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SciPost Physics Vol. 12 issue 3 (March 2022)

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Local measures of entanglement in black holes and CFTs

Andrew Rolph

SciPost Phys. 12, 079 (2022) · published 1 March 2022 | · pdf

We study the structure and dynamics of entanglement in CFTs and black holes. We use a local entanglement measure, the entanglement contour, which is a spatial density function for von Neumann entropy with some additional properties. The entanglement contour can be calculated in many 1+1d condensed matter systems and simple models of black hole evaporation. We calculate the entanglement contour of a state excited by a splitting quench, and find universal results for the entanglement contours of low energy non-equilibrium states in 2d CFTs. We also calculate the contour of a non-gravitational bath coupled to an extremal AdS$_2$ black hole, and find that the contour only has finite support within the bath, due to an island phase transition. The particular entanglement contour proposal we use quantifies how well the bath's state can be reconstructed from its marginals, through its connection to conditional mutual information, and the vanishing contour is a reflection of the protection of bulk island regions against erasures of the boundary state.
Annealed averages in spin and matrix models

Laura Foini, Jorge Kurchan

SciPost Phys. 12, 080 (2022) · published 3 March 2022 | · pdf

A disordered system is denominated 'annealed' when the interactions themselves may evolve and adjust their values to lower the free energy. The opposite ('quenched') situation when disorder is fixed, is the one relevant for physical spin-glasses, and has received vastly more attention. Other problems however are more natural in the annealed situation: in this work we discuss examples where annealed averages are interesting, in the context of matrix models. We first discuss how in practice, when system and disorder adapt together, annealed systems develop `planted' solutions spontaneously, as the ones found in the study of inference problems. In the second part, we study the probability distribution of elements of a matrix derived from a rotationally invariant (not necessarily Gaussian) ensemble, a problem that maps into the annealed average of a spin glass model.
The edge of chaos: quantum field theory and deep neural networks

Kevin T. Grosvenor, Ro Jefferson

SciPost Phys. 12, 081 (2022) · published 3 March 2022 | · pdf

We explicitly construct the quantum field theory corresponding to a general class of deep neural networks encompassing both recurrent and feedforward architectures. We first consider the mean-field theory (MFT) obtained as the leading saddlepoint in the action, and derive the condition for criticality via the largest Lyapunov exponent. We then compute the loop corrections to the correlation function in a perturbative expansion in the ratio of depth T to width N, and find a precise analogy with the well-studied O(N) vector model, in which the variance of the weight initializations plays the role of the 't Hooft coupling. In particular, we compute both the O(1) corrections quantifying fluctuations from typicality in the ensemble of networks, and the subleading O(T/N) corrections due to finite-width effects. These provide corrections to the correlation length that controls the depth to which information can propagate through the network, and thereby sets the scale at which such networks are trainable by gradient descent. Our analysis provides a first-principles approach to the rapidly emerging NN-QFT correspondence, and opens several interesting avenues to the study of criticality in deep neural networks.
Circular Rosenzweig-Porter random matrix ensemble

Wouter Buijsman, Yevgeny Bar Lev

SciPost Phys. 12, 082 (2022) · published 3 March 2022 | · pdf

The Rosenzweig-Porter random matrix ensemble serves as a qualitative phenomenological model for the level statistics and fractality of eigenstates across the many-body localization transition in static systems. We propose a unitary (circular) analogue of this ensemble, which similarly captures the phenomenology of many-body localization in periodically driven (Floquet) systems. We define this ensemble as the outcome of a Dyson Brownian motion process. We show numerical evidence that this ensemble shares some key statistical properties with the Rosenzweig-Porter ensemble for both the eigenvalues and the eigenstates.
Hyperbolic compactification of M-theory and de Sitter quantum gravity

G. Bruno De Luca, Eva Silverstein, Gonzalo Torroba

SciPost Phys. 12, 083 (2022) · published 4 March 2022 | · pdf

We present a mechanism for accelerated expansion of the universe in the generic case of negative-curvature compactifications of M-theory, with minimal ingredients. M-theory on a hyperbolic manifold with small closed geodesics supporting Casimir energy -- along with a single classical source (7-form flux) -- contains an immediate 3-term structure for volume stabilization at positive potential energy. Hyperbolic manifolds are well-studied mathematically, with an important rigidity property at fixed volume. They and their Dehn fillings to more general Einstein spaces exhibit explicit discrete parameters that yield small closed geodesics supporting Casimir energy. The off-shell effective potential derived by M. Douglas incorporates the warped product structure via the constraints of general relativity, screening negative energy. Analyzing the fields sourced by the localized Casimir energy and the available discrete choices of manifolds and fluxes, we find a regime where the net curvature, Casimir energy, and flux compete at large radius and stabilize the volume. Further metric and form field deformations are highly constrained by hyperbolic rigidity and warping effects, leading to calculations giving strong indications of a positive Hessian, and residual tadpoles are small. We test this via explicit back reacted solutions and perturbations in patches including the Dehn filling regions, initiate a neural network study of further aspects of the internal fields, and derive a Maldacena-Nunez style no-go theorem for Anti-de Sitter extrema. A simple generalization incorporating 4-form flux produces axion monodromy inflation. As a relatively simple de Sitter uplift of the large-N M2-brane theory, the construction applies to de Sitter holography as well as to cosmological modeling, and introduces new connections between mathematics and the physics of string/M theory compactifications.
Semi-local Bounds on Null Energy in QFT

