Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The friction of tilted skates on ice

  J. M. J. van Leeuwen

  SciPost Phys. 8, 059 (2020) · published 16 April 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The friction felt by a speed skater is calculated as function of the velocity and tilt angle of the skate. This calculation is an extension of the more common theory of friction of upright skates. Not only in rounding a curve the skate has to be tilted, but also in straightforward skating small tilt angles occur, which turn out to be of noticeable influence on the friction. As for the upright skate the friction remains fairly insensitive of the velocities occurring in speed skating.

  3 citations

• The functional generalization of the Boltzmann-Vlasov equation and its gauge-like symmetry

  Giorgio Torrieri

  SciPost Phys. 16, 070 (2024) · published 11 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We argue that one can model deviations from the ensemble average in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics by promoting the Boltzmann equation to an equation in terms of functionals , representing possible candidates for phase space distributions inferred from a finite observed number of degrees of freedom. We find that, provided the collision term and the Vlasov drift term are both included, a gauge-like redundancy arises which does not go away even if the functional is narrow. We argue that this effect is linked to the gauge-like symmetry found in relativistic hydrodynamics [Ann. Phys. 442, 168902 (2022)] and that it could be part of the explanation for the apparent fluid-like behavior in small systems in hadronic collisions and other strongly-coupled small systems [Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 68, 211 (2018)]. When causality and Lorentz invariance are omitted this problem can be look at via random matrix theory show, and we show that in such a case thermalization happens much more quickly than the Boltzmann equation would infer. We also sketch an algorithm to study this problem numerically.

  3 citations

• Bethe $M$-layer construction for the percolation problem

  Maria Chiara Angelini, Saverio Palazzi, Tommaso Rizzo, Marco Tarzia

  SciPost Phys. 18, 030 (2025) · published 23 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  One way to perform field theory computations for the bond percolation problem is through the Kasteleyn and Fortuin mapping to the $n+1$ states Potts model in the limit of $n \to 0$. In this paper, we show that it is possible to recover the $\epsilon$-expansion for critical exponents in finite dimension directly using the $M$-layer expansion, without the need to perform any analytical continuation. Moreover, we also show explicitly that the critical exponents for site and bond percolation are the same. This computation provides a reference for applications of the $M$-layer method to systems where the underlying field theory is unknown or disputed.

  3 citations

• Conformal line defects at finite temperature

  Julien Barrat, Bartomeu Fiol, Enrico Marchetto, Alessio Miscioscia, Elli Pomoni

  SciPost Phys. 18, 018 (2025) · published 15 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study conformal field theories at finite temperature in the presence of a temporal conformal line defect, wrapping the thermal circle, akin to a Polyakov loop in gauge theories. Although several symmetries of the conformal group are broken, the model can still be highly constrained from its features at zero temperature. In this work we show that the defect and bulk one and two-point correlators can be written as functions of zero-temperature data and thermal one-point functions (defect and bulk). The defect one-point functions are new data and they are induced by thermal effects of the bulk. For this new set of data we derive novel sum rules and establish a bootstrap problem for the thermal defect one-point functions from the KMS condition. We also comment on the behaviour of operators with large scaling dimensions. Additionally, we relate the free energy and entropy density to the OPE data through the one-point function of the stress-energy tensor. Our formalism is validated through analytical computations in generalized free scalar field theory, and we present new predictions for the $O(N)$ model with a magnetic impurity in the $\varepsilon$-expansion and the large $N$ limit.

  3 citations

• Exact one-particle density matrix for SU(N) fermionic matter-waves in the strong repulsive limit

  Andreas Osterloh, Juan Polo, Wayne J. Chetcuti, Luigi Amico

  SciPost Phys. 15, 006 (2023) · published 11 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a gas of repulsive $N$-component fermions confined in a ring-shaped potential, subjected to an effective magnetic field. For large repulsion strengths, we work out a Bethe ansatz scheme to compute the two-point correlation matrix and then the one-particle density matrix. Our results hold in the mesoscopic regime of finite but sufficiently large number of particles and system size that are not accessible by numerics. We access the momentum distribution of the system and analyse its specific dependence of interaction, magnetic field and number of components $N$. In the context of cold atoms, the exact computation of the correlation matrix to determine the interference patterns that are produced by releasing cold atoms from ring traps is carried out.

