Publications

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• Exact mean-field solution of a spin chain with short-range and long-range interactions

  Etienne Granet

  SciPost Phys. 14, 133 (2023) · published 26 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the transverse field Ising model with additional all-to-all interactions between the spins. We show that a mean-field treatment of this model becomes exact in the thermodynamic limit, despite the presence of 1D short-range interactions. Namely, we show that the eigenstates of the model are coherent states with an amplitude that varies through the Hilbert space, within which expectation values of local observables can be computed with mean-field theory. We study then the thermodynamics of the model and identify the different phases. Among its peculiar features, this 1D model possesses a second-order phase transition at finite temperature and exhibits inverse melting.

  1 citation

• Holographic thermal correlators from supersymmetric instantons

  Matthew Dodelson, Alba Grassi, Cristoforo Iossa, Daniel Panea Lichtig, Alexander Zhiboedov

  SciPost Phys. 14, 116 (2023) · published 16 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present an exact formula for the thermal scalar two-point function in four-dimensional holographic conformal field theories. The problem of finding it reduces to the analysis of the wave equation on the AdS-Schwarzschild background. The two-point function is computed from the connection coefficients of the Heun equation, which can be expressed in terms of the Nekrasov-Shatashvili partition function of an $SU(2)$ supersymmetric gauge theory with four fundamental hypermultiplets. The result is amenable to numerical evaluation upon truncating the number of instantons in the convergent expansion of the partition function. We also examine it analytically in various limits. At large spin the instanton expansion of the thermal two-point function directly maps to the light-cone bootstrap analysis of the heavy-light four-point function. Using this connection, we compute the OPE data of heavy-light double-twist operators. We compare our prediction to the perturbative results available in the literature and find perfect agreement.

  16 citations

• Marginal quenches and drives in Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids

  Shouvik Datta, Bastien Lapierre, Per Moosavi, Apoorv Tiwari

  SciPost Phys. 14, 108 (2023) · published 11 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids thrown out of equilibrium by marginal deformations in the form of interaction modulations. This is modeled by quenching or periodically driving the Luttinger parameter or, equivalently, the compactification radius of the free boson conformal field theory between two different values. We obtain exact analytical results for the evolution of the Loschmidt echo and observables such as the particle and energy densities. Starting from generic initial states, the quench dynamics are shown to exhibit revivals and temporal orthogonalities. For the periodic drive, we show stability or instability of time-evolved physical quantities dependent on the drive parameters. We also compare the corresponding marginally deformed thermal density matrices by non-perturbatively evaluating their Rényi divergence as a Euclidean quench. All the dynamics are shown to be crucially dependent on the ratio of the Luttinger parameters, which corresponds to the Zamolodchikov distance in the space of marginal deformations. Our setup is equivalently interpreted as the dynamics of the bosonic string upon instantaneous changes of the target-space radius.

  3 citations

• Spaces of states of the two-dimensional $O(n)$ and Potts models

  Jesper Lykke Jacobsen, Sylvain Ribault, Hubert Saleur

  SciPost Phys. 14, 092 (2023) · published 3 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We determine the spaces of states of the two-dimensional $O(n)$ and $Q$-state Potts models with generic parameters $n,Q\in \mathbb{C}$ as representations of their known symmetry algebras. While the relevant representations of the conformal algebra were recently worked out, it remained to determine the action of the global symmetry groups: the orthogonal group for the $O(n)$ model, and the symmetric group $S_Q$ for the $Q$-state Potts model. We do this by two independent methods. First we compute the twisted torus partition functions of the models at criticality. The twist in question is the insertion of a group element along one cycle of the torus: this breaks modular invariance, but allows the partition function to have a unique decomposition into characters of irreducible representations of the global symmetry group. Our second method reduces the problem to determining branching rules of certain diagram algebras. For the $O(n)$ model, we decompose representations of the Brauer algebra into representations of its unoriented Jones-Temperley-Lieb subalgebra. For the $Q$-state Potts model, we decompose representations of the partition algebra into representations of the appropriate subalgebra. We find explicit expressions for these decompositions as sums over certain sets of diagrams, and over standard Young tableaux. We check that both methods agree in many cases. Moreover, our spaces of states are consistent with recent bootstrap results on four-point functions of the corresponding CFTs.

  4 citations

• On higher-dimensional Carrollian and Galilean conformal field theories

  Bin Chen, Reiko Liu, Yu-fan Zheng

  SciPost Phys. 14, 088 (2023) · published 1 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this paper, we study the Carrollian and Galilean conformal field theories (CCFT and GCFT) in $d>2$ dimensions. We construct the highest weight representations (HWR) of Carrollian and Galilean conformal algebra (CCA and GCA). Even though the two algebras have different structures, their HWRs share similar structure, because their rotation subalgebras are isomorphic. In both cases, we find that the finite dimensional representations are generally reducible but indecomposable, and can be organized into the multiplets. Moreover, it turns out that the multiplet representations in $d>2$ CCA and GCA carry not only the simple chain structure appeared in logCFT or $2d$ GCFT, but also more generally the net structures. We manage to classify all the allowed chain representations. Furthermore we discuss the two-point and three-point correlators by using the Ward identities. We mainly focus on the two-point correlators of the operators in chain representations. Even in this relative simple case, we find some novel features: multiple-level structure, shortage of the selection rule on the representations, undetermined 2-pt coefficients, etc.. We find that the non-trivial correlators could only appear for the representations of certain structure, and the correlators are generally polynomials of time coordinates for CCFT (spacial coordinates for GCFT), whose orders depend on the levels of the correlators.