Jackson R. Fliss, Ben Freivogel

SciPost Phys. 12, 084 (2022) · published 7 March 2022 | · pdf

We investigate whether the null energy, averaged over some region of space- time, is bounded below in QFT. First, we use light-sheet quantization to prove a version of the “Smeared Null Energy Condition” (SNEC) proposed in [1], applicable for free and super-renormalizable QFT’s equipped with a UV cut- off. Through an explicit construction of squeezed states, we show that the SNEC bound cannot be improved by smearing on a light-sheet alone. We propose that smearing the null energy over two null directions defines an op- erator that is bounded below and independent of the UV cutoff, in what we call the “Double-Smeared Null Energy Condition,” or DSNEC. We indicate schematically how this bound behaves with respect to the smearing lengths and argue that the DSNEC displays a transition when the smearing lengths are comparable to the correlation length.
Enstrophy from symmetry

Raja Marjieh, Natalia Pinzani-Fokeeva, Amos Yarom

SciPost Phys. 12, 085 (2022) · published 9 March 2022 | · pdf

We study symmetry principles associated with the approximately conserved enstrophy current, responsible for the inverse energy cascade in non relativistic 2+1 dimensional turbulence. We do so by identifying the accidental symmetry associated with enstrophy current conservation in a recently realized effective action principle for hydrodynamics. Our analysis deals with both relativistic and non relativistic effective actions and their associated symmetries.
Towards traversable wormholes from force-free plasmas

Nabil Iqbal, Simon F. Ross

SciPost Phys. 12, 086 (2022) · published 9 March 2022 | · pdf

The near-horizon region of magnetically charged black holes can have very strong magnetic fields. A useful low-energy effective theory for fluctuations of the fields, coupled to electrically charged particles, is force-free electrodynamics. The low energy collective excitations include a large number of Alfven wave modes, which have a massless dispersion relation along the field worldlines. We attempt to construct traversable wormhole solutions using the negative Casimir energy of the Alfven wave modes, analogously to the recent construction using charged massless fermions. The behaviour of massless scalars in the near-horizon region implies that the size of the wormholes is strongly restricted and cannot be made large, even though the force free description is valid in a larger regime.
A novel background field approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition

Duifje Maria van Egmond, Urko Reinosa, Julien Serreau, Matthieu Tissier

SciPost Phys. 12, 087 (2022) · published 9 March 2022 | · pdf

We propose a novel approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition in Yang-Mills theories in the context of gauge-fixed calculations. The method is based on a background-field generalisation of the Landau gauge (to which it reduces at vanishing temperature) with a given, center-symmetric background. This is to be contrasted with most implementations of background field methods in gauge theories, where one uses a variable, self-consistent background. Our proposal is a bona fide gauge fixing that can easily be implemented on the lattice and in continuum approaches. The resulting gauge-fixed action explicitly exhibits the center symmetry of the nonzero temperature theory that controls the confinement-deconfinement transition. We show that, in that gauge, the electric susceptibility diverges at a second order transition [e.g., in the SU(2) theory], so that the gluon propagator is a clear probe of the transition. We implement our proposal in the perturbative Curci-Ferrari model, known for its successful description of various infrared aspects of Yang-Mills theories, including the confinement-deconfinement transition. Our one-loop calculation confirms our general expectation for the susceptibility while providing transition temperatures in excellent agreement with the SU(2) and SU(3) lattice values. Finally, the Polyakov loops above the transition show a more moderate rise, in contrast to previous implementations of the Curci-Ferrari model using a self-consistent background, and our SU(3) result agrees quite well with lattice results in the range $[0,2T_c]$.
Branch Point Twist Field Form Factors in the sine-Gordon Model II: Composite Twist Fields and Symmetry Resolved Entanglement

David X. Horvath, Pasquale Calabrese, Olalla A. Castro-Alvaredo

SciPost Phys. 12, 088 (2022) · published 10 March 2022 | · pdf

In this paper we continue the programme initiated in Part I, that is the study of entanglement measures in the sine-Gordon model. In both parts, we have focussed on one specific technique, that is the well-known connection between branch point twist field correlators and measures of entanglement in 1+1D integrable quantum field theory. Our papers apply this technique for the first time to a non-diagonal theory with an involved particle spectrum, the sine-Gordon model. In this Part II we focus on a different entanglement measure, the symmetry resolved entanglement, and develop its associated twist field description, exploiting the underlying U(1) symmetry of the theory. In this context, conventional branch point twist fields are no longer the fields required, but instead we must work with one of their composite generalisations, which can be understood as the field resulting from the fusion of a standard branch point twist field and the sine-Gordon exponential field associated with U(1) symmetry. The resulting composite twist field has correlators which as usual admit a form factor expansion. In this paper we write the associated form factor equations and solve them for various examples in the breather sector by using the method of angular quantisation. We show that, in the attractive regime, this is the sector which provides the leading contribution to the symmetry resolved entropies, both Renyi and von Neumann. We compute the latter in the limit of a large region size and show that they satisfy the property of equipartition, that is the leading contribution to the symmetry resolved entanglement is independent of the symmetry sector.
Relative entropic uncertainty relation for scalar quantum fields

