Quantum Matter

The presence of many competing classical ground states in frustrated magnets implies that quantum fluctuations may stabilize quantum spin liquids (QSL), which are characterized by fractionalized excitations and emergent gauge fields. A paradigmatic example is the U(1) Dirac spin liquid (DSL), which at low-energies is described by emergent quantum electrodynamics in 2+1 dimensions (QED3), a strongly interacting field theory with conformal symmetry. While the DSL is believed to be intrinsically stable, its robustness against various other couplings has been largely unexplored and is a timely question, also given recent experiments on triangular-lattice rare-earth oxides. In this talk, using complementary perturbation theory and scaling arguments as well as results from numerical DMRG simulations, I will show that a symmetry-allowed coupling between (classical) finite-wavevector lattice distortions and monopole operators of the U(1) Dirac spin liquid generally induces a spin-Peierls instability towards a (confining) valence-bond solid state. Away from the limit of static distortions, I will argue that the phonon energy gap establishes a parameter regime where the spin liquid is expected to be stable.

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Zoom link https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96764903405?pwd=Y0gyU3hGSC9va0hzWnZRZFBOVmRCZz09

An ongoing program of work in statistical physics and quantum dynamics is concerned with understanding the character of systems which follow an unconventional approach towards thermal equilibrium. In this talk, I will add to this story by introducing examples of simple 1D systems---both classical and quantum---which thermalize in very unusual ways. These examples have dynamics which is strictly local and translation-invariant, but in spite of this, they: a) can have very long thermalization times, with expectation values of local operators relaxing only over times exponential in the system size; and b) can thermalize only when they are placed in extremely large baths, with the required bath size growing exponentially (or even faster) in system size. Proofs of these results will be given using techniques from geometric group theory, a beautiful area of mathematics concerned with the complexity and geometry of infinite discrete groups. This talk will be based on a paper in preparation with Shankar Balasubramanian, Sarang Golaparakrishnan, and Alexey Khudorozhkov.

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Zoom link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/99430001465?pwd=NENlS1M5UGc5UWM1ekQvRWFrZGYyUT09

Quantum Hall phases are the most exotic experimentally established quantum phases of matter.Recently they have been discovered at zero external magnetic field in two dimensional moire materials. I will describe recent work (with Xue-Yang Song and Ya-Hui Zhang) on their proximate phases and associated phase transitions that is motivated by the high tunability of thede moire systems. These phase transitions (and some of the proximate phases) are exotic as well, and realize novel ‘beyond Landau’ criticality that have been explored theoretically for many years. I will show that these moiré platforms provide a great experimental opportunity to study these unconventional phase transitions and related unconventional phases, thereby opening a new direction for research in quantum matter.

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Zoom link : https://pitp.zoom.us/j/97483204701?pwd=S2x4ck9tNHFjM0RiTDNWNFhaMk9SUT09

We study the Petz map, which is a universal recovery channel of a tripartite quantum state upon erasing one party, in quantum many-body systems. The fidelity of the recovered state with the original state quantifies how much information shared by the two parties is not mediated by one of the party, and has a universal lower bound in terms of the conditional mutual information (CMI). I will study this quantity in two different contexts. First, in a CFT ground state, we show that the fidelity is universal, which means it only depends on the central charge and the cross ratio. We compute this universal function numerically and show that it is consistently better than the naive CMI bound. Secondly, we show that for two broad classes of the states, the CMI lower bound is saturated. These include stabilizer states (in any dimensions) and the ground state of 2+1D topological order.

Zoom link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/92623435839?pwd=N1JIdkUwWHFkZGpqb1p1V3NKYy91QT09

The notorious exponential complexity of quantum problems can be avoided for systems with limited correlations. For example, states of one-dimensional systems with bounded entanglement are approximable by matrix product states. We consider fermionic systems, where correlations can be defined as deviations from Gaussian states. Heuristically, one expects a link between compact non-Gaussian ansatzes and bounded fermionic correlations. This connection, however, has not been rigorously demonstrated. Our work resolves this conceptual gap.