  17 citations

• Lacing topological orders in two dimensions: Exactly solvable models for Kitaev's sixteen-fold way

  Jin-Tao Jin, Jian-Jian Miao, Yi Zhou

  SciPost Phys. 14, 087 (2023) · published 1 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A family of two-dimensional (2D) spin-1/2 models have been constructed to realize Kitaev's sixteen-fold way of anyon theories. Defining a one-dimensional (1D) path through all the lattice sites, and performing the Jordan-Wigner transformation with the help of the 1D path, we find that such a spin-1/2 model is equivalent to a model with $\nu$ species of Majorana fermions coupled to a static $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field. Here each species of Majorana fermions gives rise to an energy band that carries a Chern number $\mathcal{C}=1$, yielding a total Chern number $\mathcal{C}=\nu$. It has been shown that the ground states are three (four)-fold topologically degenerate on a torus, when $\nu$ is an odd (even) number. These exactly solvable models can be achieved by quantum simulations.

  1 citation

• Integrable Floquet systems related to logarithmic conformal field theory

  Vsevolod I. Yashin, Denis V. Kurlov, Aleksey K. Fedorov, Vladimir Gritsev

  SciPost Phys. 14, 084 (2023) · published 26 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study an integrable Floquet quantum system related to lattice statistical systems in the universality class of dense polymers. These systems are described by a particular non-unitary representation of the Temperley-Lieb algebra. We find a simple Lie algebra structure for the elements of Temperley-Lieb algebra which are invariant under shift by two lattice sites, and show how the local Floquet conserved charges and the Floquet Hamiltonian are expressed in terms of this algebra. The system has a phase transition between local and non-local phases of the Floquet Hamiltonian. We provide a strong indication that in the scaling limit this non-equilibrium system is described by the logarithmic conformal field theory.

  3 citations

• Anti-holomorphic modes in vortex lattices

  Brook J. Hocking, Thomas Machon

  SciPost Phys. 14, 080 (2023) · published 24 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A continuum theory of linearized Helmholtz-Kirchoff point vortex dynamics about a steadily rotating lattice state is developed by two separate methods: firstly by a direct procedure, secondly by taking the long-wavelength limit of Tkachenko's exact solution for a triangular vortex lattice. Solutions to the continuum theory are found, described by arbitrary anti-holomorphic functions, and give power-law localized edge modes. Numerical results for finite lattices show excellent agreement to the theory.

• Topological insulators and geometry of vector bundles

  Alexander S. Sergeev

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 67 (2023) · published 12 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  For a long time, band theory of solids has focused on the energy spectrum, or Hamiltonian eigenvalues. Recently, it was realized that the collection of eigenvectors also contains important physical information. The local geometry of eigenspaces determines the electric polarization, while their global twisting gives rise to the metallic surface states in topological insulators. These phenomena are central topics of the present notes. The shape of eigenspaces is also responsible for many intriguing physical analogies, which have their roots in the theory of vector bundles. We give an informal introduction to the geometry and topology of vector bundles and describe various physical models from this mathematical perspective.

• Codimension-2 defects and higher symmetries in (3+1)D topological phases

  Maissam Barkeshli, Yu-An Chen, Sheng-Jie Huang, Ryohei Kobayashi, Nathanan Tantivasadakarn, Guanyu Zhu

  SciPost Phys. 14, 065 (2023) · published 11 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  (3+1)D topological phases of matter can host a broad class of non-trivial topological defects of codimension-1, 2, and 3, of which the well-known point charges and flux loops are special cases. The complete algebraic structure of these defects defines a higher category, and can be viewed as an emergent higher symmetry. This plays a crucial role both in the classification of phases of matter and the possible fault-tolerant logical operations in topological quantum error-correcting codes. In this paper, we study several examples of such higher codimension defects from distinct perspectives. We mainly study a class of invertible codimension-2 topological defects, which we refer to as twist strings. We provide a number of general constructions for twist strings, in terms of gauging lower dimensional invertible phases, layer constructions, and condensation defects. We study some special examples in the context of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory with fermionic charges, in $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory with bosonic charges, and also in non-Abelian discrete gauge theories based on dihedral ($D_n$) and alternating ($A_6$) groups. The intersection between twist strings and Abelian flux loops sources Abelian point charges, which defines an $H^4$ cohomology class that characterizes part of an underlying 3-group symmetry of the topological order. The equations involving background gauge fields for the 3-group symmetry have been explicitly written down for various cases. We also study examples of twist strings interacting with non-Abelian flux loops (defining part of a non-invertible higher symmetry), examples of non-invertible codimension-2 defects, and examples of the interplay of codimension-2 defects with codimension-1 defects. We also find an example of geometric, not fully topological, twist strings in (3+1)D $A_6$ gauge theory.

  4 citations