Stefan Floerchinger, Tobias Haas, Markus Schröfl

SciPost Phys. 12, 089 (2022) · published 10 March 2022 | · pdf

Entropic uncertainty is a well-known concept to formulate uncertainty relations for continuous variable quantum systems with finitely many degrees of freedom. Typically, the bounds of such relations scale with the number of oscillator modes, preventing a straight-forward generalization to quantum field theories. In this work, we overcome this difficulty by introducing the notion of a functional relative entropy and show that it has a meaningful field theory limit. We present the first entropic uncertainty relation for a scalar quantum field theory and exemplify its behavior by considering few particle excitations and the thermal state. Also, we show that the relation implies the multidimensional Heisenberg uncertainty relation.
Random quench predicts universal properties of amorphous solids

Masanari Shimada, Eric De Giuli

SciPost Phys. 12, 090 (2022) · published 11 March 2022 | · pdf

Amorphous solids display numerous universal features in their mechanics, structure, and response. Current models assume heterogeneity in mesoscale elastic properties, but require fine-tuning in order to quantitatively explain vibrational properties. A complete model should derive the magnitude and character of elastic heterogeneity from an initially structureless medium, through a model of the quenching process during which the temperature is rapidly lowered and the solid is formed. Here we propose a field-theoretic model of a quench, and compute structural, mechanical, and vibrational observables in arbitrary dimension $d$. This allows us to relate the properties of the amorphous solid to those of the initial medium, and to those of the quench. We show that previous mean-field results are subsumed by our analysis and unify spatial fluctuations of elastic moduli, long-range correlations of inherent state stress, universal vibrational anomalies, and localized modes into one picture.
Statistical mechanics of coupled supercooled liquids in finite dimensions

Benjamin Guiselin, Ludovic Berthier, Gilles Tarjus

SciPost Phys. 12, 091 (2022) · published 14 March 2022 | · pdf

We study the statistical mechanics of supercooled liquids when the system evolves at a temperature $T$ with a field $\epsilon$ linearly coupled to its overlap with a reference configuration of the same liquid sampled at a temperature $T_0$. We use mean-field theory to fully characterize the influence of the reference temperature $T_0$, and we mainly study the case of a fixed, low-$T_0$ value in computer simulations. We numerically investigate the extended phase diagram in the $(\epsilon,T)$ plane of model glass-forming liquids in spatial dimensions $d=2$ and $d=3$, relying on umbrella sampling and reweighting techniques. For both $2d$ and $3d$ cases, a similar phenomenology with nontrivial thermodynamic fluctuations of the overlap is observed at low temperatures, but a detailed finite-size analysis reveals qualitatively distinct behaviors. We establish the existence of a first-order transition line for nonzero $\epsilon$ ending in a critical point in the universality class of the random-field Ising model (RFIM) in $d=3$. In $d=2$ instead, no phase transition is found in large enough systems at least down to temperatures below the extrapolated calorimetric glass transition temperature $T_g$. Our results confirm that glass-forming liquid samples of limited size display the thermodynamic fluctuations expected for finite systems undergoing a random first-order transition. They also support the relevance of the physics of the RFIM for supercooled liquids, which may then explain the qualitative difference between $2d$ and $3d$ glass-formers.
The origin of the period-$2T/7$ quasi-breathing in disk-shaped Gross-Pitaevskii breathers

Jordi Torrents, Vanja Dunjko, Marina Gonchenko, Gregory E. Astrakharchik, Maxim Olshanii

SciPost Phys. 12, 092 (2022) · published 14 March 2022 | · pdf

We address the origins of the quasi-periodic breathing observed in [Phys. Rev.\ X vol. 9, 021035 (2019)] in disk-shaped harmonically trapped two-dimensional Bose condensates, where the quasi-period $T_{\text{quasi-breathing}}\sim$~$2T/7$ and $T$ is the period of the harmonic trap. We show that, due to an unexplained coincidence, the first instance of the collapse of the hydrodynamic description, at $t^{*} = \arctan(\sqrt{2})/(2\pi) T \approx T/7$, emerges as a `skillful impostor' of the quasi-breathing half-period $T_{\text{quasi-breathing}}/2$. At the time $t^{*}$, the velocity field almost vanishes, supporting the requisite time-reversal invariance. We find that this phenomenon persists for scale-invariant gases in all spatial dimensions, being exact in one dimension and, likely, approximate in all others. In $\bm{d}$ dimensions, the quasi-breathing half-period assumes the form $T_{\text{quasi-breathing}}/2 \equiv t^{*} = \arctan(\sqrt{d})/(2\pi) T$. Remaining unresolved is the origin of the period-$2T$ breathing, reported in the same experiment.
Photoemission spectral functions from the three-body Green's function

