Contributor info: Dr Benoit Estienne

Clément Berthière, Benoit Estienne, Jean-Marie Stéphan, William Witczak-Krempa

SciPost Phys. 19, 122 (2025) · published 7 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Fluctuations of observables provide unique insights into the nature of physical systems, and their study stands as a cornerstone of both theoretical and experimental science. Generalized fluctuations, or cumulants, provide information beyond the mean and variance of an observable. In this paper, we develop a systematic method to determine the asymptotic behavior of cumulants of local observables as the region becomes large. Our analysis reveals that the expansion is closely tied to the geometric characteristics of the region and its boundary, with coefficients given by convex moments of the connected correlation function: the latter is integrated against intrinsic volumes of convex polytopes built from the coordinates, which can be interpreted as average shadows. A particular application of our method shows that, in two dimensions, the leading behavior of odd cumulants of conserved quantities is topological, specifically depending on the Euler characteristic of the region. We illustrate these results with the paradigmatic strongly-interacting system of two-dimensional quantum Hall state at filling fraction $1/2$, by performing Monte-Carlo calculations of the skewness (third cumulant) of particle number in the Laughlin state.

Benoit Estienne, Yacine Ikhlef, Andrei Rotaru

SciPost Phys. 19, 119 (2025) · published 6 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We present a general method for calculating Rényi entropies in the ground state of a one-dimensional critical system with mixed open boundaries, for an interval starting at one of its ends. Technically, we consider the case when the boundary operator implementing the change of boundary conditions is degenerate under the Virasoro algebra. By exploiting the null-vectors conditions, we derive the ordinary differential equations that govern the scaling functions associated to the entropies. In particular, we provide an explicit formula for the second Rényi entropy. Additionally, we identify and compute the leading finite-size corrections to compare our theoretical results with numerical data for the Ising and three-state Potts critical chains.

Blagoje Oblak, Benoit Estienne

SciPost Phys. 15, 159 (2023) · published 13 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We consider area-preserving deformations of the plane, acting on electronic wave functions through "quantomorphisms" that change both the underlying metric and the confining potential. We show that adiabatic sequences of such transformations produce Berry phases that can be written in closed form in terms of the many-body current and density, even in the presence of interactions. For a large class of deformations that generalize squeezing and shearing, the leading piece of the phase is a super-extensive Aharonov-Bohm term ($\propto N^2$ for $N$ electrons) in the thermodynamic limit. Its gauge-invariant subleading partner only measures the current, whose dominant contribution to the phase stems from a jump at the edge in the limit of strong magnetic fields. This results in a finite Berry curvature per unit area, reminiscent of the Hall viscosity. We show that the latter is in fact included in our formalism, bypassing its standard derivation on a torus and suggesting realistic experimental setups for its observation in quantum simulators.

Benoit Estienne, Yacine Ikhlef, Andrei Rotaru

SciPost Phys. 12, 141 (2022) · published 29 April 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We consider the entanglement entropy in critical one-dimensional quantum systems with open boundary conditions. We show that the second Rényi entropy of an interval away from the boundary can be computed exactly, provided the same conformal boundary condition is applied on both sides. The result involves the annulus partition function. We compare our exact result with numerical computations for the critical quantum Ising chain with open boundary conditions. We find excellent agreement, and we analyse in detail the finite-size corrections, which are known to be much larger than for a periodic system.

Benoit Estienne, Blagoje Oblak, Jean-Marie Stéphan

SciPost Phys. 11, 016 (2021) · published 20 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The gapless modes on the edge of four-dimensional (4D) quantum Hall droplets are known to be anisotropic: they only propagate in one direction, foliating the 3D boundary into independent 1D conduction channels. This foliation is extremely sensitive to the confining potential and generically yields chaotic flows. Here we study the quantum correlations and entanglement of such edge modes in 4D droplets confined by harmonic traps, whose boundary is a squashed three-sphere. Commensurable trapping frequencies lead to periodic trajectories of electronic guiding centers; the corresponding edge modes propagate independently along $S^1$ fibers, forming a bundle of 1D conformal field theories over a 2D base space. By contrast, incommensurable frequencies produce quasi-periodic, ergodic trajectories, each of which covers its invariant torus densely; the corresponding correlation function of edge modes has fractal features. This wealth of behaviors highlights the sharp differences between 4D Hall droplets and their 2D peers; it also exhibits the dependence of 4D edge modes on the choice of trap, suggesting the existence of observable bifurcations due to droplet deformations.

Benoit Estienne, Yacine Ikhlef, Alexi Morin-Duchesne

SciPost Phys. 10, 054 (2021) · published 4 March 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

In the presence of a conserved quantity, symmetry-resolved entanglement entropies are a refinement of the usual notion of entanglement entropy of a subsystem. For critical 1d quantum systems, it was recently shown in various contexts that these quantities generally obey entropy equipartition in the scaling limit, i.e. they become independent of the symmetry sector. In this paper, we examine the finite-size corrections to the entropy equipartition phenomenon, and show that the nature of the symmetry group plays a crucial role. In the case of a discrete symmetry group, the corrections decay algebraically with system size, with exponents related to the operators' scaling dimensions. In contrast, in the case of a U(1) symmetry group, the corrections only decay logarithmically with system size, with model-dependent prefactors. We show that the determination of these prefactors boils down to the computation of twisted overlaps.

Thomas Dupic, Benoit Estienne, Yacine Ikhlef

SciPost Phys. 4, 031 (2018) · published 18 June 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We present a new method to compute R\'enyi entropies in one-dimensional critical systems. The null-vector conditions on the twist fields in the cyclic orbifold allow us to derive a differential equation for their correlation functions. The latter are then determined by standard bootstrap techniques. We apply this method to the calculation of various R\'enyi entropies in the non-unitary Yang-Lee model.