We focus on pure states with a fixed number of fermions. Generalizing the so-called Plücker relations, we introduce k-particle correlation measures ω_k. The vanishing of ω_k at a constant k defines a class H_k of states with limited correlations. These sets H_k are nested, ranging from Gaussian for k=1 to the full n-fermion Hilbert space H for k=n+1. States in H_{k=O(1)} can be represented using a non-Gaussian ansatz of polynomial size. Classes H_k have physical meaning, containing all truncated perturbation series around Gaussian states. We also identify non-perturbative examples of states in H_{k=O(1)}, by a numerical study of excited states in the 1D Hubbard model. Finally, we discuss the information-theoretic implications of our results for the widely used coupled-cluster ansatz.

Zoom Link: TBD

Macroscopic physics of a quantum many-body systems on a lattice is commonly captured by a continuum field theory. We will discuss the interplay between lattice effects and continuum theory from the perspective of symmetry and ’t Hooft anomalies. In the first part of the talk, using the example of a spin-1/2 XXZ chain, we will show how the continuum limit of a lattice model is properly described in terms of a field theory with topological defects. In particular, anomaly explains a curious size dependence of the ground state momentum in the XXZ chain. In the second part, we will examine U(1) filling anomaly for subsystem symmetries. With a generalized flux-insertion argument, we derive nontrivial constraints on the mobility of excitations in a symmetry-preserving gapped phase.

Zoom link:  https://pitp.zoom.us/j/96117447396?pwd=QVNaSHdHeDh1RENvenRjamVlVGNudz09

Fermi liquids are gapless quantum many-body states of fermions, which describes electrons in the normal state of most metals at low temperature. Despite its long history of study, there has been renewed interest in understanding the stability of Fermi liquid from the perspectives of emergent symmetry and quantum anomaly. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of Fermi surface anomaly and propose a possible scheme to classify it. The classification scheme is based on viewing the Fermi surface as the boundary of a Chern insulator in the phase space, with an unusual dimension counting arising from the non-commutative phase space geometry. This enables us to extend the notion of Fermi surface anomaly to the non-perturbative cases and discuss symmetric mass generation on the Fermi surface when the anomaly is canceled. I will provide examples of lattice models that demonstrate Fermi surface symmetric mass generation and make connections to the recent progress in understanding the pseudo-gap transition in cuprate materials.

Zoom link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/97223165997?pwd=SkhJZEt1ejhQRm0yK2tKS3NhM2o2Zz09

Soon after the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in the cuprates, Anderson proposed a connection to quantum spin liquids. But observations since then have shown that the low temperature phase diagram is dominated by conventional states, with a competition between superconductivity and charge-ordered states which break translational symmetry. We employ the "pseudogap metal" phase, found at intermediate temperatures and low hole doping, as the parent to the phases found at lower temperatures. The pseudogap metal is described as a fractionalized phase of a single-band model, with small pocket Fermi surfaces of electron-like quasiparticles whose enclosed area is not equal to the free electron value, and an underlying pi-flux spin liquid with an emergent SU(2) gauge field. This pi-flux spin liquid is now known to be unstable to confinement at sufficiently low energies. We develop a theory of the different routes to confinement of the pi-flux spin liquid, and show that d-wave superconductivity, antiferromagnetism, and charge order are natural outcomes. We are argue that this theory provides routes to resolving a number of open puzzles on the cuprate phase diagram.

As a side result, at half-filling, we propose a deconfined quantum critical point between an antiferromagnet and a d-wave superconductor described by a conformal gauge theory of 2 flavors of massless Dirac fermions and 2 flavors of complex scalars coupled as fundamentals to a SU(2) gauge field.

This talk is based on Maine Christos, Zhu-Xi Luo, Henry Shackleton, Ya-Hui Zhang, Mathias S. Scheurer, and S. S., arXiv:2302.07885

Zoom link:  https://pitp.zoom.us/j/97370076705?pwd=Q1MwQmNaSFkxaWFEdUl5NFZDS0E4Zz09

The Berry phase, discovered by M.V. Berry in 1984, has been applied to the construction of various invariants in topological phase of matters. The Berry phase measures the non-triviality of a uniquely gapped system as a family and takes its value in $H^2({parameter space};Z)$.