Gabriele Riva, Timothée Audinet, Matthieu Vladaj, Pina Romaniello, J. Arjan Berger

SciPost Phys. 12, 093 (2022) · published 15 March 2022 | · pdf

We present an original strategy for the calculation of direct and inverse photo-emission spectra from first principles. The main goal is to go beyond the standard Green's function approaches, such as the $GW$ method, in order to find a good description not only of the quasiparticles but also of the satellite structures, which are of particular importance in strongly correlated materials. To this end we use as a key quantity the three-body Green's function, or, more precisely, its hole-hole-electron and electron-electron-hole parts, and we show how the one-body Green's function, and hence the corresponding spectral function, can be retrieved from it. We show that, contrary to the one-body Green's function, information about satellites is already present in the non-interacting three-body Green's function. Therefore, simple approximations to the three-body self-energy, which is defined by the Dyson equation for the three-body Green's function and which contains many-body effects, can still yield accurate spectral functions. In particular, the self-energy can be chosen to be static which could simplify a self-consistent solution of the Dyson equation. We give a proof of principle of our strategy by applying it to the Hubbard dimer, for which the exact self-energy is available.
Multimode-polariton superradiance via Floquet engineering

Christian Høj Johansen, Johannes Lang, Andrea Morales, Alexander Baumgärtner, Tobias Donner, Francesco Piazza

SciPost Phys. 12, 094 (2022) · published 16 March 2022 | · pdf

We consider an ensemble of ultracold bosonic atoms within a near-planar cavity, driven by a far detuned laser whose phase is modulated at a frequency comparable to the transverse cavity mode spacing. We show that a strong, dispersive atom-photon coupling can be reached for many transverse cavity modes at once. The resulting Floquet polaritons involve a superposition of a set of cavity modes with a density excitation of the atomic cloud. The mutual interactions between these modes lead to distinct avoided crossings between the polaritons. Increasing the laser drive intensity, a low-lying multimode Floquet polariton softens and eventually becomes undamped, corresponding to the transition to a superradiant, self-organized phase. We demonstrate the stability of the stationary state for a broad range of parameters.
Measurable signatures of bosonic fractional Chern insulator states and their fractional excitations in a quantum-gas microscope

Botao Wang, Xiao-Yu Dong, André Eckardt

SciPost Phys. 12, 095 (2022) · published 17 March 2022 | · pdf

The recent progress in engineering topological band structures in optical-lattice systems makes it promising to study fractional Chern insulator states in these systems. Here we consider a realistic finite system of a few repulsively interacting bosons on a square lattice with magnetic flux and sharp edges, as it can be realized in quantum-gas microscopes. We investigate under which conditions a fractional Chern insulator state corresponding to the Laughlin-like state at filling $\nu=1/2$ can be stabilized and its fractional excitations probed. Using numerical simulations, we find an incompressible bulk density at the expected filling for systems, whose linear extent is as small as 6-8 sites. This is a promising result, since such small systems are favorable with respect to the required adiabatic state preparation. Moreover, we also see very clear signatures of excitations with fractional charge in response both to static pinning potentials and dynamical flux insertion. Since the compressible edges, which are found to feature chiral currents, can serve as a reservoir, these observations are robust against changes in the total particle number. Our results suggest that signatures of both a fractional Chern insulator state and its fractional excitations can be found under realistic experimental conditions.
Stability of topological purity under random local unitaries

Salvatore F. E. Oliviero, Lorenzo Leone, You Zhou, Alioscia Hamma

SciPost Phys. 12, 096 (2022) · published 17 March 2022 | · pdf

In this work, we provide an analytical proof of the robustness of a form of topological entanglement under a model of random local perturbations. We define the notion of topological purity and show that, in the context of quantum double models, this quantity does detect topological order and is robust under the action of a random shallow quantum circuit.
Algebraic theory of quantum synchronization and limit cycles under dissipation

Berislav Buča, Cameron Booker, Dieter Jaksch

SciPost Phys. 12, 097 (2022) · published 17 March 2022 | · pdf

Synchronization is a phenomenon where interacting particles lock their motion and display non-trivial dynamics. Despite intense efforts studying synchronization in systems without clear classical limits, no comprehensive theory has been found. We develop such a general theory based on novel necessary and sufficient algebraic criteria for persistently oscillating eigenmodes (limit cycles) of time-independent quantum master equations. We show these eigenmodes must be quantum coherent and give an exact analytical solution for all such dynamics in terms of a dynamical symmetry algebra. Using our theory, we study both stable synchronization and metastable/transient synchronization. We use our theory to fully characterise spontaneous synchronization of autonomous systems. Moreover, we give compact algebraic criteria that may be used to prove absence of synchronization. We demonstrate synchronization in several systems relevant for various fermionic cold atom experiments.
2-Group symmetries and their classification in 6d

