Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Gravitational Regge bounds

  Kelian Häring, Alexander Zhiboedov

  SciPost Phys. 16, 034 (2024) · published 26 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We review the basic assumptions and spell out the detailed arguments that lead to the bound on the Regge growth of gravitational scattering amplitudes. The minimal extra ingredient compared to the gapped case - in addition to unitarity, analyticity, subexponentiality, and crossing - is the assumption that scattering at large impact parameters is controlled by known semi-classical physics. We bound the Regge growth of amplitudes both with the fixed transferred momentum and smeared over it. Our basic conclusion is that gravitational scattering amplitudes admit dispersion relations with two subtractions. For a sub-class of smeared amplitudes, black hole formation reduces the number of subtractions to one. Finally, using dispersion relations with two subtractions we derive bounds on the local growth of relativistic scattering amplitudes. Schematically, the local bound states that the amplitude cannot grow faster than $s^2$. The results obtained in the paper are valid for $d> 4$ for which the $2\to2$ scattering amplitude is well-defined.

  4 citations

• Error-correcting codes for fermionic quantum simulation

  Yu-An Chen, Alexey V. Gorshkov, Yijia Xu

  SciPost Phys. 16, 033 (2024) · published 26 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Utilizing the framework of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theories in the context of Pauli stabilizer codes, we present methodologies for simulating fermions via qubit systems on a two-dimensional square lattice. We investigate the symplectic automorphisms of the Pauli module over the Laurent polynomial ring. This enables us to systematically increase the code distances of stabilizer codes while fixing the rate between encoded logical fermions and physical qubits. We identify a family of stabilizer codes suitable for fermion simulation, achieving code distances of d=2,3,4,5,6,7, allowing correction of any $\lfloor \frac{d-1}{2} \rfloor$-qubit error. In contrast to the traditional code concatenation approach, our method can increase the code distances without decreasing the (fermionic) code rate. In particular, we explicitly show all stabilizers and logical operators for codes with code distances of d=3,4,5. We provide syndromes for all Pauli errors and invent a syndrome-matching algorithm to compute code distances numerically.

• Spey: Smooth inference for reinterpretation studies

  Jack Y. Araz

  SciPost Phys. 16, 032 (2024) · published 26 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Statistical models serve as the cornerstone for hypothesis testing in empirical studies. This paper introduces a new cross-platform Python-based package designed to utilize different likelihood prescriptions via a flexible plug-in system. This framework empowers users to propose, examine, and publish new likelihood prescriptions without developing software infrastructure, ultimately unifying and generalising different ways of constructing likelihoods and employing them for hypothesis testing within a unified platform. We propose a new simplified likelihood prescription, surpassing previous approximation accuracies by incorporating asymmetric uncertainties. Moreover, our package facilitates the integration of various likelihood combination routines, thereby broadening the scope of independent studies through a meta-analysis. By remaining agnostic to the source of the likelihood prescription and the signal hypothesis generator, our platform allows for the seamless implementation of packages with different likelihood prescriptions, fostering compatibility and interoperability.

• How to understand limitations of generative networks

  Ranit Das, Luigi Favaro, Theo Heimel, Claudius Krause, Tilman Plehn, David Shih

  SciPost Phys. 16, 031 (2024) · published 25 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Well-trained classifiers and their complete weight distributions provide us with a well-motivated and practicable method to test generative networks in particle physics. We illustrate their benefits for distribution-shifted jets, calorimeter showers, and reconstruction-level events. In all cases, the classifier weights make for a powerful test of the generative network, identify potential problems in the density estimation, relate them to the underlying physics, and tie in with a comprehensive precision and uncertainty treatment for generative networks.

  2 citations

• Large second-order Josephson effect in planar superconductor-semiconductor junctions

  P. Zhang, A. Zarassi, L. Jarjat, V. Van de Sande, M. Pendharkar, J. S. Lee, C. P. Dempsey, A. P. McFadden, S. D. Harrington, J. T. Dong, H. Wu, A. -H. Chen, M. Hocevar, C. J. Palmstrøm, S. M. Frolov

  SciPost Phys. 16, 030 (2024) · published 25 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the current-phase relations of Al/InAs-quantum well planar Josephson junctions fabricated using nanowire shadowing technique. Based on several experiments, we conclude that the junctions exhibit an unusually large second-order Josephson harmonic, the $\sin(2\varphi)$ term. First, superconducting quantum interference devices (dc-SQUIDs) show half-periodic oscillations, tunable by gate voltages as well as magnetic flux. Second, Josephson junction devices exhibit kinks near half-flux quantum in supercurrent diffraction patterns. Third, half-integer Shapiro steps are present in the junctions. Similar phenomena are observed in Sn/InAs quantum well devices. We perform data fitting to a numerical model with a two-component current phase relation. Analysis including a loop inductance suggests that the sign of the second harmonic term is negative. The microscopic origins of the observed effect remain to be understood. We consider alternative explanations which can account for some but not all of the evidence.

