Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• What's anomalous in LHC jets?

  Thorsten Buss, Barry M. Dillon, Thorben Finke, Michael Krämer, Alessandro Morandini, Alexander Mück, Ivan Oleksiyuk, Tilman Plehn

  SciPost Phys. 15, 168 (2023) · published 17 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Searches for anomalies are a significant motivation for the LHC and help define key analysis steps, including triggers. We discuss specific examples how LHC anomalies can be defined through probability density estimates, evaluated in a physics space or in an appropriate neural network latent space, and discuss the model-dependence in choosing an appropriate data parameterisation. We illustrate this for classical k-means clustering, a Dirichlet variational autoencoder, and invertible neural networks. For two especially challenging scenarios of jets from a dark sector we evaluate the strengths and limitations of each method.

  5 citations

• Remarks on Berry connection in QFT, anomalies, and applications

  Mykola Dedushenko

  SciPost Phys. 15, 167 (2023) · published 17 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Berry connection has been recently generalized to higher-dimensional QFT, where it can be thought of as a topological term in the effective action for background couplings. Via the inflow, this term corresponds to the boundary anomaly in the space of couplings, another notion recently introduced in the literature. In this note we address the question of whether the old-fashioned Berry connection (for time-dependent couplings) still makes sense in a QFT on $\Sigma^{(d)}× \mathbb{R}$, where $\Sigma^{(d)}$ is a $d$-dimensional compact space and $\mathbb{R}$ is time. Compactness of $\Sigma^{(d)}$ relieves us of the IR divergences, so we only have to address the UV issues. We describe a number of cases when the Berry connection is well defined (which includes the $tt^*$ equations), and when it is not. We also mention a relation to the boundary anomalies and boundary states on the Euclidean $\Sigma^{(d)} × \mathbb{R}_{≥ 0}$. We then work out the examples of a free 3D Dirac fermion and a 3D $\mathcal{N}=2$ chiral multiplet. Finally, we consider 3D theories on $\mathbb{T}^2× \mathbb{R}$, where the space $\mathbb{T}^2$ is a two-torus, and apply our machinery to clarify some aspects of the relation between 3D SUSY vacua and elliptic cohomology. We also comment on the generalization to higher genus.

  1 citation

• A time-dependent momentum-resolved scattering approach to core-level spectroscopies

  Krissia Zawadzki, Alberto Nocera, Adrian E. Feiguin

  SciPost Phys. 15, 166 (2023) · published 17 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  While new light sources allow for unprecedented resolution in experiments with X-rays, a theoretical understanding of the scattering cross-section is lacking. In the particular case of strongly correlated electron systems, numerical techniques are quite limited, since conventional approaches rely on calculating a response function (Kramers-Heisenberg formula) that is obtained from a perturbative analysis of scattering processes in the frequency domain. This requires a knowledge of a full set of eigenstates in order to account for all intermediate processes away from equilibrium, limiting the applicability to small tractable systems. In this work, we present an alternative paradigm, recasting the problem in the time domain and explicitly solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation without the limitations of perturbation theory: a faithful simulation of the scattering processes taking place in actual experiments, including photons and core electrons. We show how this approach can yield the full time and momentum resolved Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering (RIXS) spectrum of strongly interacting many-body systems. We demonstrate the formalism with an application to Mott insulating Hubbard chains using the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group method, which does not require a priory knowledge of the eigenstates and can solve very large systems with dozens of orbitals. This approach can readily be applied to systems out of equilibrium without modification and generalized to other spectroscopies.

• Optimal mass variables for semivisible jets

  Kevin Pedro, Prasanth Shyamsundar

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 067 (2023) · published 17 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Strongly coupled hidden sector theories predict collider production of invisible, composite dark matter candidates mixed with standard model hadrons in the form of semivisible jets. Classical mass reconstruction techniques may not be optimal for these unusual topologies, in which the missing transverse momentum comes from massive particles and has a nontrivial relationship to the visible jet momentum. We apply the artificial event variable network, a semisupervised, interpretable machine learning technique that uses an information bottleneck, to derive superior mass reconstruction functions for several cases of resonant semivisible jet production. We demonstrate that the technique can extrapolate to unknown signal model parameter values. We further demonstrate the viability of conducting an actual search for new physics using this method, by applying the learned functions to standard model background events from quantum chromodynamics.

• Concentration of quantum equilibration and an estimate of the recurrence time

  Jonathon Riddell, Nathan J. Pagliaroli, Álvaro M. Alhambra

  SciPost Phys. 15, 165 (2023) · published 16 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that the dynamics of generic quantum systems concentrate around their equilibrium value when measuring at arbitrary times. This means that the probability of finding such values away from that equilibrium is exponentially suppressed, with a decay rate given by the effective dimension. Our result allows us to place a lower bound on the recurrence time of quantum systems, since recurrences corresponds to the rare events of finding a state away from equilibrium. In many-body systems, this bound is doubly exponential in system size. We also show corresponding results for free fermions, which display a weaker concentration and earlier recurrences.

