Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Maximal Entanglement in High Energy Physics

  Alba Cervera-Lierta, José I. Latorre, Juan Rojo, Luca Rottoli

  SciPost Phys. 3, 036 (2017) · published 24 November 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze how maximal entanglement is generated at the fundamental level in QED by studying correlations between helicity states in tree-level scattering processes at high energy. We demonstrate that two mechanisms for the generation of maximal entanglement are at work: i) $s$-channel processes where the virtual photon carries equal overlaps of the helicities of the final state particles, and ii) the indistinguishable superposition between $t$- and $u$-channels. We then study whether requiring maximal entanglement constrains the coupling structure of QED and the weak interactions. In the case of photon-electron interactions unconstrained by gauge symmetry, we show how this requirement allows reproducing QED. For $Z$-mediated weak scattering, the maximal entanglement principle leads to non-trivial predictions for the value of the weak mixing angle $\theta_W$. Our results are a first step towards understanding the connections between maximal entanglement and the fundamental symmetries of high-energy physics.

  45 citations

• Asymmetric dark matter: residual annihilations and self-interactions

  Iason Baldes, Marco Cirelli, Paolo Panci, Kalliopi Petraki, Filippo Sala, Marco Taoso

  SciPost Phys. 4, 041 (2018) · published 26 June 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dark matter (DM) coupled to light mediators has been invoked to resolve the putative discrepancies between collisionless cold DM and galactic structure observations. However, $\gamma$-ray searches and the CMB strongly constrain such scenarios. To ease the tension, we consider asymmetric DM. We show that, contrary to the common lore, detectable annihilations occur even for large asymmetries, and derive bounds from the CMB, $\gamma$-ray, neutrino and antiproton searches. We then identify the viable space for self-interacting DM. Direct detection does not exclude this scenario, but provides a way to test it.

  44 citations

• A global view of the off-shell Higgs portal

  Maximilian Ruhdorfer, Ennio Salvioni, Andreas Weiler

  SciPost Phys. 8, 027 (2020) · published 12 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study for the first time the collider reach on the derivative Higgs portal, the leading effective interaction that couples a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) scalar Dark Matter to the Standard Model. We focus on Dark Matter pair production through an off-shell Higgs boson, which is analyzed in the vector boson fusion channel. A variety of future high-energy lepton colliders as well as hadron colliders are considered, including CLIC, a muon collider, the High-Luminosity and High-Energy versions of the LHC, and FCC-hh. Implications on the parameter space of pNGB Dark Matter are discussed. In addition, we give improved and extended results for the collider reach on the marginal Higgs portal, under the assumption that the new scalars escape the detector, as motivated by a variety of beyond the Standard Model scenarios.

  44 citations

• On the matter of topological insulators as magnetoelectrics

  N. P. Armitage, Liang Wu

  SciPost Phys. 6, 046 (2019) · published 17 April 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  It has been proposed that topological insulators can be best characterized not as surface conductors, but as bulk magnetoelectrics that -- under the right conditions-- have a universal quantized magnetoelectric response coefficient $e^2/2h$. However, it is not clear to what extent these conditions are achievable in real materials that can have disorder, finite chemical potential, residual dissipation, and even inversion symmetry. This has led to some confusion and misconceptions. The primary goal of this work is to illustrate exactly under what real life scenarios and in what context topological insulators can be described as magnetoelectrics. We explore analogies of the 3D magnetoelectric response to electric polarization in 1D in detail, the formal vs. effective polarization and magnetoelectric susceptibility, the 1/2 quantized surface quantum Hall effect, the multivalued nature of the magnetoelectric susceptibility, the role of inversion symmetry, the effects of dissipation, and the necessity for finite frequency measurements. We present these issues from the perspective of experimentalists who have struggled to take the beautiful theoretical ideas and to try to measure their (sometimes subtle) physical consequences in messy real material systems.

  44 citations

• JT gravity at finite cutoff

  Luca V. Iliesiu, Jorrit Kruthoff, Gustavo J. Turiaci, Herman Verlinde

  SciPost Phys. 9, 023 (2020) · published 21 August 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We compute the partition function of 2D Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity at finite cutoff in two ways: (i) via an exact evaluation of the Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunctional in radial quantization and (ii) through a direct computation of the Euclidean path integral. Both methods deal with Dirichlet boundary conditions for the metric and the dilaton. In the first approach, the radial wavefunctionals are found by reducing the constraint equations to two first order functional derivative equations that can be solved exactly, including factor ordering. In the second approach we perform the path integral exactly when summing over surfaces with disk topology, to all orders in perturbation theory in the cutoff. Both results precisely match the recently derived partition function in the Schwarzian theory deformed by an operator analogous to the $T\overline{T}$ deformation in 2D CFTs. This equality can be seen as concrete evidence for the proposed holographic interpretation of the $T\overline{T}$ deformation as the movement of the AdS boundary to a finite radial distance in the bulk.

