SciPost: SciPost Physics: issue detail

SciPost Physics

SciPost Physics Vol. 16 issue 1 (January 2024)

Previous issue | Vol. 15 issue 6

Vol. 16 issue 2 | Next issue

Arrangement of nearby minima and saddles in the mixed spherical energy landscapes

Jaron Kent-Dobias

SciPost Phys. 16, 001 (2024) · published 4 January 2024 | · pdf

The mixed spherical models were recently found to violate long-held assumptions about mean-field glassy dynamics. In particular, the threshold energy, where most stationary points are marginal and that in the simpler pure models attracts long-time dynamics, seems to lose significance. Here, we compute the typical distribution of stationary points relative to each other in mixed models with a replica symmetric complexity. We examine the stability of nearby points, accounting for the presence of an isolated eigenvalue in their spectrum due to their proximity. Despite finding rich structure not present in the pure models, we find nothing that distinguishes the points that do attract the dynamics. Instead, we find new geometric significance of the old threshold energy, and invalidate pictures of the arrangement of most marginal inherent states into a continuous manifold.
Observation of non-local impedance response in a passive electrical circuit

Xiao Zhang, Boxue Zhang, Weihong Zhao, Ching Hua Lee

SciPost Phys. 16, 002 (2024) · published 4 January 2024 | · pdf

In media with only short-ranged couplings and interactions, it is natural to assume that physical responses must be local. Yet, we discover that this is not necessarily true, even in a system as commonplace as an electric circuit array. This work reports the experimental observation of non-local impedance response in a designed circuit network consisting exclusively of passive elements such as resistors, inductors and capacitors (RLC). Measurements reveal that the removal of boundary connections dramatically affects the two-point impedance between certain distant nodes, even in the absence of any amplification mechanism for the voltage signal. This non-local impedance response is distinct from the reciprocal non-Hermitian skin effect, affecting only selected pairs of nodes even as the circuit Laplacian exhibits universally broken spectral bulk-boundary correspondence. Surprisingly, not only are component parasitic resistances unable to erode the non-local response, but they in fact give rise to novel loss-induced topological modes at sufficiently large system sizes, constituting a new manifestation of the critical non-Hermitian skin effect. Our findings chart a new route towards attaining non-local responses in photonic or electrical metamaterials without involving non-linear, non-local, active or amplificative elements.
On correlation functions in models related to the Temperley-Lieb algebra

Kohei Fukai, Raphael Kleinemühl, Balázs Pozsgay, Eric Vernier

SciPost Phys. 16, 003 (2024) · published 5 January 2024 | · pdf

We deal with quantum spin chains whose Hamiltonian arises from a representation of the Temperley-Lieb algebra, and we consider the mean values of those local operators which are generated by the Temperley-Lieb algebra. We present two key conjectures which relate these mean values to existing literature about factorized correlation functions in the XXZ spin chain. The first conjecture states that the finite volume mean values of the current and generalized current operators are given by the same simple formulas as in the case of the XXZ chain. The second conjecture states that the mean values of products of Temperley-Lieb generators can be factorized: they can expressed as sums of products of current mean values, such that the coefficients in the factorization depend neither on the eigenstate in question, nor on the selected representation of the algebra. The coefficients can be extracted from existing work on factorized correlation functions in the XXZ model. The conjectures should hold for all eigenstates that are non-degenerate with respect to the local charges of the models. We consider concrete representations, where we check the conjectures: the so-called golden chain, the $Q$-state Potts model, and the trace representation. We also explain how to derive the generalized current operators from concrete expressions for the local charges.
Electric conductivity in non-Hermitian holography

Zhuo-Yu Xian, David Rodríguez Fernández, Zhaohui Chen, Yang Liu, René Meyer

SciPost Phys. 16, 004 (2024) · published 5 January 2024 | · pdf

We study the phase structure and charge transport at finite temperature and chemical potential in the non-Hermitian $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric holographic model of [SciPost Phys. 9, 032 (2020)]. The non-Hermitian $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric deformation is realized by promoting the parameter of a global U(1) symmetry to a complex number. Depending on the strength of the deformation, we find three phases: stable $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric phase, unstable $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric phase, and an unstable $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry broken phase. In the three phases, the square of the condensate and also the spectral weight of the AC conductivity at zero frequency are, respectively, positive, negative, and complex. We check that the Ferrell-Glover-Tinkham sum rule for the AC conductivity holds in all the three phases. We also investigate a complexified U(1) rotor model with $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric deformation, derive its phase structure and condensation pattern, and find a zero frequency spectral weight analogous to the holographic model.
Suppression of scattering from slow to fast subsystems and application to resonantly Floquet-driven impurities in strongly interacting systems