Fabio Apruzzi, Lakshya Bhardwaj, Dewi S. W. Gould, Sakura Schäfer-Nameki

SciPost Phys. 12, 098 (2022) · published 18 March 2022 | · pdf

We uncover 2-group symmetries in 6d superconformal field theories. These symmetries arise when the discrete 1-form symmetry and continuous flavor symmetry group of a theory mix with each other. We classify all 6d superconformal field theories with such 2-group symmetries. The approach taken in 6d is applicable more generally, with minor modifications to include dimension specific operators (such as instantons in 5d and monopoles in 3d), and we provide a discussion of the dimension-independent aspects of the analysis. We include an ancillary mathematica code for computing 2-group symmetries, once the dimension specific input is provided. We also discuss a mixed 't Hooft anomaly between discrete 0-form and 1-form symmetries in 6d.
Bubble instabilities of mIIA on AdS$_4\times S^6$

Pieter Bomans, Davide Cassani, Giuseppe Dibitetto, Nicolò Petri

SciPost Phys. 12, 099 (2022) · published 18 March 2022 | · pdf

We consider compactifications of massive IIA supergravity on a six-sphere. This setup is known to give rise to non-supersymmetric AdS$_4$ vacua preserving SO$(7)$ as well as G$_2$ residual symmetry. Both solutions have a round $S^6$ metric and are supported by the Romans’ mass and internal $F_6$ flux. While the SO$(7)$ invariant vacuum is known to be perturbatively unstable, the G$_2$ invariant one has been found to have a fully stable Kaluza-Klein spectrum. Moreover, it has been shown to be protected against brane-jet instabilities. Motivated by these results, we study possible bubbling solutions connected to the G$_2$ vacuum, representing non-perturbative instabilities of the latter. We indeed find an instability channel represented by the nucleation of a bubble of nothing dressed up with a homogeneous D2 brane charge distribution in the internal space. Our solution generalizes to the case where $S^6$ is replaced by any six-dimensional nearly-Kähler manifold.
A note on the identity module in $c=0$ CFTs

Yifei He, Hubert Saleur

SciPost Phys. 12, 100 (2022) · published 21 March 2022 | · pdf

It has long been understood that non-trivial Conformal Field Theories (CFTs) with vanishing central charge ($c=0$) are logarithmic. So far however, the structure of the identity module -- the (left and right) Virasoro descendants of the identity field -- had not been elucidated beyond the stress-energy tensor $T$ and its logarithmic partner $t$ (the solution of the "$c\to 0$ catastrophe"). In this paper, we determine this structure together with the associated OPE of primary fields up to level $h=\bar{h}=2$ for polymers and percolation CFTs. This is done by taking the $c\to 0$ limit of $O(n)$ and Potts models and combining recent results from the bootstrap with arguments based on conformal invariance and self-duality. We find that the structure contains a rank-3 Jordan cell involving the field $T\bar{T}$, and is identical for polymers and percolation. It is characterized in part by the common value of a non-chiral logarithmic coupling $a_0=-{25\over 48}$.
Interleaved resonance decays and electroweak radiation in the Vincia parton shower

Helen Brooks, Peter Skands, Rob Verheyen

SciPost Phys. 12, 101 (2022) · published 22 March 2022 | · pdf

We propose a framework for high-energy interactions in which resonance decays and electroweak branching processes are interleaved with the QCD evolution in a single com- mon sequence of decreasing resolution scales. The interleaved treatment of resonance decays allows for a new treatment of finite-width effects in parton showers. At scales above their offshellness (i.e., typically Q > Γ ), resonances participate explicitly as incom- ing and outgoing states in branching processes, while they are effectively “integrated out” of the description at lower scales. We implement this formalism, together with a full set of antenna functions for branching processes involving electroweak (W/Z/H) bosons in the Vincia shower module in Pythia 8.3, and study some of the consequences
Superintegrable cellular automata and dual unitary gates from Yang-Baxter maps

Tamás Gombor, Balázs Pozsgay

SciPost Phys. 12, 102 (2022) · published 22 March 2022 | · pdf

We consider one dimensional block cellular automata, where the local update rules are given by Yang-Baxter maps, which are set theoretical solutions of the Yang-Baxter equations. We show that such systems are superintegrable: they possess an exponentially large set of conserved local charges, such that the charge densities propagate ballistically on the chain. For these quantities we observe a complete absence of "operator spreading". In addition, the models can also have other local charges which are conserved only additively. We discuss concrete models up to local dimensions $N\le 4$, and show that they give rise to rich physical behaviour, including non-trivial scattering of particles and the coexistence of ballistic and diffusive transport. We find that the local update rules are classical versions of the "dual unitary gates" if the Yang-Baxter maps are non-degenerate. We discuss consequences of dual unitarity, and we also discuss a family of dual unitary gates obtained by a non-integrable quantum mechanical deformation of the Yang-Baxter maps.
Partial thermalisation of a two-state system coupled to a finite quantum bath

