Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Photoinduced pairing in Mott insulators

  Satoshi Ejima, Holger Fehske

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 11, 009 (2023) · published 5 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Utilizing time-evolution techniques in (infinite) matrix-product-state representation, we study the non-equilibrium dynamics of driven Mott insulators and demonstrate photoinduced $\eta$ pairing directly in the thermodynamic limit. Analyzing the time evolution of the corresponding pairing correlations, we determine the optimal laser pump parameters for which long-range $\eta$-pairing becomes dominant after pulse irradiation. The time-dependent photoemission spectra for this optimal pump parameter set show clear signatures of the photoinduced insulator-to-metal phase transition related to the formation of $\eta$ pairs.

• Emergent criticality in a constrained boson model

  Anirudha Menon, Anwesha Chattopadhyay, Krishnendu Sengupta, Arnab Sen

  SciPost Phys. 19, 055 (2025) · published 25 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show, via explicit computation on a constrained bosonic model, that the presence of subsystem symmetries can lead to a quantum phase transition (QPT) where the critical point exhibits an emergent enhanced symmetry. Such a transition separates a unique gapped ground state from a gapless one; the latter phase exhibits a broken $Z_2$ symmetry which we tie to the presence of the subsystem symmetries in the model. The intermediate critical point separating these phases exhibits an additional emergent $Z_2$ symmetry which we identify. This emergence leads to a critical theory which seems to be different from those in the Ising universality class. Instead, within the data obtained from finite-size scaling analysis, we find the critical theory to be not inconsistent with Ashkin-Teller universality in the sense that the transitions of the model reproduces a critical line with variable correlation length exponent $\nu$ but constant central charge $c$ close to unity. We verify this scenario via explicit exact-diagonalization computations, provide an effective Landau-Ginzburg theory for such a transition, and discuss the connection of our model to the PXP model describing Rydberg atom arrays.

• Transverse Single Spin Asymmetries of Heavy Flavor Electrons and Charged Pions in 200 GeV $p+p^{\uparrow}$ Collisions at Midrapidity

  Dillon Fitzgerald

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 012 (2022) · published 11 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Transverse single spin asymmetries of particles produced in $p+p^{\uparrow}$ collisions provide insight on the partonic spin and momentum structure of hadrons; heavy flavor electrons provide access to initial state spin-momentum correlations of gluons in the proton, while charged pions provide access to initial and final state transverse spin effects. Charged particles are measured at midrapidity at PHENIX using the silicon vertex detector and central arm spectrometer, made of an electromagnetic calorimeter, a ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, and drift and pad chambers. Recent results for both electron and charged pion measurements from the 2015 running period will be presented.

• Witten index of BMN matrix quantum mechanics

  Chi-Ming Chang

  SciPost Phys. 19, 147 (2025) · published 5 December 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We compute the Witten index of the Berenstein-Maldacena-Nastase matrix quantum mechanics, which counts the number of ground states as well as the difference between the numbers of bosonic and fermionic BPS states with nonzero angular momenta. The Witten index sets a lower bound on the entropy, which exhibits $N^2$ growth that provides strong evidence for the existence of BPS black holes in M-theory, asymptotic to the plane-wave geometry. We also discuss a relation between the Witten index in the infinite $N$ limit and the superconformal index of the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena theory.

• 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 | Toggle abstract · 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.

• Transverse Single-Spin Asymmetries of Midrapidity Direct Photons and Neutral Mesons at PHENIX

  Nicole Lewis

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 009 (2022) · published 11 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Results are presented for the transverse single-spin asymmetries of direct photons, neutral pions, and eta mesons for $|\eta|<0.35$ from $p^\uparrow + p$ collisions with $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV at PHENIX. As hadrons, $\pi^0$ and $\eta$ mesons are sensitive to both initial- and final-state effects and at midrapidity probe the dynamics of gluons along with a mix of quark flavors. Because direct photon production does not include hadronization, the direct photon TSSA is only sensitive to initial-state effects and at midrapidity provides a clean probe of the gluon dynamics in transversely polarized protons. All three of these results will help constrain the collinear twist-3 trigluon correlation function as well as the gluon Sivers function, improving our knowledge of spin-dependent gluon dynamics in QCD.

• Multiscale response of ionic systems to a spatially varying electric field

  Jesper Schmidt Hansen

  SciPost Phys. 2, 017 (2017) · published 27 May 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this paper the response of ionic systems subjected to a spatially varying electric field is studied. Following the Nernst-Planck equation, two forces driving the mass flux are present, namely, the concentration gradient and the electric potential gradient. The mass flux due to the concentration gradient is modelled through Fick's law, and a new constitutive relation for the mass flux due to the potential gradient is proposed. In the regime of low screening the response function due to the potential gradient is closely related to the ionic conductivity. In the large screening regime, on the other hand, the response function is governed by the charge-charge structure. Molecular dynamics simulations are conducted and the two wave vector dependent response functions are evaluated for models of a molten salt and an ionic liquid. In the low screening regime the response functions show same wave vector dependency, indicating that it is the same underlying physical processes that govern the response. In the screening regime the wave vector dependency is very different and, thus, the overall response is determined by different processes. This is in agreement with the observed failure of the Nernst-Einstein relation.

• Lattice phase shifts and mixing angles for an arbitrary number of coupled channels

  Lukas Bovermann, Evgeny Epelbaum, Hermann Krebs, Dean Lee

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 3, 052 (2020) · published 27 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a lattice method for determining scattering phase shifts and mixing angles for the case of an arbitrary number of coupled channels. The proposed method combines a spherical wall boundary condition and a channel-mixing auxiliary potential to extract the full-rank S-matrix from the radial wave functions. We consider the scattering problem of two spin-1 bosons interacting with a test potential involving up to four coupled channels. For this benchmark system, the phase shifts and mixing angles are shown to agree on the lattice and in the continuum. Our method should allow to extend previous two-channel nuclear lattice EFT simulations to mixing of more than two partial waves.

• MEG final results and progress towards MEG II

  Toshiyuki Iwamoto on behalf of the MEG II collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 040 (2019) · published 21 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The MEG experiment, which is to search for lepton flavor violating muon decay, had been successfully finished in 2013. The final sensitivity of the experiment was 5.3 × 10−13, and since the experiment did not find any signal, the upper limit of the branching ratio of the μ+ → e+γ was set to be 4.2 × 10−13 at 90% CL. The MEG II experiment will improve the sensitivity by an order of magnitude with three years data taking, and the target sensitivity is 6×10−14. In 2018 after the detector integration, the muon beam data taking will be planned with limited number of readout channels. In 2019, the engineering run and the physics run will be started.

• Probabilistic deconstruction of a theory of gravity, part II: Curved space

  Sunok Josephine Suh

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