• Interfacially adsorbed bubbles determine the shape of droplets

  Alessio Squarcini, Antonio Tinti

  SciPost Phys. 15, 164 (2023) · published 16 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The characterization of density correlations in the presence of strongly fluctuating interfaces has always been considered a difficult problem in statistical mechanics. Here we study - by using recently developed exact field-theoretical techniques - density correlations for an interface with endpoints on a wall forming a droplet in 2D. Our framework applies to interfaces entropically repelled by a hard wall as well as to wetting transitions. In the former case bubbles adsorbed on the interface are taken into account by the theory which yields a systematic treatment of finite-size corrections to one- and two-point functions and show how these are related to Brownian excursions. Our analytical predictions are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations without free parameters. We also determine one- and two-point functions at wetting by using integrable boundary field theory. We show that correlations are long ranged for entropic repulsion and at wetting. For both regimes we investigate correlations in momentum space by generalizing the notion of interface structure factor to semi-confined systems. Distinctive signatures of the two regimes manifest in the structure factor through a term that we identify on top of the capillary-wave one.

• Entropy-driven phase behavior of associative polymer networks

  Lorenzo Rovigatti, Francesco Sciortino

  SciPost Phys. 15, 163 (2023) · published 16 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the same species, the network formation occurs continuously as density increases. By contrast, it has been recently shown [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 047801 (2022)] that, if the attractive monomers are of two different and alternating types, the entropic gain of swapping intra-molecular bonds for inter-molecular connections induces a first order phase transition in the fully-bonded (i.e. low-temperature or, equivalently, large monomer-monomer attraction strength) limit and the network forms abruptly on increasing density. Here we use simulations to show that this phenomenon is robust with respect to thermal fluctuations, disorder and change in the polymer architecture, demonstrating its generality and likely relevance for the wide class of materials that can be modelled as associative (transient) polymer networks.

• Topological holography: Towards a unification of Landau and beyond-Landau physics

  Heidar Moradi, Seyed Faroogh Moosavian, Apoorv Tiwari

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 066 (2023) · published 16 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We outline a holographic framework that attempts to unify Landau and beyond-Landau paradigms of quantum phases and phase transitions. Leveraging a modern understanding of symmetries as topological defects/operators, the framework uses a topological order to organize the space of quantum systems with a global symmetry in one lower dimension. The global symmetry naturally serves as an input for the topological order. In particular, we holographically construct a String Operator Algebra (SOA) which is the building block of symmetric quantum systems with a given symmetry G in one lower dimension. This exposes a vast web of dualities which act on the space of G-symmetric quantum systems. The SOA facilitates the classification of gapped phases as well as their corresponding order parameters and fundamental excitations, while dualities help to navigate and predict various corners of phase diagrams and analytically compute universality classes of phase transitions. A novelty of the approach is that it treats conventional Landau and unconventional topological phase transitions on an equal footing, thereby providing a holographic unification of these seemingly-disparate domains of understanding. We uncover a new feature of gapped phases and their multi-critical points, which we dub fusion structure, that encodes information about which phases and transitions can be dual to each other. Furthermore, we discover that self-dual systems typically posses emergent non-invertible, i.e., beyond group-like symmetries. We apply these ideas to $1+1d$ quantum spin chains with finite Abelian group symmetry, using topologically-ordered systems in $2+1d$. We predict the phase diagrams of various concrete spin models, and analytically compute the full conformal spectra of non-trivial quantum phase transitions, which we then verify numerically.

  5 citations

• Phases of cold holographic QCD: Baryons, pions and rho mesons

  Nicolas Kovensky, Aaron Poole, Andreas Schmitt

  SciPost Phys. 15, 162 (2023) · published 13 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We improve the holographic description of isospin-asymmetric baryonic matter within the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model by accounting for a realistic pion mass, computing the pion condensate dynamically, and including rho meson condensation by allowing the gauge field in the bulk to be anisotropic. This description takes into account the coexistence of baryonic matter with pion and rho meson condensates. Our main result is the zero-temperature phase diagram in the plane of baryon and isospin chemical potentials. We find that the effective pion mass in the baryonic medium increases with baryon density and that, as a consequence, there is no pion condensation in neutron-star matter. Our improved description also predicts that baryons are disfavored at low baryon chemical potentials even for arbitrarily large isospin chemical potential. Instead, rho meson condensation sets in on top of the pion condensate at an isospin chemical potential of about $9.4 m_\pi$. We further observe a highly non-monotonic phase boundary regarding the disappearance of pion condensation.

• Skyrmion crystals in the triangular Kondo lattice model

  Zhentao Wang, Cristian D. Batista

  SciPost Phys. 15, 161 (2023) · published 13 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a systematic study of the formation of skyrmion crystals in a triangular Kondo Lattice model for generic electron filling fractions. Our results indicate that the four-sublattice chiral antiferromagnetic ordering that was reported more than one decade ago can be understood as the dense limit of a sequence of skyrmion crystals whose lattice parameter is dictated by the Fermi wave-vector. This observation has important implications for the ongoing search of skyrmion crystals in metallic materials with localized magnetic moments.

  4 citations