• The bosonic skin effect: Boundary condensation in asymmetric transport

  Louis Garbe, Yuri Minoguchi, Julian Huber, Peter Rabl

  SciPost Phys. 16, 029 (2024) · published 25 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the incoherent transport of bosonic particles through a one dimensional lattice with different left and right hopping rates, as modelled by the asymmetric simple inclusion process (ASIP). Specifically, we show that as the current passing through this system increases, a transition occurs, which is signified by the appearance of a characteristic zigzag pattern in the stationary density profile near the boundary. In this highly unusual transport phase, the local particle distribution alternates on every site between a thermal distribution and a Bose-condensed state with broken $U(1)$-symmetry. Furthermore, we show that the onset of this phase is closely related to the so-called non-Hermitian skin effect and coincides with an exceptional point in the spectrum of density fluctuations. Therefore, this effect establishes a direct connection between quantum transport, non-equilibrium condensation phenomena and non-Hermitian topology, which can be probed in cold-atom experiments or in systems with long-lived photonic, polaritonic and plasmonic excitations.

  2 citations

• Hydrodynamics of a relativistic charged fluid in the presence of a periodically modulated chemical potential

  Nicolas Chagnet, Koenraad Schalm

  SciPost Phys. 16, 028 (2024) · published 24 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study charged hydrodynamics in a periodic lattice background. Fluctuations are Bloch waves rather than single momentum Fourier modes. At boundaries of the unit cell where hydrodynamic fluctuations are formally degenerate with their Umklapped copy, level repulsion occurs. Novel mode mixings between charge, sound, and their Umklapped copies appear at finite chemical potential - both at zero and finite momentum. We provide explicit examples for an ionic lattice, i.e. a periodic external chemical potential, and verify our results with numerical computations in fluid-gravity duality.

• Holographic Weyl anomaly in string theory

  Lorenz Eberhardt, Sridip Pal

  SciPost Phys. 16, 027 (2024) · published 24 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We compute the worldsheet sphere partition function of string theory on global AdS$_3$ with pure NS-NS flux. Because of an unfixed Möbius symmetry on the worldsheet, there is a cancellation of infinities and only a part of the answer is unambiguous. We show that it precisely reproduces the holographic Weyl anomaly and the ambiguous terms correspond to the possible counterterms of the boundary CFT.

• Self-consistent dynamical maps for open quantum systems

  Orazio Scarlatella, Marco Schirò

  SciPost Phys. 16, 026 (2024) · published 24 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In several cases, open quantum systems can be successfully described using master equations relying on Born-Markov approximations, but going beyond these approaches has become often necessary. In this work, we introduce the NCA and NCA-Markov dynamical maps for open quantum systems, which go beyond these master equations replacing the Born approximation with a self-consistent approximation, known as non-crossing approximation (NCA). These maps are formally similar to master equations, but allow to capture non-perturbative effects of the environment at a moderate extra numerical cost. To demonstrate their capabilities, we apply them to the spin-boson model at zero temperature for both a Ohmic and a sub-Ohmic environment, showing that they can both qualitatively capture its strong-coupling behaviour, and be quantitatively correct beyond standard master equations.

  1 citation

• Cavity-induced bifurcation in classical rate theory

  Kalle Sulo Ukko Kansanen, Tero Tapio Heikkilä

  SciPost Phys. 16, 025 (2024) · published 23 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show how coupling an ensemble of bistable systems to a common cavity field affects the collective stochastic behavior of this ensemble. In particular, the cavity provides an effective interaction between the systems, and parametrically modifies the transition rates between the metastable states. We predict that the cavity induces a phase transition at a critical temperature which depends linearly on the number of systems. It shows up as a spontaneous symmetry breaking where the stationary states of the bistable system bifurcate. We observe that the transition rates slow down independently of the phase transition, but the rate modification vanishes for alternating signs of the system-cavity couplings, corresponding to a disordered ensemble of dipoles. Our results are of particular relevance in polaritonic chemistry where the presence of a cavity has been suggested to affect chemical reactions.