  44 citations

• Neural network-based approach to phase space integration

  Matthew D. Klimek, Maxim Perelstein

  SciPost Phys. 9, 053 (2020) · published 19 October 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Monte Carlo methods are widely used in particle physics to integrate and sample probability distributions (differential cross sections or decay rates) on multi-dimensional phase spaces. We present a Neural Network (NN) algorithm optimized to perform this task. The algorithm has been applied to several examples of direct relevance for particle physics, including situations with non-trivial features such as sharp resonances and soft/collinear enhancements. Excellent performance has been demonstrated in all examples, with the properly trained NN achieving unweighting efficiencies of between 30% and 75%. In contrast to traditional Monte Carlo algorithms such as VEGAS, the NN-based approach does not require that the phase space coordinates be aligned with resonant or other features in the cross section.

  44 citations

• Conformal field theory on top of a breathing one-dimensional gas of hard core bosons

  Paola Ruggiero, Yannis Brun, Jérome Dubail

  SciPost Phys. 6, 051 (2019) · published 30 April 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The recent results of [J. Dubail, J.-M. St\'ephan, J. Viti, P. Calabrese, Scipost Phys. 2, 002 (2017)], which aim at providing access to large scale correlation functions of inhomogeneous critical one-dimensional quantum systems -- e.g. a gas of hard core bosons in a trapping potential -- are extended to a dynamical situation: a breathing gas in a time-dependent harmonic trap. Hard core bosons in a time-dependent harmonic potential are well known to be exactly solvable, and can thus be used as a benchmark for the approach. An extensive discussion of the approach and of its relation with classical and quantum hydrodynamics in one dimension is given, and new formulas for correlation functions, not easily obtainable by other methods, are derived. In particular, a remarkable formula for the large scale asymptotics of the bosonic $n$-particle function $\left< \Psi^\dagger (x_1,t_1) \dots \Psi^\dagger (x_n,t_n) \Psi(x_1',t_1') \dots \Psi(x_n',t_n') \right>$ is obtained. Numerical checks of the approach are carried out for the fermionic two-point function -- easier to access numerically in the microscopic model than the bosonic one -- with perfect agreement.

  44 citations

• Multifractality without fine-tuning in a Floquet quasiperiodic chain

  Sthitadhi Roy, Ivan M. Khaymovich, Arnab Das, Roderich Moessner

  SciPost Phys. 4, 025 (2018) · published 19 May 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Periodically driven, or Floquet, disordered quantum systems have generated many unexpected discoveries of late, such as the anomalous Floquet Anderson insulator and the discrete time crystal. Here, we report the emergence of an entire band of multifractal wavefunctions in a periodically driven chain of non-interacting particles subject to spatially quasiperiodic disorder. Remarkably, this multifractality is robust in that it does not require any fine-tuning of the model parameters, which sets it apart from the known multifractality of $critical$ wavefunctions. The multifractality arises as the periodic drive hybridises the localised and delocalised sectors of the undriven spectrum. We account for this phenomenon in a simple random matrix based theory. Finally, we discuss dynamical signatures of the multifractal states, which should betray their presence in cold atom experiments. Such a simple yet robust realisation of multifractality could advance this so far elusive phenomenon towards applications, such as the proposed disorder-induced enhancement of a superfluid transition.

  44 citations

• Equations of state in generalized hydrodynamics

  Dinh-Long Vu, Takato Yoshimura

  SciPost Phys. 6, 023 (2019) · published 15 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We, for the first time, report a first-principle proof of the equations of state used in the hydrodynamic theory for integrable systems, termed generalized hydrodynamics (GHD). The proof makes full use of the graph theoretic approach to Thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) that was proposed recently. This approach is purely combinatorial and relies only on common structures shared among Bethe solvable models, suggesting universal applicability of the method. To illustrate the idea of the proof, we focus on relativistic integrable quantum field theories with diagonal scatterings and without bound states such as strings.

  44 citations

• Bounds on the entanglement entropy by the number entropy in non-interacting fermionic systems

  Maximilian Kiefer-Emmanouilidis, Razmik Unanyan, Jesko Sirker, Michael Fleischhauer

  SciPost Phys. 8, 083 (2020) · published 3 June 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Entanglement in a pure state of a many-body system can be characterized by the R\'enyi entropies $S^{(\alpha)}=\ln\textrm{tr}(\rho^\alpha)/(1-\alpha)$ of the reduced density matrix $\rho$ of a subsystem. These entropies are, however, difficult to access experimentally and can typically be determined for small systems only. Here we show that for free fermionic systems in a Gaussian state and with particle number conservation, $\ln S^{(2)}$ can be tightly bound---from above and below---by the much easier accessible R\'enyi number entropy $S^{(2)}_N=-\ln \sum_n p^2(n)$ which is a function of the probability distribution $p(n)$ of the total particle number in the considered subsystem only. A dynamical growth in entanglement, in particular, is therefore always accompanied by a growth---albeit logarithmically slower---of the number entropy. We illustrate this relation by presenting numerical results for quenches in non-interacting one-dimensional lattice models including disorder-free, Anderson-localized, and critical systems with off-diagonal disorder.

  43 citations