Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Emergence of curved light-cones in a class of inhomogeneous Luttinger liquids

  Jérôme Dubail, Jean-Marie Stéphan, Pasquale Calabrese

  SciPost Phys. 3, 019 (2017) · published 6 September 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The light-cone spreading of entanglement and correlation is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of homogeneous extended quantum systems. Here we point out that a class of inhomogenous Luttinger liquids (those with a uniform Luttinger parameter $K$) at low energy display the universal phenomenon of curved light cones: gapless excitations propagate along the geodesics of the metric $ds^2=dx^2+v(x)^2 d\tau^2$, with $v(x)$ being the calculable spatial dependent velocity induced by the inhomogeneity. We confirm our findings with explicit analytic and numerical calculations both in- and out-of-equilibrium for a Tonks-Girardeau gas in a harmonic potential and in lattice systems with artificially tuned hamiltonian density.

  64 citations

• Search for non-Abelian Majorana braiding statistics in superconductors

  C. W. J. Beenakker

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 15 (2020) · published 4 August 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This is a tutorial review of methods to braid the world lines of non-Abelian anyons (Majorana zero-modes) in topological superconductors. That "Holy Grail" of topological quantum information processing has not yet been reached in the laboratory, but there now exists a variety of platforms in which one can search for the Majorana braiding statistics. After an introduction to the basic concepts of braiding we discuss how one might be able to braid immobile Majorana zero-modes, bound to the end points of a nanowire, by performing the exchange in parameter space, rather than in real space. We explain how Coulomb interaction can be used to both control and read out the braiding operation, even though Majorana zero-modes are charge neutral. We ask whether the fusion rule might provide for an easier pathway towards the demonstration of non-Abelian statistics. In the final part we discuss an approach to braiding in real space, rather than parameter space, using vortices injected into a chiral Majorana edge mode as "flying qubits".

  63 citations

• Symmetry decomposition of negativity of massless free fermions

  Sara Murciano, Riccarda Bonsignori, Pasquale Calabrese

  SciPost Phys. 10, 111 (2021) · published 19 May 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the problem of symmetry decomposition of the entanglement negativity in free fermionic systems. Rather than performing the standard partial transpose, we use the partial time-reversal transformation which naturally encodes the fermionic statistics. The negativity admits a resolution in terms of the charge imbalance between the two subsystems. We introduce a normalised version of the imbalance resolved negativity which has the advantage to be an entanglement proxy for each symmetry sector, but may diverge in the limit of pure states for some sectors. Our main focus is then the resolution of the negativity for a free Dirac field at finite temperature and size. We consider both bipartite and tripartite geometries and exploit conformal field theory to derive universal results for the charge imbalance resolved negativity. To this end, we use a geometrical construction in terms of an Aharonov-Bohm-like flux inserted in the Riemann surface defining the entanglement. We interestingly find that the entanglement negativity is always equally distributed among the different imbalance sectors at leading order. Our analytical findings are tested against exact numerical calculations for free fermions on a lattice.

  63 citations

• Exotic $\mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetries, duality, and fractons in 3+1-dimensional quantum field theory

  Nathan Seiberg, Shu-Heng Shao

  SciPost Phys. 10, 003 (2021) · published 8 January 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Following our earlier analyses of nonstandard continuum quantum field theories, we study here gapped systems in 3+1 dimensions, which exhibit fractonic behavior. In particular, we present three dual field theory descriptions of the low-energy physics of the X-cube model. A key aspect of our constructions is the use of discontinuous fields in the continuum field theory. Spacetime is continuous, but the fields are not.

  62 citations

• Entanglement evolution and generalised hydrodynamics: interacting integrable systems

  Vincenzo Alba, Bruno Bertini, Maurizio Fagotti

  SciPost Phys. 7, 005 (2019) · published 8 July 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the dynamics of bipartite entanglement after the sudden junction of two leads in interacting integrable models. By combining the quasiparticle picture for the entanglement spreading with Generalised Hydrodynamics we derive an analytical prediction for the dynamics of the entanglement entropy between a finite subsystem and the rest. We find that the entanglement rate between the two leads depends only on the physics at the interface and differs from the rate of exchange of thermodynamic entropy. This contrasts with the behaviour in free or homogeneous interacting integrable systems, where the two rates coincide.

  60 citations

• The ALF (Algorithms for Lattice Fermions) project release 1.0. Documentation for the auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo code

  Martin Bercx, Florian Goth, Johannes S. Hofmann, Fakher F. Assaad

  SciPost Phys. 3, 013 (2017) · published 16 August 2017 · licensed under CC BY-SA (4.0) | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Algorithms for Lattice Fermions package provides a general code for the finite temperature auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. The code is engineered to be able to simulate any model that can be written in terms of sums of single-body operators, of squares of single-body operators and single-body operators coupled to an Ising field with given dynamics. We provide predefined types that allow the user to specify the model, the Bravais lattice as well as equal time and time displaced observables. The code supports an MPI implementation. Examples such as the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice and the Hubbard model on the square lattice coupled to a transverse Ising field are provided and discussed in the documentation. We furthermore discuss how to use the package to implement the Kondo lattice model and the $SU(N)$-Hubbard-Heisenberg model. One can download the code from our Git instance at https://alf.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de and sign in to file issues.

