Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Scattering and Strebel graphs

  Pronobesh Maity

  SciPost Phys. 13, 010 (2022) · published 26 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a special scattering experiment with n particles in $\mathbb{R}^{n-3,1}$. The scattering equations in this set-up become the saddle-point equations of a Penner-like matrix model, where in the large $n$ limit, the spectral curve is directly related to the unique Strebel differential on a Riemann sphere with three punctures. The solutions to the scattering equations localize along different kinds of graphs, tuned by a kinematic variable. We conclude with a few comments on a connection between these graphs and scattering in the Gross-Mende limit.

  1 citation

• Scattering Amplitudes and BCFW in $\mathcal{N}=2^*$ Theory

  Md. Abhishek, Subramanya Hegde, Dileep P. Jatkar, Arnab Priya Saha

  SciPost Phys. 13, 008 (2022) · published 25 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use massive spinor helicity formalism to study scattering amplitudes in $\mathcal{N}=2^*$ super-Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. We compute the amplitudes at an arbitrary point in the Coulomb branch of this theory. We compute amplitudes using projection from $\mathcal{N}=4$ theory and write three point amplitudes in a convenient form using special kinematics. We then compute four point amplitudes by carrying out massive BCFW shifts of the amplitudes. We find some of the shifted amplitudes have a pole at $z=\infty$. Taking the residue at $z=\infty$ into account ensures little group covariance of the final result.

  4 citations

• Low temperature quantum bounds on simple models

  Silvia Pappalardi, Jorge Kurchan

  SciPost Phys. 13, 006 (2022) · published 22 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In the past few years, there has been considerable activity around a set of quantum bounds on transport coefficients (viscosity) and chaos (Lyapunov exponent), relevant at low temperatures. The interest comes from the fact that Black-Hole models seem to saturate all of them. The goal of this work is to gain physical intuition about the quantum mechanisms that enforce these bounds on simple models. To this aim, we consider classical and quantum free dynamics on curved manifolds. These systems exhibit chaos up to the lowest temperatures and - as we discuss - they violate the bounds in the classical limit. First of all, we show that the quantum dimensionless viscosity and the Lyapunov exponent only depend on the de Broglie length and a geometric length-scale, thus establishing the scale at which quantum effects become relevant. Then, we focus on the bound on the Lyapunov exponent and identify three different ways in which quantum effects arise in practice. We illustrate our findings on a toy model given by the surface of constant negative curvature - a paradigmatic model of quantum chaos - glued to a cylinder. By exact solution and numerical investigations, we show how the chaotic behaviour is limited by the quantum effects of the curvature itself. Interestingly, we find that at the lowest energies the bound to chaos is dominated by the longest length scales, and it is therefore a collective effect.

  6 citations

• 3d $\mathcal{N}=4$ Gauge Theories on an Elliptic Curve

  Mathew Bullimore, Daniel Zhang

  SciPost Phys. 13, 005 (2022) · published 22 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This paper studies $3d$ $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric gauge theories on an elliptic curve, with the aim to provide a physical realisation of recent constructions in equivariant elliptic cohomology of symplectic resolutions. We first study the Berry connection for supersymmetric ground states in the presence of mass parameters and flat connections for flavour symmetries, which results in a natural construction of the equivariant elliptic cohomology variety of the Higgs branch. We then investigate supersymmetric boundary conditions and show from an analysis of boundary 't Hooft anomalies that their boundary amplitudes represent equivariant elliptic cohomology classes. We analyse two distinguished classes of boundary conditions known as exceptional Dirichlet and enriched Neumann, which are exchanged under mirror symmetry. We show that the boundary amplitudes of the latter reproduce elliptic stable envelopes introduced by Aganagic-Okounkov, and relate boundary amplitudes of the mirror symmetry interface to the mother function in equivariant elliptic cohomology. Finally, we consider correlation functions of Janus interfaces for varying mass parameters, recovering the chamber R-matrices of elliptic integrable systems.

  8 citations

• Fingerprints of quantum criticality in locally resolved transport

  Xiaoyang Huang, Andrew Lucas

  SciPost Phys. 13, 004 (2022) · published 21 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Understanding electrical transport in strange metals, including the seeming universality of Planckian $T$-linear resistivity, remains a longstanding challenge in condensed matter physics. We propose that local imaging techniques, such as nitrogen vacancy center magnetometry, can locally identify signatures of quantum critical response which are invisible in measurements of a bulk electrical resistivity. As an illustrative example, we use a minimal holographic model for a strange metal in two spatial dimensions to predict how electrical current will flow in regimes dominated by quantum critical dynamics on the Planckian length scale. We describe the crossover between quantum critical transport and hydrodynamic transport (including Ohmic regimes), both in charge neutral and finite density systems. We compare our holographic predictions to experiments on charge neutral graphene, finding quantitative agreement with available data; we suggest further experiments which may determine the relevance of our framework to transport on Planckian scales in this material. More broadly, we propose that locally imaged transport be used to test the universality (or lack thereof) of microscopic dynamics in the diverse set of quantum materials exhibiting $T$-linear resistivity.

  1 citation

• The Return of the Singularities: Applications of the Smeared Null Energy Condition

  Ben Freivogel, Eleni-Alexandra Kontou, Dimitrios Krommydas

  SciPost Phys. 13, 001 (2022) · published 15 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The classic singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that can be violated in semiclassical gravity. Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed by semiclassical gravity: the smeared null energy condition (SNEC), a proposed bound on the weighted average of the null energy along a finite portion of a null geodesic. We then prove a semiclassical singularity theorem using SNEC as an assumption. This theorem extends the Penrose theorem to semiclassical gravity. We also apply our bound to evaporating black holes and the traversable wormhole of Maldacena-Milekhin-Popov, and comment on the relationship of our results to other proposed semiclassical singularity theorems.

  2 citations