Philip J. D. Crowley, Anushya Chandran

SciPost Phys. 12, 103 (2022) · published 23 March 2022 | · pdf

The eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis (ETH) is a statistical characterisation of eigen-energies, eigenstates and matrix elements of local operators in thermalising quantum systems. We develop an ETH-like ansatz of a partially thermalising system composed of a spin-1/2 coupled to a finite quantum bath. The spin-bath coupling is sufficiently weak that ETH does not apply, but sufficiently strong that perturbation theory fails. We calculate (i) the distribution of fidelity susceptibilities, which takes a broadly distributed form, (ii) the distribution of spin eigenstate entropies, which takes a bi-modal form, (iii) infinite time memory of spin observables, (iv) the distribution of matrix elements of local operators on the bath, which is non-Gaussian, and (v) the intermediate entropic enhancement of the bath, which interpolates smoothly between zero and the ETH value of log 2. The enhancement is a consequence of rare many-body resonances, and is asymptotically larger than the typical eigenstate entanglement entropy. We verify these results numerically and discuss their connections to the many-body localisation transition.
Uncertainties associated with GAN-generated datasets in high energy physics

Konstantin T. Matchev, Alexander Roman, Prasanth Shyamsundar

SciPost Phys. 12, 104 (2022) · published 24 March 2022 | · pdf

Recently, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) trained on samples of traditionally simulated collider events have been proposed as a way of generating larger simulated datasets at a reduced computational cost. In this paper we point out that data generated by a GAN cannot statistically be better than the data it was trained on, and critically examine the applicability of GANs in various situations, including a) for replacing the entire Monte Carlo pipeline or parts of it, and b) to produce datasets for usage in highly sensitive analyses or sub-optimal ones. We present our arguments using information theoretic demonstrations, a toy example, as well as in the form of a formal statement, and identify some potential valid uses of GANs in collider simulations.
Asymmetric power dissipation in electronic transport through a quantum point contact

Carmen Blaas-Anselmi, Félix Helluin, Rodolfo A. Jalabert, Guillaume Weick, Dietmar Weinmann

SciPost Phys. 12, 105 (2022) · published 25 March 2022 | · pdf

We investigate the power dissipated by an electronic current flowing through a quantum point contact in a two-dimensional electron gas. Based on the Landauer-B\"uttiker approach to quantum transport, we evaluate the power that is dissipated on the two sides of the constriction as a function of the Fermi energy, temperature, and applied voltage. We demonstrate that an asymmetry appears in the dissipation, which is most pronounced when the quantum point contact is tuned to a conductance step where the transmission strongly depends on energy. At low temperatures, the asymmetry is enhanced when the temperature increases. An estimation for the position of the maximum dissipation is provided.
Symmetry-resolved dynamical purification in synthetic quantum matter

Vittorio Vitale, Andreas Elben, Richard Kueng, Antoine Neven, Jose Carrasco, Barbara Kraus, Peter Zoller, Pasquale Calabrese, Benoit Vermersch, Marcello Dalmonte

SciPost Phys. 12, 106 (2022) · published 25 March 2022 | · pdf

When a quantum system initialized in a product state is subjected to either coherent or incoherent dynamics, the entropy of any of its connected partitions generically increases as a function of time, signalling the inevitable spreading of (quantum) information throughout the system. Here, we show that, in the presence of continuous symmetries and under ubiquitous experimental conditions, symmetry-resolved information spreading is inhibited due to the competition of coherent and incoherent dynamics: in given quantum number sectors, entropy decreases as a function of time, signalling dynamical purification. Such dynamical purification bridges between two distinct short and intermediate time regimes, characterized by a log-volume and log-area entropy law, respectively. It is generic to symmetric quantum evolution, and as such occurs for different partition geometry and topology, and classes of (local) Liouville dynamics. We then develop a protocol to measure symmetry-resolved entropies and negativities in synthetic quantum systems based on the random unitary toolbox, and demonstrate the generality of dynamical purification using experimental data from trapped ion experiments [Brydges et al., Science 364, 260 (2019)]. Our work shows that symmetry plays a key role as a magnifying glass to characterize many-body dynamics in open quantum systems, and, in particular, in noisy-intermediate scale quantum devices.
Detection of Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition via Generative Adversarial Networks

Daniele Contessi, Elisa Ricci, Alessio Recati, Matteo Rizzi

SciPost Phys. 12, 107 (2022) · published 25 March 2022 | · pdf

The detection of phase transitions in quantum many-body systems with lowest possible prior knowledge of their details is among the most rousing goals of the flourishing application of machine-learning techniques to physical questions. Here, we train a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) with the Entanglement Spectrum of a system bipartition, as extracted by means of Matrix Product States ans\"atze. We are able to identify gapless-to-gapped phase transitions in different one-dimensional models by looking at the machine inability to reconstruct outsider data with respect to the training set. We foresee that GAN-based methods will become instrumental in anomaly detection schemes applied to the determination of phase-diagrams.
Quasiparticle disintegration in fermionic superfluids