  59 citations

• Inhomogeneous quenches in the transverse field Ising chain: scaling and front dynamics

  Márton Kormos

  SciPost Phys. 3, 020 (2017) · published 8 September 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of the transverse field quantum Ising chain evolving from an inhomogeneous initial state given by joining two macroscopically different semi-infinite chains. We obtain integral expressions for all two-point correlation functions of the Jordan-Wigner Majorana fermions at any time and for any value of the transverse field. Using this result, we compute analytically the profiles of various physical observables in the space-time scaling limit and show that they can be obtained from a hydrodynamic picture based on ballistically propagating quasiparticles. Going beyond the hydrodynamic limit, we analyze the approach to the non-equilibrium steady state and find that the leading late time corrections display a lattice effect. We also study the fine structure of the propagating fronts which are found to be described by the Airy kernel and its derivatives. Near the front we observe the phenomenon of energy back-flow where the energy locally flows from the colder to the hotter region.

  58 citations

• Fractons, dipole symmetries and curved spacetime

  Leo Bidussi, Jelle Hartong, Emil Have, Jørgen Musaeus, Stefan Prohazka

  SciPost Phys. 12, 205 (2022) · published 28 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study complex scalar theories with dipole symmetry and uncover a no-go theorem that governs the structure of such theories and which, in particular, reveals that a Gaussian theory with linearly realised dipole symmetry must be Carrollian. The gauging of the dipole symmetry via the Noether procedure gives rise to a scalar gauge field and a spatial symmetric tensor gauge field. We construct a worldline theory of mobile objects that couple gauge invariantly to these gauge fields. We systematically develop the canonical theory of a dynamical symmetric tensor gauge field and arrive at scalar charge gauge theories in both Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formalism. We compute the dispersion relation of the modes of this gauge theory, and we point out an analogy with partially massless gravitons. It is then shown that these fractonic theories couple to Aristotelian geometry, which is a non-Lorentzian geometry characterised by the absence of boost symmetries. We generalise previous results by coupling fracton theories to curved space and time. We demonstrate that complex scalar theories with dipole symmetry can be coupled to general Aristotelian geometries as long as the symmetric tensor gauge field remains a background field. The coupling of the scalar charge gauge theory requires a Lagrange multiplier that restricts the Aristotelian geometries.

  54 citations

• Perfect fluids

  Jan de Boer, Jelle Hartong, Niels A. Obers, Watse Sybesma, Stefan Vandoren

  SciPost Phys. 5, 003 (2018) · published 17 July 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a systematic treatment of perfect fluids with translation and rotation symmetry, which is also applicable in the absence of any type of boost symmetry. It involves introducing a fluid variable, the {\em kinetic mass density}, which is needed to define the most general energy-momentum tensor for perfect fluids. Our analysis leads to corrections to the Euler equations for perfect fluids that might be observable in hydrodynamic fluid experiments. We also derive new expressions for the speed of sound in perfect fluids that reduce to the known perfect fluid models when boost symmetry is present. Our framework can also be adapted to (non-relativistic) scale invariant fluids with critical exponent $z$. We show that perfect fluids cannot have Schr\"odinger symmetry unless $z=2$. For generic values of $z$ there can be fluids with Lifshitz symmetry, and as a concrete example, we work out in detail the thermodynamics and fluid description of an ideal gas of Lifshitz particles and compute the speed of sound for the classical and quantum Lifshitz gases.

  54 citations

• Twisted and untwisted negativity spectrum of free fermions

  Hassan Shapourian, Paola Ruggiero, Shinsei Ryu, Pasquale Calabrese

  SciPost Phys. 7, 037 (2019) · published 25 September 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A basic diagnostic of entanglement in mixed quantum states is known as the positive partial transpose (PT) criterion. Such criterion is based on the observation that the spectrum of the partially transposed density matrix of an entangled state contains negative eigenvalues, in turn, used to define an entanglement measure called the logarithmic negativity. Despite the great success of logarithmic negativity in characterizing bosonic many-body systems, generalizing the operation of PT to fermionic systems remained a technical challenge until recently when a more natural definition of PT for fermions that accounts for the Fermi statistics has been put forward. In this paper, we study the many-body spectrum of the reduced density matrix of two adjacent intervals for one-dimensional free fermions after applying the fermionic PT. We show that in general there is a freedom in the definition of such operation which leads to two different definitions of PT: the resulting density matrix is Hermitian in one case, while it becomes pseudo-Hermitian in the other case. Using the path-integral formalism, we analytically compute the leading order term of the moments in both cases and derive the distribution of the corresponding eigenvalues over the complex plane. We further verify our analytical findings by checking them against numerical lattice calculations.

  53 citations