  3 citations

• Thermodynamic limit and boundary energy of the spin-1 Heisenberg chain with non-diagonal boundary fields

  Zhihan Zheng, Pei Sun, Xiaotian Xu, Tao Yang, Junpeng Cao, Wen-Li Yang

  SciPost Phys. 12, 071 (2022) · published 22 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The thermodynamic limit and boundary energy of the isotropic spin-1 Heisenberg chain with non-diagonal boundary fields are studied. The finite size scaling properties of the inhomogeneous term in the $T-Q$ relation at the ground state are calculated by the density matrix renormalization group. Based on our findings, the boundary energy of the system in the thermodynamic limit can be obtained from Bethe ansatz equations of a related model with parallel boundary fields. These results can be generalized to the $SU(2)$ symmetric high spin Heisenberg model directly.

  3 citations

• Gapful electrons in a vortex core in granular superconductors

  Dmitry E. Kiselov, Mikhail A. Skvortsov, Mikhail V. Feigel'man

  SciPost Phys. 15, 008 (2023) · published 12 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We calculate the quasiparticle density of states (DoS) inside the vortex core in a granular superconductor, generalizing the classical solution applicable for dirty superconductors. A discrete version of the Usadel equation for a vortex is derived and solved numerically for a broad range of parameters. Electron DoS is found to be gapful when the coherence length $\xi$ becomes comparable to the distance between neighboring grains $l$. Minigap magnitude $E_g$ grows from zero at $\xi \approx 1.4 l$ to third of superconducting gap $\Delta_0 $ at $\xi \approx 0.5 l$. The absence of low-energy excitations is the main ingredient needed to understand strong suppression of microwave dissipation recently observed in a mixed state of granular Al.

  3 citations

• Geometric surprises in the Python's lunch conjecture

  Gurbir Arora, Matthew Headrick, Albion Lawrence, Martin Sasieta, Connor Wolfe

  SciPost Phys. 16, 152 (2024) · published 12 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A bulge surface, on a time reflection-symmetric Cauchy slice of a holographic spacetime, is a non-minimal extremal surface that occurs between two locally minimal surfaces homologous to a given boundary region. According to the python's lunch conjecture of Brown et al., the bulge's area controls the complexity of bulk reconstruction, in the sense of the amount of post-selection that needs to be overcome for the reconstruction of the entanglement wedge beyond the outermost extremal surface. We study the geometry of bulges in a variety of classical spacetimes, and discover a number of surprising features that distinguish them from more familiar extremal surfaces such as Ryu-Takayanagi surfaces: they spontaneously break spatial isometries, both continuous and discrete; they are sensitive to the choice of boundary infrared regulator; they can self-intersect; and they probe entanglement shadows, orbifold singularities, and compact spaces such as the sphere in AdS$_p× S^q$. These features imply, according to the python's lunch conjecture, novel qualitative differences between complexity and entanglement in the holographic context. We also find, surprisingly, that extended black brane interiors have a non-extensive complexity; similarly, for multi-boundary wormhole states, the complexity pleateaus after a certain number of boundaries have been included.

  3 citations

• 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 | Toggle abstract · 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.

  3 citations

• Classification of Convergent OPE Channels for Lorentzian CFT Four-Point Functions

  Jiaxin Qiao

  SciPost Phys. 13, 093 (2022) · published 12 October 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze the convergence properties of operator product expansions (OPE) for Lorentzian CFT four-point functions of scalar operators. We give a complete classification of Lorentzian four-point configurations. All configurations in each class have the same OPE convergence properties in s-, t- and u-channels. We give tables including the information of OPE convergence for all classes. Our work justifies that in a subset of the configuration space, Lorentzian CFT four-point functions are genuine analytic functions. Our results are valid for unitary CFTs in $d\geq2$. Our work also provides some Lorentzian regions where one can do bootstrap analysis in the sense of functions.

  3 citations