Friedrich Hübner

SciPost Phys. 16, 005 (2024) · published 5 January 2024 | · pdf

We study solutions to the Lippmann-Schwinger equation in systems where a slow subsystem is coupled to a fast subsystem via an impurity. Such situations appear when a high-frequency Floquet-driven impurity is introduced into a low-energy system, but the driving frequency is at resonance with a high-energy band. In contrast to the case of resonant bulk driving, where the particles in the low-energy system are excited into the high-energy band, we surprisingly find that these excitations are suppressed for resonantly driven impurities. Still, the transmission through the impurity is strongly affected by the presence of the high-energy band in a universal way that does not depend on the details of the high-energy band. We apply our general result to two examples and show the suppression of excitations from the low-energy band into the high-energy band: a) bound pairs in a Fermi-Hubbard chain scattering at a driven impurity, which is at resonance with the Hubbard interaction and b) particles in a deep optical lattice described by the tight-binding approximation, which scatter at a driven impurity, whose driving frequency equals the band gap between the two lowest energy bands.
Infinite $\mathrm{T\bar T}$-like symmetries of compactified LST

Silvia Georgescu, Monica Guica

SciPost Phys. 16, 006 (2024) · published 8 January 2024 | · pdf

We show that the three-dimensional asymptotically linear dilaton background that arises in the near-horizon decoupling region of NS5-branes compactified on $T^4$ admits boundary conditions that lead to an infinite set of symmetries. The associated conserved charges, which implement field-dependent coordinate transformations, are found to be identical to the corresponding generators in a symmetric product orbifold of $T\bar T$ - deformed CFTs. Their algebra is a non-linear modification of the Virasoro × Virasoro algebra, which precisely coincides with the algebra of the "unrescaled" symmetry generators in $T\bar T$-deformed CFTs. This further strengthens a previously proposed link between the single-trace $T\bar T$ deformation and compactified little string theory.
Invariant approach to the driven Jaynes-Cummings model

Ivan Alejandro Bocanegra-Garay, L. Hernández-Sánchez, Irán Ramos-Prieto, Francisco Soto-Eguibar, Héctor Manuel Moya-Cessa

SciPost Phys. 16, 007 (2024) · published 8 January 2024 | · pdf

We investigate the dynamics of the driven Jaynes-Cummings model, where a two-level atom interacts with a quantized field and both, atom and field, are driven by an external classical field. Via an invariant approach, we are able to transform the corresponding Hamiltonian into the one of the standard Jaynes-Cummings model. Subsequently, the exact analytical solution of the Schrödinger equation for the driven system is obtained and employed to analyze some of its dynamical variables.
Anatomy of the eigenstates distribution: A quest for a genuine multifractality

Anton Kutlin, Ivan M. Khaymovich

SciPost Phys. 16, 008 (2024) · published 9 January 2024 | · pdf

Motivated by a series of recent works, an interest in multifractal phases has risen as they are believed to be present in the Many-Body Localized (MBL) phase and are of high demand in quantum annealing and machine learning. Inspired by the success of the Rosenzweig-Porter (RP) model with Gaussian-distributed hopping elements, several RP-like ensembles with the fat-tailed distributed hopping terms have been proposed, with claims that they host the desired multifractal phase. In the present work, we develop a general (graphical) approach allowing a self-consistent analytical calculation of fractal dimensions for a generic RP model and investigate what features of the RP Hamiltonians can be responsible for the multifractal phase emergence. We conclude that the only feature contributing to a genuine multifractality is the on-site energies' distribution, meaning that no random matrix model with a statistically homogeneous distribution of diagonal disorder and uncorrelated off-diagonal terms can host a multifractal phase.
Modified rational six vertex model on the rectangular lattice

