quantum Hall states. Numerical calculations are performed to demonstrate that some states can be realized with realistic parameters.

• Scaling at quantum phase transitions above the upper critical dimension

  A. Langheld, J. A. Koziol, P. Adelhardt, S. C. Kapfer, K. P. Schmidt

  SciPost Phys. 13, 088 (2022) · published 10 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The hyperscaling relation and standard finite-size scaling (FSS) are known to break down above the upper critical dimension due to dangerous irrelevant variables. We establish a coherent formalism for FSS at quantum phase transitions above the upper critical dimension following the recently introduced Q-FSS formalism for thermal phase transitions. Contrary to long-standing belief, the correlation sector is affected by dangerous irrelevant variables. The presented formalism recovers a generalized hyperscaling relation and FSS form. Using this new FSS formalism, we determine the full set of critical exponents for the long-range transverse-field Ising chain in all criticality regimes ranging from the nearest-neighbor to the long-range mean field regime. For the same model, we also explicitly confirm the effect of dangerous irrelevant variables on the characteristic length scale.

  6 citations