Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Markovian to non-Markovian phase transition in the operator dynamics of a mobile impurity

  Dominic Gribben, Jamir Marino, Shane P. Kelly

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 060 (2024) · published 9 September 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study a random unitary circuit model of an impurity moving through a chaotic medium. The exchange of information between the medium and impurity is controlled by varying the velocity of the impurity, $v_d$, relative to the speed of information propagation within the medium, $v_B$. Above supersonic velocities, $v_d> v_B$, information cannot flow back to the impurity after it has moved into the medium, and the resulting dynamics are Markovian. Below supersonic velocities, $v_d< v_B$, the dynamics of the impurity and medium are non-Markovian, and information is able to flow back onto the impurity. We show the two regimes are separated by a continuous phase transition with exponents directly related to the diffusive spreading of operators in the medium. This is demonstrated by monitoring an out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC) in a scenario where the impurity is substituted at an intermediate time. During the Markovian phase, information from the medium cannot transfer onto the replaced impurity, manifesting in no significant operator development. Conversely, in the non-Markovian phase, we observe that operators acquire support on the newly introduced impurity. We also characterize the dynamics using the coherent information and provide two decoders which can efficiently probe the transition between Markovian and non-Markovian information flow. Our work demonstrates that Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics can be separated by a phase transition, and we propose an efficient protocol for observing this transition.

  5 citations

• Quantum phases of hardcore bosons with repulsive dipolar density-density interactions on two-dimensional lattices

  J. A. Koziol, G. Morigi, K. P. Schmidt

  SciPost Phys. 17, 111 (2024) · published 10 October 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyse the ground-state quantum phase diagram of hardcore Bosons interacting with repulsive dipolar potentials. The bosons dynamics is described by the extended-Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian on a two-dimensional lattice. The ground state results from the interplay between the lattice geometry and the long-range interactions, which we account for by means of a classical spin mean-field approach limited by the size of the considered unit cells. This extended classical spin mean-field theory accounts for the long-range density-density interaction without truncation. We consider three different lattice geometries: square, honeycomb, and triangular. In the limit of zero hopping the ground state is always a devil's staircase of solid (gapped) phases. Such crystalline phases with broken translational symmetry are robust with respect to finite hopping amplitudes. At intermediate hopping amplitudes, these gapped phases melt, giving rise to various lattice supersolid phases, which can have exotic features with multiple sublattice densities. At sufficiently large hoppings the ground state is a superfluid. The stability of phases predicted by our approach is gauged by comparison to the known quantum phase diagrams of the Bose-Hubbard model with nearest-neighbour interactions as well as quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the dipolar case on the square and triangular lattice. Our results are of immediate relevance for experimental realisations of self-organised crystalline ordering patterns in analogue quantum simulators, e.g., with ultracold dipolar atoms in an optical lattice.

  5 citations

• Strength in numbers: Optimal and scalable combination of LHC new-physics searches

  Jack Y. Araz, Andy Buckley, Benjamin Fuks, Humberto Reyes-Gonzalez, Wolfgang Waltenberger, Sophie L. Williamson, Jamie Yellen

  SciPost Phys. 14, 077 (2023) · published 20 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  To gain a comprehensive view of what the LHC tells us about physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), it is crucial that different BSM-sensitive analyses can be combined. But in general search-analyses are not statistically orthogonal, so performing comprehensive combinations requires knowledge of the extent to which the same events co-populate multiple analyses' signal regions. We present a novel, stochastic method to determine this degree of overlap, and a graph algorithm to efficiently find the combination of signal regions with no mutual overlap that optimises expected upper limits on BSM-model cross-sections. The gain in exclusion power relative to single-analysis limits is demonstrated with models with varying degrees of complexity, ranging from simplified models to a 19-dimensional supersymmetric model.

  5 citations

• Quantum criticality in many-body parafermion chains

  Ville Lahtinen, Teresia Mansson, Eddy Ardonne

  SciPost Phys. Core 4, 014 (2021) · published 28 May 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We construct local generalizations of 3-state Potts models with exotic critical points. We analytically show that these are described by non-diagonal modular invariant partition functions of products of $Z_3$ parafermion or $u(1)_6$ conformal field theories (CFTs). These correspond either to non-trivial permutation invariants or block diagonal invariants, that one can understand in terms of anyon condensation. In terms of lattice parafermion operators, the constructed models correspond to parafermion chains with many-body terms. Our construction is based on how the partition function of a CFT depends on symmetry sectors and boundary conditions. This enables to write the partition function corresponding to one modular invariant as a linear combination of another over different sectors and boundary conditions, which translates to a general recipe how to write down a microscopic model, tuned to criticality. We show that the scheme can also be extended to construct critical generalizations of $k$-state clock type models.