Samuel Belliard, Rodrigo Alves Pimenta, Nikita A. Slavnov

SciPost Phys. 16, 009 (2024) · published 9 January 2024 | · pdf

We consider a rational six vertex model on a rectangular lattice with boundary conditions that generalize the usual domain wall type. We find that the partition function of the inhomogeneous version of this model is given by a modified Izergin determinant. The proofs are based on the quantum inverse scattering method and its representation theory together with elementary linear algebra.
Multi-directional unitarity and maximal entanglement in spatially symmetric quantum states

Márton Mestyán, Balázs Pozsgay, Ian M. Wanless

SciPost Phys. 16, 010 (2024) · published 9 January 2024 | · pdf

We consider dual unitary operators and their multi-leg generalizations that have appeared at various places in the literature. These objects can be related to multi-party quantum states with special entanglement patterns: the sites are arranged in a spatially symmetric pattern and the states have maximal entanglement for all bipartitions that follow from the reflection symmetries of the given geometry. We consider those cases where the state itself is invariant with respect to the geometrical symmetry group. The simplest examples are those dual unitary operators which are also self dual and reflection invariant, but we also consider the generalizations in the hexagonal, cubic, and octahedral geometries. We provide a number of constructions and concrete examples for these objects for various local dimensions. All of our examples can be used to build quantum cellular automata in 1+1 or 2+1 dimensions, with multiple equivalent choices for the "direction of time".
States, symmetries and correlators of $T\bar{T}$ and $ J\bar{T} $ symmetric orbifolds

Soumangsu Chakraborty, Silvia Georgescu, Monica Guica

SciPost Phys. 16, 011 (2024) · published 10 January 2024 | · pdf

We derive various properties of symmetric product orbifolds of $T\bar T$ and $J\bar T$ - deformed CFTs from a field-theoretical perspective. First, we generalise the known formula for the torus partition function of a symmetric orbifold theory in terms of the one of the seed to non-conformal two-dimensional QFTs; specialising this to seed $T\bar T$ and $J\bar T$ - deformed CFTs reproduces previous results in the literature. Second, we show that the single-trace $T\bar T$ and $J\bar T$ deformations preserve the Virasoro and Kac-Moody symmetries of the undeformed symmetric product orbifold CFT, including their fractional counterparts, as well as the KdV charges. Finally, we discuss correlation functions in these theories. By extending a previously-proposed basis of operators for $J\bar T$ - deformed CFTs to the single-trace case, we explicitly compute the correlation functions of both untwisted and twisted-sector operators and compare them to an appropriate set of holographic correlators. Our derivations are based mainly on Hilbert space techniques and completely avoid the use of conformal invariance, which is not present in these models.
Probabilistic deconstruction of a theory of gravity, part II: Curved space

Sunok Josephine Suh

SciPost Phys. 16, 012 (2024) · published 17 January 2024 | · pdf

We propose that the underlying context of holographic duality and the Ryu-Takayanagi formula is that the volume measure of spacetime is a probability measure constrained by quantum dynamics. We define quantum stochastic processes using joint quantum distributions which are realized in a quantum system as expectation values of products of projectors. In anti-de Sitter JT gravity, we show that Einstein's equations arise from the evolution of probability under the quantum stochastic process induced by the boundary, with the area of compactified space in the gravitational theory identified as a probability density evolving under the quantum process. Extrapolating these and related results in flat JT gravity found in [SciPost Phys. 15, 174 (2023)], we conjecture that general relativity arises in the semi-classical limit of the evolution of probability with respect to quantum stochastic processes.
Optimal control strategies for parameter estimation of quantum systems

Quentin Ansel, Etienne Dionis, Dominique Sugny

SciPost Phys. 16, 013 (2024) · published 17 January 2024 | · pdf

Optimal control theory is an effective tool to improve parameter estimation of quantum systems. Different methods can be employed for the design of the control protocol. They can be based either on Quantum Fischer Information (QFI) maximization or selective control processes. We describe the similarities, differences, and advantages of these two approaches. A detailed comparative study is presented for estimating the parameters of a spin$-\tfrac{1}{2}$ system coupled to a bosonic bath. We show that the control mechanisms are generally equivalent, except when the decoherence is not negligible or when the experimental setup is not adapted to the QFI. In this latter case, the precision achieved with selective controls can be several orders of magnitude better than that given by the QFI.
Information flow in non-unitary quantum cellular automata

