Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Refined cyclic renormalization group in Russian doll model

  Vedant Motamarri, Ivan M. Khaymovich, Alexander Gorsky

  SciPost Phys. 17, 157 (2024) · published 6 December 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Focusing on Bethe-Ansatz integrable models, robust to both time-reversal symmetry breaking and disorder, we consider the Russian Doll Model (RDM) for finite system sizes and energy levels. Suggested as a time-reversal-symmetry breaking deformation of Richardson's model, the well-known and simplest model of superconductivity, RDM revealed an unusual cyclic renormalization group (RG) over the system size $N$, where the energy levels repeat themselves, shifted by one after a finite period in $\ln N$, supplemented by a hierarchy of superconducting condensates, with the superconducting gaps following the so-called Efimov (exponential) scaling. The equidistant single-particle spectrum of RDM made the above Efimov scaling and cyclic RG to be asymptotically exact in the wideband limit of the diagonal potential. Here, we generalize this observation in various respects. We find that, beyond the wideband limit, when the entire spectrum is considered, the periodicity of the spectrum is not constant, but appears to be energy-dependent. Moreover, we resolve the apparent paradox of shift in the spectrum by a single level after the RG period, despite the disappearance of a finite fraction of energy levels. We also analyze the effects of disorder in the diagonal potential on the above periodicity and show that it survives only for high energies beyond the energy interval of the disorder amplitude. Our analytic analysis is supported with exact diagonalization.

• Dissipation and noise in strongly driven Josephson junctions

  Vasilii Vadimov, Yoshiki Sunada, Mikko Möttönen

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 065 (2025) · published 6 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In circuit quantum electrodynamical systems, the quasiparticle-related losses in Josephson junctions are suppressed due to the gap in the superconducting density of states which is much higher than the typical energy of a microwave photon. In this work, we show that a strong drive even at a frequency lower than twice the superconductor gap parameter can activate dissipation in the junctions due to photon-assisted breaking of the Cooper pairs. Both the decay rate and noise strength associated with the losses are sensitive to the dc phase bias of the junction and can be tuned in a broad range by the amplitude and the frequency of the external driving field, making the suggested mechanism potentially attractive for designing tunable dissipative elements. We also predict pronounced memory effects in the driven Josephson junctions, which are appealing for both theoretical and experimental studies of non-Markovian physics in superconducting quantum circuits. We illustrate our theoretical findings by studying the spectral properties and the steady-state population of a low-impedance resonator coupled to the driven Josephson junction: we show the emergence of non-Lorentzian spectral lines and broad tunability of effective temperature of the steady state.

• How negative can null energy be in large N CFTs?

  Jackson R. Fliss, Ben Freivogel, Eleni-Alexandra Kontou, Diego Pardo Santos

  SciPost Phys. 19, 087 (2025) · published 7 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Smeared null energy has been shown to be bounded from below for free minimally coupled quantum field theories. This is not the case for conformally coupled free bosonic theories where states of unbounded null energy can be constructed by increasing the particle number. Little is known for interacting conformal field theories (CFTs) in dimensions larger than two. In this work we consider states that are superpositions of scalar primary operators or the stress-energy tensor itself in large $N$ CFTs. Within the large $N$ approximation we present arguments that the negative smeared null energy of such states scales at worst as the central charge of the theory, $C_T$. This provides evidence for a general bound for CFTs in $d$-dimensions proportional to the central charge.

• How to unfold top decays

  Luigi Favaro, Roman Kogler, Alexander Paasch, Sofia Palacios Schweitzer, Tilman Plehn, Dennis Schwarz

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 053 (2025) · published 18 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Using unfolded top-quark decay data we can measure the top quark mass, as well as search for unexpected kinematic effects. We present a new generative unfolding method for the two tasks and show how they both benefit from unbinned, high-dimensional unfolding. Unlike weight-based or iterative generative methods we include a targeted unbiasing with respect to the training data. This shows significant advantages over standard, iterative methods, in terms of applicability, flexibility and accuracy.

• pySecDec as a tool for expansion by regions and loop amplitude evaluation

  Emilio Villa

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 014 (2022) · published 20 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present the new release of pySecDec, a toolbox for the evaluation of dimensionally regulated parameter integrals. The main new features consist of an automated way to perform expansions, based on the geometric approach to the method of expansion by regions, and a new algorithm to efficiently evaluate linear combinations of integrals as needed for the calculation of scattering amplitudes. The other new features are also summarised briefly.

