Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Topological lattice models with constant Berry curvature

  Daniel Varjas, Ahmed Abouelkomsan, Kang Yang, Emil J. Bergholtz

  SciPost Phys. 12, 118 (2022) · published 6 April 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Band geometry plays a substantial role in topological lattice models. The Berry curvature, which resembles the effect of magnetic field in reciprocal space, usually fluctuates throughout the Brillouin zone. Motivated by the analogy with Landau levels, constant Berry curvature has been suggested as an ideal condition for realizing fractional Chern insulators. Here we show that while the Berry curvature cannot be made constant in a topological two-band model, lattice models with three or more degrees of freedom per unit cell can support exactly constant Berry curvature. However, contrary to the intuitive expectation, we find that making the Berry curvature constant does not always improve the properties of fractional Chern insulator states. In fact, we show that an "ideal flatband" cannot have constant Berry curvature, equivalently, we show that the density algebra of Landau levels cannot be realised in any tight-binding lattice system.

  16 citations

• Gauging the Kitaev chain

  Umberto Borla, Ruben Verresen, Jeet Shah, Sergej Moroz

  SciPost Phys. 10, 148 (2021) · published 18 June 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We gauge the fermion parity symmetry of the Kitaev chain. While the bulk of the model becomes an Ising chain of gauge-invariant spins in a tilted field, near the boundaries the global fermion parity symmetry survives gauging, leading to local gauge-invariant Majorana operators. In the absence of vortices, the Higgs phase exhibits fermionic symmetry-protected topological (SPT) order distinct from the Kitaev chain. Moreover, the deconfined phase can be stable even in the presence of vortices. We also undertake a comprehensive study of a gently gauged model which interpolates between the ordinary and gauged Kitaev chains. This showcases rich quantum criticality and illuminates the topological nature of the Higgs phase. Even in the absence of superconducting terms, gauging leads to an SPT phase which is intrinsically gapless due to an emergent anomaly.

  16 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.

  16 citations

• The self-consistent quantum-electrostatic problem in strongly non-linear regime

  Pacome Armagnat, A. Lacerda-Santos, Benoit Rossignol, Christoph Groth, Xavier Waintal

  SciPost Phys. 7, 031 (2019) · published 11 September 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The self-consistent quantum-electrostatic (also known as Poisson-Schr\"odinger) problem is notoriously difficult in situations where the density of states varies rapidly with energy. At low temperatures, these fluctuations make the problem highly non-linear which renders iterative schemes deeply unstable. We present a stable algorithm that provides a solution to this problem with controlled accuracy. The technique is intrinsically convergent including in highly non-linear regimes. We illustrate our approach with (i) a calculation of the compressible and incompressible stripes in the integer quantum Hall regime and (ii) a calculation of the differential conductance of a quantum point contact geometry. Our technique provides a viable route for the predictive modeling of the transport properties of quantum nanoelectronics devices.

  16 citations

• Fermionic Gaussian states: an introduction to numerical approaches

  Jacopo Surace, Luca Tagliacozzo

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 54 (2022) · published 16 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This document is meant to be a practical introduction to the analytical and numerical manipulation of Fermionic Gaussian systems. Starting from the basics, we move to relevant modern results and techniques, presenting numerical examples and studying relevant Hamiltonians, such as the transverse field Ising Hamiltonian, in detail. We finish introducing novel algorithms connecting Fermionic Guassian states with matrix product states techniques. All the numerical examples make use of the free Julia package F_utilities.

  16 citations

• Floquet conformal field theories with generally deformed Hamiltonians

  Ruihua Fan, Yingfei Gu, Ashvin Vishwanath, Xueda Wen

  SciPost Phys. 10, 049 (2021) · published 25 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work, we study non-equilibrium dynamics in Floquet conformal field theories (CFTs) in 1+1D, in which the driving Hamiltonian involves the energy-momentum density spatially modulated by an arbitrary smooth function. This generalizes earlier work which was restricted to the sine-square deformed type of Floquet Hamiltonians, operating within a $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ sub-algebra. Here we show remarkably that the problem remains soluble in this generalized case which involves the full Virasoro algebra, based on a geometrical approach. It is found that the phase diagram is determined by the stroboscopic trajectories of operator evolution. The presence/absence of spatial fixed points in the operator evolution indicates that the driven CFT is in a heating/non-heating phase, in which the entanglement entropy grows/oscillates in time. Additionally, the heating regime is further subdivided into a multitude of phases, with different entanglement patterns and spatial distribution of energy-momentum density, which are characterized by the number of spatial fixed points. Phase transitions between these different heating phases can be achieved simply by changing the duration of application of the driving Hamiltonian. We demonstrate the general features with concrete CFT examples and compare the results to lattice calculations and find remarkable agreement.