Elisabeth Wagner, Ramil Nigmatullin, Alexei Gilchrist, Gavin K. Brennen

SciPost Phys. 16, 014 (2024) · published 17 January 2024 | · pdf

The information flow in a quantum system is a fundamental feature of its dynamics. An important class of dynamics are quantum cellular automata (QCA), systems with discrete updates invariant in time and space, for which an index theory has been proposed for the quantification of the net flow of quantum information across a boundary. While the index is rigid in the sense of begin invariant under finite-depth local circuits, it is not defined when the system is coupled to an environment, i.e.for non-unitary time evolution of open quantum systems. We propose a new measure of information flow for non-unitary QCA denoted the information current which is not rigid, but can be computed locally based on the matrix-product operator representation of the map.
Jet substructure observables for jet quenching in quark gluon plasma: A machine learning driven analysis

Miguel Crispim Romão, José Guilherme Milhano, Marco van Leeuwen

SciPost Phys. 16, 015 (2024) · published 18 January 2024 | · pdf

We present a survey of a comprehensive set of jet substructure observables commonly used to study the modifications of jets resulting from interactions with the Quark Gluon Plasma in Heavy Ion Collisions. The JEWEL event generator is used to produce simulated samples of quenched and unquenched jets. Three distinct analyses using Machine Learning techniques on the jet substructure observables have been performed to identify both linear and non-linear relations between the observables, and to distinguish the Quenched and Unquenched jet samples. We find that most of the observables are highly correlated, and that their information content can be captured by a small set of observables. We also find that the correlations between observables are resilient to quenching effects and that specific pairs of observables exhaust the full sensitivity to quenching effects. The code, the datasets, and instructions on how to reproduce this work are also provided.
Joint distribution of currents in the symmetric exclusion process

Aurélien Grabsch, Pierre Rizkallah, Olivier Bénichou

SciPost Phys. 16, 016 (2024) · published 18 January 2024 | · pdf

The symmetric simple exclusion process (SEP) is a paradigmatic model of diffusion in a single-file geometry, in which the particles cannot cross. In this model, the study of currents have attracted a lot of attention. In particular, the distribution of the integrated current through the origin, and more recently, of the integrated current through a moving reference point, have been obtained in the long time limit. This latter observable is particularly interesting, as it allows to obtain the distribution of the position of a tracer particle. However, up to now, these different observables have been considered independently. Here, we characterise the joint statistical properties of these currents, and their correlations with the density of particles. We show that the correlations satisfy closed integral equations, which generalise the ones obtained recently for a single observable. We also obtain boundary conditions verified by these correlations, which take a simple physical form for any single-file system. As a consequence of our results, we quantify the correlations between the displacement of a tracer, and the integrated current of particles through the origin.
Disorder in AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$

Moritz Dorband, Daniel Grumiller, René Meyer, Suting Zhao

SciPost Phys. 16, 017 (2024) · published 18 January 2024 | · pdf

We perturbatively study marginally relevant quenched disorder in AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$ to second order in the disorder strength. Using the Chern-Simons formulation of AdS$_3$ gravity for the Poincaré patch, we introduce disorder via the chemical potentials. We discuss the bulk and boundary properties resulting from the disorder-averaged metric. The disorder generates a small mass and angular momentum. In the bulk and the boundary, we find unphysical features due to the disorder average. Motivated by these features, we propose a Poincaré-Lindstedt-inspired resummation method. We discuss how this method enables us to remove all of the unphysical features and compare with other approaches to averaging.
PC-JeDi: Diffusion for particle cloud generation in high energy physics

Matthew Leigh, Debajyoti Sengupta, Guillaume Quétant, John Andrew Raine, Knut Zoch, Tobias Golling

SciPost Phys. 16, 018 (2024) · published 19 January 2024 | · pdf

In this paper, we present a new method to efficiently generate jets in High Energy Physics called PC-JeDi. This method utilises score-based diffusion models in conjunction with transformers which are well suited to the task of generating jets as particle clouds due to their permutation equivariance. PC-JeDi achieves competitive performance with current state-of-the-art methods across several metrics that evaluate the quality of the generated jets. Although slower than other models, due to the large number of forward passes required by diffusion models, it is still substantially faster than traditional detailed simulation. Furthermore, PC-JeDi uses conditional generation to produce jets with a desired mass and transverse momentum for two different particles, top quarks and gluons.
Higgs associated production with a vector decaying to two fermions in the geoSMEFT