Senne Van Loon, Jacques Tempere, Hadrien Kurkjian

SciPost Phys. 12, 108 (2022) · published 28 March 2022 | · pdf

We study the fermionic quasiparticle spectrum in a zero-temperature superfluid Fermi gas, and in particular how it is modified by different disintegration processes. On top of the disintegration by emission of a collective boson ($1\to2$, subject of a previous study, PRL 124, 073404), we consider here disintegration events where three quasiparticles are emitted ($1\to3$). We show that both disintegration processes are described by a $t$-matrix self-energy (as well as some highly off-resonant vacuum processes), and we characterize the associated disintegration continua. At strong coupling, we show that the quasiparticle spectrum is heavily distorted near the $1\to3$ disintegration threshold. Near the dispersion minimum, where the quasiparticles remain well-defined, the main effect of the off-shell disintegration processes is to shift the location of the minimum by a value that corresponds to the Hartree shift in the BCS limit. With our approximation of the self-energy, the correction to the energy gap with respect to the mean-field result however remains small, in contrast with experimental measurements.
Exceptional points and pseudo-Hermiticity in real potential scattering

Farhang Loran, Ali Mostafazadeh

SciPost Phys. 12, 109 (2022) · published 28 March 2022 | · pdf

We employ a recently-developed transfer-matrix formulation of scattering theory in two dimensions to study a class of scattering setups modeled by real potentials. The transfer matrix for these potentials is related to the time-evolution operator for an associated pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian operator $\widehat{\boldsymbol{H}}$ which develops an exceptional point for a discrete set of incident wavenumbers. We use the spectral properties of this operator to determine the transfer matrix of these potentials and solve their scattering problem. We apply our general results to explore the scattering of waves by a waveguide of finite length in two dimensions, where the source of the incident wave and the detectors measuring the scattered wave are positioned at spatial infinities while the interior of the waveguide, which is filled with an inactive material, forms a finite rectangular region of the space. The study of this model allows us to elucidate the physical meaning and implications of the presence of the real and complex eigenvalues of $\widehat{\boldsymbol{H}}$ and its exceptional points. Our results reveal the relevance of the concepts of pseudo-Hermitian operator and exceptional point in the standard quantum mechanics of closed systems where the potentials are required to be real.
Flowing bosonization in the nonperturbative functional renormalization-group approach

Romain Daviet, Nicolas Dupuis

SciPost Phys. 12, 110 (2022) · published 28 March 2022 | · pdf

Bosonization allows one to describe the low-energy physics of one-dimensional quantum fluids within a bosonic effective field theory formulated in terms of two fields: the "density" field $\varphi$ and its conjugate partner, the phase $\vartheta$ of the superfluid order parameter. We discuss the implementation of the nonperturbative functional renormalization group in this formalism, considering a Luttinger liquid in a periodic potential as an example. We show that in order for $\vartheta$ and $\varphi$ to remain conjugate variables at all energy scales, one must dynamically redefine the field $\vartheta$ along the renormalization-group flow. We derive explicit flow equations using a derivative expansion of the scale-dependent effective action to second order and show that they reproduce the flow equations of the sine-Gordon model (obtained by integrating out the field $\vartheta$ from the outset) derived within the same approximation. Only with the scale-dependent (flowing) reparametrization of the phase field $\vartheta$ do we obtain the standard phenomenology of the Luttinger liquid (when the periodic potential is sufficiently weak so as to avoid the Mott-insulating phase) characterized by two low-energy parameters, the velocity of the sound mode and the renormalized Luttinger parameter.
Quantum Gutzwiller approach for the two-component Bose-Hubbard model

Victor E. Colussi, Fabio Caleffi, Chiara Menotti, Alessio Recati

SciPost Phys. 12, 111 (2022) · published 29 March 2022 | · pdf

We study the effects of quantum fluctuations in the two-component Bose-Hubbard model generalizing to mixtures the quantum Gutzwiller approach introduced recently in [Phys. Rev. Research 2, 033276 (2020)]. As a basis for our study, we analyze the mean-field ground-state phase diagram and spectrum of elementary excitations, with particular emphasis on the quantum phase transitions of the model. Within the quantum critical regimes, we address both the superfluid transport properties and the linear response dynamics to density and spin probes of direct experimental relevance. Crucially, we find that quantum fluctuations have a dramatic effect on the drag between the superfluid species of the system, particularly in the vicinity of the paired and antipaired phases absent in the usual one-component Bose-Hubbard model. Additionally, we analyse the contributions of quantum corrections to the one-body coherence and density/spin fluctuations from the perspective of the collective modes of the system, providing results for the few-body correlations in all the regimes of the phase diagram.
Ground-state and thermodynamic properties of the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg model on the anisotropic triangular lattice