  16 citations

• Transfer matrix spectrum for cyclic representations of the 6-vertex reflection algebra I

  Jean Michel Maillet, Giuliano Niccoli, Baptiste Pezelier

  SciPost Phys. 2, 009 (2017) · published 28 February 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the transfer matrix spectral problem for the cyclic representations of the trigonometric 6-vertex reflection algebra associated to the Bazhanov-Stroganov Lax operator. The results apply as well to the spectral analysis of the lattice sine-Gordon model with integrable open boundary conditions. This spectral analysis is developed by implementing the method of separation of variables (SoV). The transfer matrix spectrum (both eigenvalues and eigenstates) is completely characterized in terms of the set of solutions to a discrete system of polynomial equations in a given class of functions. Moreover, we prove an equivalent characterization as the set of solutions to a Baxter's like T-Q functional equation and rewrite the transfer matrix eigenstates in an algebraic Bethe ansatz form. In order to explain our method in a simple case, the present paper is restricted to representations containing one constraint on the boundary parameters and on the parameters of the Bazhanov-Stroganov Lax operator. In a next article, some more technical tools (like Baxter's gauge transformations) will be introduced to extend our approach to general integrable boundary conditions.

  16 citations

• Diffusion from convection

  Marko Medenjak, Jacopo De Nardis, Takato Yoshimura

  SciPost Phys. 9, 075 (2020) · published 19 November 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We introduce non-trivial contributions to diffusion constant in generic many-body systems arising from quadratic fluctuations of ballistically propagating, i.e. convective, modes. Our result is obtained by expanding the current operator in the vicinity of equilibrium states in terms of powers of local and quasi-local conserved quantities. We show that only the second-order terms in this expansion carry a finite contribution to diffusive spreading. Our formalism implies that whenever there are at least two coupled modes with degenerate group velocities, the system behaves super-diffusively, in accordance with the non-linear fluctuating hydrodynamics theory. Finally, we show that our expression saturates the exact diffusion constants in quantum and classical interacting integrable systems, providing a general framework to derive these expressions.

  16 citations

• Abelian and non-abelian symmetries in infinite projected entangled pair states

  Claudius Hubig

  SciPost Phys. 5, 047 (2018) · published 9 November 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We explore in detail the implementation of arbitrary abelian and non-abelian symmetries in the setting of infinite projected entangled pair states on the two-dimensional square lattice. We observe a large computational speed-up; easily allowing bond dimensions $D = 10$ in the square lattice Heisenberg model at computational effort comparable to calculations at $D = 6$ without symmetries. We also find that implementing an unbroken symmetry does not negatively affect the representative power of the state and leads to identical or improved ground-state energies. Finally, we point out how to use symmetry implementations to detect spontaneous symmetry breaking.

  16 citations

• On four-point connectivities in the critical 2d Potts model

  Marco Picco, Sylvain Ribault, Raoul Santachiara

  SciPost Phys. 7, 044 (2019) · published 7 October 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We perform Monte-Carlo computations of four-point cluster connectivities in the critical 2d Potts model, for numbers of states $Q\in (0,4)$ that are not necessarily integer. We compare these connectivities to four-point functions in a CFT that interpolates between D-series minimal models. We find that 3 combinations of the 4 independent connectivities agree with CFT four-point functions, down to the $2$ to $4$ significant digits of our Monte-Carlo computations. However, we argue that the agreement is exact only in the special cases $Q=0, 3, 4$. We conjecture that the Potts model can be analytically continued to a double cover of the half-plane $\{\Re c <13\}$, where $c$ is the central charge of the Virasoro symmetry algebra.

  16 citations