Tyler Corbett, Adam Martin

SciPost Phys. 16, 019 (2024) · published 19 January 2024 | · pdf

We present the inclusive calculations of a Higgs boson produced in association with massive vector bosons in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) to order $1/\Lambda^4$ for the 13 TeV LHC. The calculations include the decay of the vector boson into massless constituents and are done using the geometric formulation of the SMEFT supplemented by the relevant dimension eight operators not included in the geoSMEFT. We include some discussion of distributions to motivate how detailed collider and experimental searches for SMEFT signals could be improved.
Boundary description of microstates of the two-dimensional black hole

Amr Ahmadain, Alexander Frenkel, Krishnendu Ray, Ronak M. Soni

SciPost Phys. 16, 020 (2024) · published 22 January 2024 | · pdf

We identify the microstates of the non-supersymmetric, asymptotically flat 2d black hole in the dual c=1 matrix quantum mechanics (MQM). We calculate the partition function of the theory using Hamiltonian methods and reproduce one of two conflicting results found by Kazakov and Tseytlin. We find the entropy by counting states and the energy by approximately solving the Schrödinger equation. The dominant contribution to the partition function in the double-scaling limit is a novel bound state that can be considered an explicit dual of the black hole microstates. This bound state is long-lived and evaporates slowly, exactly like a black hole in asymptotically flat space.
Decay channels for double extremal black holes in four dimensions

Johannes Aspman, Jan Manschot

SciPost Phys. 16, 021 (2024) · published 22 January 2024 | · pdf

We explore decay channels for charged black holes with vanishing temperature in $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric compactifications of string theory. If not protected by supersymmetry, such extremal black holes are expected to decay as a consequence of the weak gravity conjecture. We concentrate on double extremal, non-supersymmetric black holes for which the values of the scalar fields are constant throughout space-time, and explore decay channels for which decay into BPS and anti-BPS constituents is energetically favorable. We demonstrate the existence of decay channels at tree level for large families of double extremal black holes. For specific charges, we also find stable non-supersymmetric black holes, suggesting recombination of (anti)-supersymmetric constituents to a non-supersymmetric object.
Lieb-Schultz-Mattis anomalies and web of dualities induced by gauging in quantum spin chains

Ömer Mert Aksoy, Christopher Mudry, Akira Furusaki, Apoorv Tiwari

SciPost Phys. 16, 022 (2024) · published 22 January 2024 | · pdf

Lieb-Schultz-Mattis (LSM) theorems impose non-perturbative constraints on the zero-temperature phase diagrams of quantum lattice Hamiltonians (always assumed to be local in this paper). LSM theorems have recently been interpreted as the lattice counterparts to mixed 't Hooft anomalies in quantum field theories that arise from a combination of crystalline and global internal symmetry groups. Accordingly, LSM theorems have been reinterpreted as LSM anomalies. In this work, we provide a systematic diagnostic for LSM anomalies in one spatial dimension. We show that gauging subgroups of the global internal symmetry group of a quantum lattice model obeying an LSM anomaly delivers a dual quantum lattice Hamiltonian such that its internal and crystalline symmetries mix non-trivially through a group extension. This mixing of crystalline and internal symmetries after gauging is a direct consequence of the LSM anomaly, i.e., it can be used as a diagnostic of an LSM anomaly. We exemplify this procedure for a quantum spin-1/2 chain obeying an LSM anomaly resulting from combining a global internal $\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{2}×\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{2}$ symmetry with translation or reflection symmetry. We establish a triality of models by gauging a $\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{2}\subset\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{2}×\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{2}$ symmetry in two ways, one of which amounts to performing a Kramers-Wannier duality, while the other implements a Jordan-Wigner duality. We discuss the mapping of the phase diagram of the quantum spin-1/2 $XYZ$ chains under such a triality. We show that the deconfined quantum critical transitions between Neel and dimer orders are mapped to either topological or conventional Landau-Ginzburg transitions. Finally, we extend our results to $\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{n}$ clock models with $\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{n}×\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{n}$ global internal symmetry, and provide a reinterpretation of the dual internal symmetries in terms of $\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{n}$ charge and dipole symmetries.
Crossover from attractive to repulsive induced interactions and bound states of two distinguishable Bose polarons