• The Belle II experiment: Status and prospects

  Kavita Lalwani (on behalf of the Belle II Collaboration)

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 176 (2023) · published 11 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB energy asymmetric $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider is a substantial upgrade of the B factory facility at the Japanese KEK laboratory. The design luminosity of the machine is $6\times10^{35}$ $cm^{-2}s^{-1}$ and the Belle II experiment aims to record 50 $ab^{-1}$ of data, a factor of 50 more than its predecessor. With this data set, Belle II will be able to measure the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix, the matrix elements and their phases, with unprecedented precision and explore flavor physics with $B$, charmed mesons, and $\tau$ leptons. Belle II has also a unique capability to search for low-mass dark matter and low-mass mediators. In this paper, we will review the status of the Belle II detector, SuperKEKB accelerator and the prospects for physics at Belle II.

• Competition of light- and phonon-dressing in microwave-dressed Bose polarons

  G. M. Koutentakis, S. I. Mistakidis, F. Grusdt, H. R. Sadeghpour, P. Schmelcher

  SciPost Phys. 19, 093 (2025) · published 13 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We theoretically investigate the stationary properties of a spin-1/2 impurity immersed in a one-dimensional confined Bose gas. In particular, we consider coherently coupled spin states with an external field, where only one spin component interacts with the bath, enabling light dressing of the impurity and spin-dependent bath-impurity interactions. Through detailed comparisons with ab-initio many-body simulations, we demonstrate that the composite system is accurately described by a simplified effective Hamiltonian. The latter builds upon previously developed effective potential approaches in the absence of light dressing. It can be used to extract the impurity energy, residue, effective mass, and anharmonicity induced by the phononic dressing. Light-dressing is shown to increase the polaron residue, undressing the impurity from phononic excitations because of strong spin coupling. For strong repulsions, previously shown to trigger dynamical Bose polaron decay (a phenomenon called temporal orthogonality catastrophe), it is explained that strong light-dressing stabilizes a repulsive polaron-dressed state. Our results establish the effective Hamiltonian framework as a powerful tool for exploring strongly interacting polaronic systems and corroborating forthcoming experimental realizations.

• Normative approaches to neural coding and behavior

  Ann Hermundstad

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 83 (2024) · published 13 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These are a brief set of lectures notes for lectures given at the Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Biological Physics in July 2023. In these notes, I provide an introduction to some of the theoretical frameworks that are used to understand how the brain makes sense of incoming signals from the environment to ultimately guide effective behavior. I then discuss how we can apply these frameworks to understand the structure and function of real brains.

• Entanglement classification via operator size

  Qi-Feng Wu

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 063 (2023) · published 15 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work, multipartite entanglement is classified by polynomials. I show that the operator size is closely related to the entanglement structure. Given a generic quantum state, I define a series of subspaces generated by operators of different sizes acting on it. The information about the entanglement is encoded into these subspaces. With the dimension of these subspaces as coefficients, I define a polynomial which I call the entanglement polynomial. The entanglement polynomial induces a homomorphism from quantum states to polynomials. It implies that we can characterize and find the building blocks of entanglement by polynomial factorization. Two states share the same entanglement polynomial if they are equivalent under the stochastic local operations and classical communication. To calculate the entanglement polynomial practically, I construct a series of states, called renormalized states, whose ranks are related to the coefficients of the entanglement polynomial.

• Free growth under tension

  Chenyun Yao, Jens Elgeti

  SciPost Phys. 19, 097 (2025) · published 15 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Ever since the ground breaking work of Trepat et al. in 2009, we know that cell colonies growing on a substrate can be under tensile mechanical stress. The origin of tension has so far been attributed to cellular motility forces being oriented outward of the colony. Works in the field mainly revolve around how this orientation of the forces can be explained, ranging from velocity alignment to self-sorting due to self-propulsion. In this work, we demonstrate that tension in growing colonies can also be explained without cellular motility forces! Using a combination of well established tissue growth simulation technique and analytical modelling, we show how tension can arise as a consequence of simple mechanics of growing tissues. Combining these models with a minimalistic motility model shows how colonies can expand while under even larger tension. Furthermore, our results and analytical models provide novel analysis procedures to identify the underlying mechanics.