In recent years, there have been several attempts to generalize it to higher-dimensional many-body lattice systems[1,2,3,4], called the “higher” Berry phase. In the case of spatial dimension d it is believed that the higher Berry phase takes its value in $H^{d+2}({parameter space};Z)$. However, in general dimensions, the definition of the higher Berry phase in lattice systems is not yet known.

In my talk, I’ll explain about the way to extract the higher Berry phase in 1-dimensional systems by using the “higher inner product” of three matrix product states and how to construct the topological invariant which takes its value in $H^3({parameter space};Z)$. This talk is based on [3] and [4].

Refs:
[1] A. Kapustin and L. Spodyneiko Phys. Rev. B 101, 235130
[2] X. Wen, M. Qi, A. Beaudry, J. Moreno, M. J. Pflaum, D. Spiegel, A. Vishwanath and M. Hermele arXiv:2112.07748
[3] S. Ohyama, Y. Terashima and  K. Shiozaki arXiv:2303.04252
[4] S. Ohyama and S. Ryu arXiv:2304.05356  

Zoom link:  https://pitp.zoom.us/j/93720709850?pwd=RTliMDNMRWo2V2k1MnBKUjlRMjBqZz09

In an isolated quantum many-body system undergoing unitary evolution, the entropy of a subsystem (smaller than half the system size) thermalizes if at long times, it is to leading order equal to the thermodynamic entropy of the subsystem at the same energy. We prove entropy thermalization for a nearly integrable Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model initialized in a pure product state. The model is obtained by adding random all-to-all 4-body interactions as a perturbation to a random free-fermion model. In this model, there is a regime of “thermalization without eigenstate thermalization.” Thus, the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is not a necessary condition for thermalization. Joint work with Aram W. Harrow

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/91710478120?pwd=OVRDOStOSkdIVG9mcGJqMWJlU1FRdz09

Isolated quantum systems, investigated a century ago, exhibit coherent, unitary dynamics. When such a system is coupled to an environment, the resulting loss of coherence is modeled by completely positive, trace preserving (CPTP) quantum maps for the density matrix. A lossy atom, when it has not decayed, exhibits a coherent dynamics that is in a distinct, new class. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with parity-time symmetry govern this class and exhibit exceptional-point (EP) degeneracies with topological features. After a historical introduction to PT symmetry, I will present examples of coherent, quantum dynamics in the static and Floquet regimes for such systems with a superconducting transmon (Nature Phys. 15, 1232 (2019)), ultracold atoms (Nature Comm. 10, 855 (2019)), and integrated quantum photonics (Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 013051 (2022); Nature 557, 660 (2018)) as platforms. These include topological quantum state transfer, entanglement/coherence control, and super-quantum correlations. I will conclude with speculations on applicability of these ideas to quantum matter, particle physics, and strong gravity. 

(* with Anthony Laing group, Kater Murch group, Le Luo group, Sourin Das group).

Zoom link:  https://pitp.zoom.us/j/92391441075?pwd=QmRYSnYveUZCci9QZFcwUHBFS29QZz09

In this talk I will describe a topological response theory that predicts the physical manifestation of a class of topological invariants in systems with crystalline symmetry. I focus on two such invariants, the 'discrete shift' and a quantized charge polarization. Guided by theory, I discuss how these invariants can be extracted from lattice models by measuring the fractional charge at lattice disclinations and dislocations, as well as from the angular and linear momentum of magnetic flux. These methods are illustrated using the Hofstadter model of spinless fermions in a background magnetic field; they give new topological invariants in this model for the first time since the quantized Hall conductance was computed by TKNN in 1982.

Zoom link:  https://pitp.zoom.us/j/93633131128?pwd=d2h4U1l0ZVU5aE1ORURkdFNSanB4dz09