Friethjof Theel, Simeon I. Mistakidis, Peter Schmelcher

SciPost Phys. 16, 023 (2024) · published 23 January 2024 | · pdf

We study the impact of induced correlations and quasiparticle properties by immersing two distinguishable impurities in a harmonically trapped bosonic medium. It is found that when the impurities couple both either repulsively or attractively to their host, the latter mediates a two-body correlated behavior between them. In the reverse case, namely the impurities interact oppositely with the host, they feature anti-bunching. Monitoring the impurities relative distance and constructing an effective two-body model to be compared with the full many-body calculations, we are able to associate the induced (anti-) correlated behavior of the impurities with the presence of attractive (repulsive) induced interactions. Furthermore, we capture the formation of a bipolaron and a trimer state in the strongly attractive regime. The trimer refers to the correlated behavior of two impurities and a representative atom of the bosonic medium and it is characterized by an ellipsoidal shape of the three-body correlation function. Our results open the way for controlling polaron induced correlations and creating relevant bound states.
Constraints on physical computers in holographic spacetimes

Aleksander M. Kubicki, Alex May, David Pérez-Garcia

SciPost Phys. 16, 024 (2024) · published 23 January 2024 | · pdf

Within the setting of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we ask about the power of computers in the presence of gravity. We show that there are computations on $n$ qubits which cannot be implemented inside of black holes with entropy less than $O(2^n)$. To establish our claim, we argue computations happening inside the black hole must be implementable in a programmable quantum processor, so long as the inputs and description of the unitary to be run are not too large. We then prove a bound on quantum processors which shows many unitaries cannot be implemented inside the black hole, and further show some of these have short descriptions and act on small systems. These unitaries with short descriptions must be computationally forbidden from happening inside the black hole.
Cavity-induced bifurcation in classical rate theory

Kalle Sulo Ukko Kansanen, Tero Tapio Heikkilä

SciPost Phys. 16, 025 (2024) · published 23 January 2024 | · 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.
Self-consistent dynamical maps for open quantum systems

Orazio Scarlatella, Marco Schirò

SciPost Phys. 16, 026 (2024) · published 24 January 2024 | · 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.
Holographic Weyl anomaly in string theory

Lorenz Eberhardt, Sridip Pal

SciPost Phys. 16, 027 (2024) · published 24 January 2024 | · 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.
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 | · 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.
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 | · 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.
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 | · 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.
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 | · 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.
Spey: Smooth inference for reinterpretation studies

Jack Y. Araz

SciPost Phys. 16, 032 (2024) · published 26 January 2024 | · 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.
Error-correcting codes for fermionic quantum simulation

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

SciPost Phys. 16, 033 (2024) · published 26 January 2024 | · 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.
Gravitational Regge bounds

Kelian Häring, Alexander Zhiboedov

SciPost Phys. 16, 034 (2024) · published 26 January 2024 | · 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.
To profile or to marginalize - A SMEFT case study

Ilaria Brivio, Sebastian Bruggisser, Nina Elmer, Emma Geoffray, Michel Luchmann, Tilman Plehn

SciPost Phys. 16, 035 (2024) · published 29 January 2024 | · pdf

Global SMEFT analyses have become a key interpretation framework for LHC physics, quantifying how well a large set of kinematic measurements agrees with the Standard Model. This agreement is encoded in measured Wilson coefficients and their uncertainties. A technical challenge of global analyses are correlations. We compare, for the first time, results from a profile likelihood and a Bayesian marginalization for a given data set with a comprehensive uncertainty treatment. Using the validated Bayesian framework we analyse a series of new kinematic measurements. For the updated dataset we find and explain differences between the marginalization and profile likelihood treatments.
5d SCFTs and their non-supersymmetric cousins