Matías G. Gonzalez, Bernard Bernu, Laurent Pierre, Laura Messio

SciPost Phys. 12, 112 (2022) · published 30 March 2022 | · pdf

The spin-$\frac12$ triangular lattice antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model has been for a long time the prototypical model of magnetic frustration. However, only very recently this model has been proposed to be realized in the Ba$_8$CoNb$_6$O$_{24}$ compound. The ground-state and thermodynamic properties are evaluated from a high-temperature series expansions interpolation method, called "entropy method", and compared to experiments. We find a ground-state energy $e_0 = -0.5445(2)$ in perfect agreement with exact diagonalization results. We also calculate the specific heat and entropy at all temperatures, finding a good agreement with the latest experiments, and evaluate which further interactions could improve the comparison. We explore the spatially anisotropic triangular lattice and provide evidence that supports the existence of a gapped spin liquid between the square and triangular lattices.
Mechanisms for the emergence of Gaussian correlations

Marek Gluza, Thomas Schweigler, Mohammadamin Tajik, João Sabino, Federica Cataldini, Frederik S. Møller, Si-Cong Ji, Bernhard Rauer, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Jens Eisert, Spyros Sotiriadis

SciPost Phys. 12, 113 (2022) · published 30 March 2022 | · pdf

We comprehensively investigate two distinct mechanisms leading to memory loss of non-Gaussian correlations after switching off the interactions in an isolated quantum system undergoing out-of-equilibrium dynamics. The first mechanism is based on spatial scrambling and results in the emergence of locally Gaussian steady states in large systems evolving over long times. The second mechanism, characterized as `canonical transmutation', is based on the mixing of a pair of canonically conjugate fields, one of which initially exhibits non-Gaussian fluctuations while the other is Gaussian and dominates the dynamics, resulting in the emergence of relative Gaussianity even at finite system sizes and times. We evaluate signatures of the occurrence of the two candidate mechanisms in a recent experiment that has observed Gaussification in an atom-chip controlled ultracold gas and elucidate evidence that it is canonical transmutation rather than spatial scrambling that is responsible for Gaussification in the experiment. Both mechanisms are shown to share the common feature that the Gaussian correlations revealed dynamically by the quench are already present though practically inaccessible at the initial time. On the way, we present novel observations based on the experimental data, demonstrating clustering of equilibrium correlations, analyzing the dynamics of full counting statistics, and utilizing tomographic reconstructions of quantum field states. Our work aims at providing an accessible presentation of the potential of atom-chip experiments to explore fundamental aspects of quantum field theories in quantum simulations.
Gravitational wave induced baryon acoustic oscillations

Christian Döring, Salvador Centelles Chuliá, Manfred Lindner, Bjoern Malte Schaefer, Matthias Bartelmann

SciPost Phys. 12, 114 (2022) · published 31 March 2022 | · pdf

We study the impact of gravitational waves originating from a first order phase transition on structure formation. To do so, we perform a second order perturbation analysis in the $1+3$ covariant framework and derive a wave equation in which second order, adiabatic density perturbations of the photon-baryon fluid are sourced by the gravitational wave energy density during radiation domination and on sub-horizon scales. The scale on which such waves affect the energy density perturbation spectrum is found to be proportional to the horizon size at the time of the phase transition times its inverse duration. Consequently, structure of the size of galaxies and bigger can only be affected in this way by relatively late phase transitions at $\ge 10^{6}\,\text{s}$. Using cosmic variance as a bound we derive limits on the strength $\alpha$ and the relative duration $(\beta/H_*)^{-1}$ of phase transitions as functions of the time of their occurrence which results in a new exclusion region for the energy density in gravitational waves today. We find that the cosmic variance bound forbids only relative long lasting phase transitions, e.g. $\beta/H_*\lesssim 6.8$ for $t_*\approx 5\times10^{11}\,\text{s}$, which exhibit a substantial amount of supercooling $\alpha>20$ to affect the matter power spectrum.
Tails of Instability and Decay: a Hydrodynamic Perspective

Olalla A. Castro-Alvaredo, Cecilia De Fazio, Benjamin Doyon, Aleksandra A. Ziółkowska

SciPost Phys. 12, 115 (2022) · published 31 March 2022 | · pdf

In the context of quantum field theory (QFT), unstable particles are associated with complex-valued poles of two-body scattering matrices in the unphysical sheet of rapidity space. The Breit-Wigner formula relates this pole to the mass and life-time of the particle, observed in scattering events. In this paper, we uncover new, dynamical signatures of unstable excitations and show that they have a strong effect on the non-equilibrium properties of QFT. Focusing on a 1+1D integrable model, and using the theory of Generalized Hydrodynamics, we study the formation and decay of unstable particles by analysing the release of hot matter into a low-temperature environment. We observe the formation of tails and the decay of the emitted nonlinear waves, in sharp contrast to the situation without unstable excitations. We also uncover a new phenomenon by which a wave of a stable population of unstable particles may persist without decay for long times. We expect these signatures of the presence of unstable particles to have a large degree of universality. Our study shows that the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of many-body systems can be strongly affected not only by the spectrum, but also by excitations with finite life-times.