  5 citations

• The threefold way to quantum periods: WKB, TBA equations and q-Painlevé

  Fabrizio Del Monte, Pietro Longhi

  SciPost Phys. 15, 112 (2023) · published 25 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that TBA equations defined by the BPS spectrum of $5d$ $\mathcal{N}=1$ $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills on $S^1\times \mathbb{R}^4$ encode the q-Painlevé III$_3$ equation. We find a fine-tuned stratum in the physical moduli space of the theory where solutions to TBA equations can be obtained exactly, and verify that they agree with the algebraic solutions to q-Painlevé. Switching from the physical moduli space to that of stability conditions, we identify two one-parameter deformations of the fine-tuned stratum, where the general solution of the q-Painlevé equation in terms of dual instanton partition functions continues to provide explicit TBA solutions. Motivated by these observations, we propose a further extensions of the range of validity of this correspondence, under a suitable identification of moduli. As further checks of our proposal, we study the behavior of exact WKB quantum periods for the quantum curve of local $\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1$.

  5 citations

• Dynamical mean field theory for models of confluent tissues and beyond

  Persia Jana Kamali, Pierfrancesco Urbani

  SciPost Phys. 15, 219 (2023) · published 30 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a recently proposed model to understand the rigidity transition in confluent tissues and we derive the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) equations that describes several types of dynamics of the model in the thermodynamic limit: gradient descent, thermal Langevin noise and active drive. In particular we focus on gradient descent dynamics and we integrate numerically the corresponding DMFT equations. In this case we show that gradient descent is blind to the zero temperature replica symmetry breaking (RSB) transition point. This means that, even if the Gibbs measure in the zero temperature limit displays RSB, this algorithm is able to find its way to a zero energy configuration. We include a discussion on possible extensions of the DMFT derivation to study problems rooted in high-dimensional regression and optimization via the square loss function.

  5 citations

• Free fermions beyond Jordan and Wigner

  Paul Fendley, Balazs Pozsgay

  SciPost Phys. 16, 102 (2024) · published 10 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Jordan-Wigner transformation is frequently utilised to rewrite quantum spin chains in terms of fermionic operators. When the resulting Hamiltonian is bilinear in these fermions, i.e. the fermions are free, the exact spectrum follows from the eigenvalues of a matrix whose size grows only linearly with the volume of the system. However, several Hamiltonians that do not admit a Jordan-Wigner transformation to fermion bilinears still have the same type of free-fermion spectra. The spectra of such "free fermions in disguise" models can be found exactly by an intricate but explicit construction of the raising and lowering operators. We generalise the methods further to find a family of such spin chains. We compute the exact spectrum, and generalise an elegant graph-theory construction. We also explain how this family admits an N=2 lattice supersymmetry.

  5 citations

• Quantum-enhanced multiparameter estimation and compressed sensing of a field

  Youcef Baamara, Manuel Gessner, Alice Sinatra

  SciPost Phys. 14, 050 (2023) · published 27 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that a significant quantum gain corresponding to squeezed or over-squeezed spin states can be obtained in multiparameter estimation by measuring the Hadamard coefficients of a 1D or 2D signal. The physical platform we consider consists of two-level atoms in an optical lattice in a squeezed-Mott configuration, or more generally by correlated spins distributed in spatially separated modes. Our protocol requires the possibility to locally flip the spins, but relies on collective measurements. We give examples of applications to scalar or vector field mapping and compressed sensing.

  5 citations

• Quantum chaos in perturbative super-Yang-Mills Theory

  Tristan McLoughlin, Raul Pereira, Anne Spiering

  SciPost Phys. 14, 049 (2023) · published 27 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We provide numerical evidence that the perturbative spectrum of anomalous dimensions in maximally supersymmetric $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory is chaotic at finite values of $N$. We calculate the probability distribution of one-loop level spacings for subsectors of the theory and show that for large $N$ it is given by the Poisson distribution of integrable models, while at finite values it is the Wigner-Dyson distribution of the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble random matrix theory. We extend these results to two-loop order and to a one-parameter family of deformations. We further study the spectral rigidity for these models and show that it is also well described by random matrix theory. Finally we demonstrate that the finite-$N$ eigenvectors possess properties of chaotic states.

  5 citations

• The complex Liouville string: The worldsheet

  Scott Collier, Lorenz Eberhardt, Beatrix Mühlmann, Victor A. Rodriguez

  SciPost Phys. 19, 033 (2025) · published 12 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We introduce a new two-dimensional string theory defined by coupling two copies of Liouville CFT with complex central charge $c=13± i \lambda$ on the worldsheet. This string theory defines a novel, consistent and controllable model of two-dimensional quantum gravity. We use the exact solution of the worldsheet theory to derive stringent constraints on the analytic structure of the string amplitudes as a function of the vertex operator momenta. Together with other worldsheet constraints, this allows us to completely pin down the string amplitudes without explicitly computing the moduli space integrals. We focus on the case of the sphere four-point amplitude and torus one-point amplitude as worked examples. This is the first in a series of papers on the complex Liouville string: three subsequent papers will elucidate the holographic duality with a two-matrix integral, discuss worldsheet boundaries and non-perturbative effects, and connect the theory to de Sitter quantum gravity.

  5 citations