Mohammad Akhond, Masazumi Honda, Francesco Mignosa

SciPost Phys. 16, 036 (2024) · published 29 January 2024 | · pdf

We consider generalisations of the recently proposed supersymmetry breaking deformation of the 5d rank-1 $E_1$ superconformal field theory to higher rank. We generalise the arguments to theories which admit a mass deformation leading to gauge theories coupled to matter hypermultiplets at low energies. These theories have a richer space of non-supersymmetric deformations, due to the existence of a larger global symmetry. We show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the non-SUSY deformations of the gauge theory and their $(p,q)$ 5-brane web. We comment on the (in)stability of these deformations both from the gauge theory and the 5-brane web point of view. UV duality plays a key role in our analysis, fixing the effective Chern-Simons level for the background vector multiplets, together with their complete prepotential. We partially classify super-Yang-Mills theories known to enjoy UV dualities which show a phase transition where different phases are separated by a jump of Chern-Simons levels of both a perturbative and an instantonic global symmetry. When this transition can be reached by turning on a non-supersymmetric deformation of the UV superconformal field theory, it can be a good candidate to host a 5d non-supersymmetric CFT. We also discuss consistency of the proposed phase diagram with the 't Hooft anomalies of the models that we analyse.
Back to the formula - LHC edition

Anja Butter, Tilman Plehn, Nathalie Soybelman, Johann Brehmer

SciPost Phys. 16, 037 (2024) · published 29 January 2024 | · pdf

While neural networks offer an attractive way to numerically encode functions, actual formulas remain the language of theoretical particle physics. We use symbolic regression trained on matrix-element information to extract, for instance, optimal LHC observables. This way we invert the usual simulation paradigm and extract easily interpretable formulas from complex simulated data. We introduce the method using the effect of a dimension-6 coefficient on associated ZH production. We then validate it for the known case of CP-violation in weak-boson-fusion Higgs production, including detector effects.
$T \overline{T}$-like flows and $3d$ nonlinear supersymmetry

Christian Ferko, Yangrui Hu, Zejun Huang, Konstantinos Koutrolikos, Gabriele Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli

SciPost Phys. 16, 038 (2024) · published 29 January 2024 | · pdf

We show that the $3d$ Born-Infeld theory can be generated via an irrelevant deformation of the free Maxwell theory. The deforming operator is constructed from the energy-momentum tensor and includes a novel non-analytic contribution that resembles root-$T \ overline{T}$. We find that a similar operator deforms a free scalar into the scalar sector of the Dirac-Born-Infeld action, which describes transverse fluctuations of a D-brane, in any dimension. We also analyse trace flow equations and obtain flows for subtracted models driven by a relevant operator. In $3d$, the irrelevant deformation can be made manifestly supersymmetric by presenting the flow equation in $\mathcal{N} = 1$ superspace, where the deforming operator is built from supercurrents. We demonstrate that two supersymmetric presentations of the D2-brane effective action, the Maxwell-Goldstone multiplet and the tensor-Goldstone multiplet, satisfy superspace flow equations driven by this supercurrent combination. To do this, we derive expressions for the supercurrents in general classes of vector and tensor/scalar models by directly solving the superspace conservation equations and also by coupling to $\mathcal{N} = 1$ supergravity. As both of these multiplets exhibit a second, spontaneously broken supersymmetry, this analysis provides further evidence for a connection between current-squared deformations and nonlinearly realized symmetries.
Ideal fracton superfluids

Jay Armas, Emil Have

SciPost Phys. 16, 039 (2024) · published 30 January 2024 | · pdf

We investigate the thermodynamics of equilibrium thermal states and their near-equilibrium dynamics in systems with fractonic symmetries in arbitrary curved space. By explicitly gauging the fracton algebra we obtain the geometry and gauge fields that field theories with conserved dipole moment couple to. We use the resultant fracton geometry to show that it is not possible to construct an equilibrium partition function for global thermal states unless part of the fractonic symmetries is spontaneously broken. This leads us to introduce two classes of fracton superfluids with conserved energy and momentum, namely $p$-wave and $s$-wave fracton superfluids. The latter phase is an Aristotelian superfluid at ideal order but with a velocity constraint and can be split into two separate regimes: The U(1) fracton superfluid and the pinned $s$-wave superfluid regimes. For each of these classes and regimes we formulate a hydrodynamic expansion and study the resultant modes. We find distinctive features of each of these phases and regimes at ideal order in gradients, without introducing dissipative effects. In particular we note the appearance of a sound mode for $s$-wave fracton superfluids. We show that previous work on fracton hydrodynamics falls into these classes. Finally, we study ultra-dense $p$-wave fracton superfluids with a large kinetic mass in addition to studying the thermodynamics of ideal Aristotelian superfluids.