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Claudio Castelnovo

Publications and source records attributed to Claudio Castelnovo.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Exact quantum spin liquids with topological order on maple-leaf and trellis lattices

We construct spin models with bond-dependent anisotropic interactions on the penta-coordinated maple-leaf and trellis lattices, which yield exact $\mathbb{Z}_2$ quantum spin liquids akin to the Kitaev honeycomb model. We characterize the resulting ground states by their flux sectors, Chern numbers, and topological excitations. Using replica exchange quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the gauge fluxes are ordered at sufficiently low temperatures such that every unit triangle has $\pm \pi/2$-flux, where the sign is uniform across the system, and every unit hexagon (square) has $0$-flux ($\pi$-flux) within the parameter space of interest. We map out the topological phase diagram for each model, which reveals parameter regimes hosting $\mathbb{Z}_2$ and Ising topological orders, and we derive an analytical expression for the mass term of the Majorana fermions, the vanishing of which indicates a transition between these phases. We further establish the correspondence between individual vortices (i.e., flux excitations) and two species of anyons in the dimer limit, overcoming the obstacle faced by degenerate perturbation theory in treating odd-length elementary plaquettes. Interestingly, we find that two dimer limits of the maple-leaf model with distinct assignments of anyon species can be smoothly connected to each other in the vortex-free sector, but they are separated by fermion-gap-closing transitions in certain two-vortex sectors.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2026

Hydrodynamic Memory and Long-Time Tails in Clean Frustrated Magnets

In a simple, clean but constrained magnet, we identify a self-interacting random walk with memory. For the motion of a single monopole -- a fractionalized quasiparticle in spin ice -- this produces a subtle and unusually slow relaxation toward diffusive motion. This is manifested as an algebraic long-time tail in the velocity autocorrelation function, decaying as $t^{-3/2}$. At finite monopole density, the interactions between the trails of different monopoles introduce an additional timescale, corresponding to the disruption of a monopole's memory by other monopoles, and leading to an exponential cutoff of the long-time tail. Our results identify clean frustrated magnets as microscopic platforms for studying self-interacting stochastic processes, hydrodynamic memory, and the emergence of non-Markovian quasiparticle transport from local Markovian dynamics.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2026

Mapping vortices to anyons in toric code phases of generalized Kitaev models

We present a comprehensive theory of mapping flux excitations, or vortices, to electric and magnetic particles in the toric code phases of generalizations of the Kitaev honeycomb model in two spatial dimensions. Our method, which is formulated with the Majorana fermion representation, utilizes the fusion rule of the Abelian anyons and the physical constraint on the fermion parity, and applies to generic model parameters including any perturbative limit. Not only are we able to reproduce the known mapping scheme in the dimer limit, we also derive the conditions for the invariance of anyon species of individual vortices. We prove that the mapping of anyons is left unchanged by any continuous evolution of model parameters that does not close the fermion gap in both the vortex-free and two-vortex sectors, which enables precise demarcations between multiple regimes associated with different maps within a single phase characterized by a trivial Chern number. We illustrate our theory via extensive computations for a number of selected models, in particular those defined on the square-octagon lattice and the honeycomb lattice with a Kekul\'{e} structure. We also demonstrate that distinct mappings of anyons can nevertheless exhibit the same weak symmetry breaking, and further argue that they belong to the same symmetry-enriched topological order.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2026

Kinetic kagome magnetism: from self-trapping RVB polarons to semiclassical correlations

To gain deeper insight into the role of hole kinetics in determining magnetism in highly frustrated doped Mott insulators, we consider the single-hole counter-Nagaoka problem on the kagome lattice, using magnetization as a tuning parameter. Near full polarization, a doped hole delocalizes upon binding reversed spins in a pattern of singlet bonds which we term resonating-valence-bond (RVB) polaron. These RVB polarons can have extremely small effective bandwidths, and hence exhibit self-trapping. By tuning the spin polarization, we track the evolution of these states toward the unpolarized sector, where we observe the emergence of $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ antiferromagnetic correlation reminiscent of the classical Potts and Heisenberg models on the kagome lattice. These results provide a framework to understand how RVB physics at short scales evolves into conventional magnetic correlations at long scales.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2026

Non-reciprocal Ising gauge theory

Non-reciprocity and geometric frustration enable many-body systems to avoid crystalline order and instead exhibit complex, liquid-like behavior. Here we show that their interplay is richer than the sum of its parts, leading to surprising structural and dynamical phenomena. In our minimal model, two copies of Ising gauge theory are non-reciprocally coupled in a way that crucially preserves a local $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry. We discover that the combined Wilson loop observable of the two copies exhibits linear asymptotic scaling, with a quasiparticle-pair confinement length tuned by the strength of the non-reciprocal coupling. Key dynamical features are revealed in the behavior of individual deconfined excitations due to strong interactions induced by the non-reciprocity, leading to motion on a critical percolation cluster that follows a self-avoiding trail. Mapping from this quasiparticle dynamics onto the magnetic noise spectrum, we discover that non-reciprocity tunes topological logarithmic contributions and causes long-lived metastable states due to quasiparticle trapping. Our work opens the way for broader investigations of geometrically frustrated non-reciprocity.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2025

A resonant valence bond spin liquid in the dilute limit of doped frustrated Mott insulators

Ideas about resonant valence bond liquids and spin-charge separation have led to key concepts in physics such as quantum spin liquids, emergent gauge symmetries, topological order, and fractionalisation. Despite extensive efforts to demonstrate the existence of a resonant valence bond phase in the Hubbard model that originally motivated the concept, a definitive realisation has yet to be achieved. Here we present a solution to this long-standing problem by uncovering a resonant valence bond phase exhibiting spin-charge separation in realistic Hamiltonians. We show analytically that this ground state emerges in the dilute-doping limit of a half-filled Mott insulator on corner-sharing tetrahedral lattices with frustrated hopping, in the absence of exchange interactions. We confirm numerically that the results extend to finite exchange interactions, finite-sized systems and finite dopant density. Although much attention has been devoted to the emergence of unconventional states from geometrically frustrated interactions, our work demonstrates that kinetic energy frustration in doped Mott insulators may be essential for stabilising robust, topologically ordered states in real materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2025

Unstable periodic orbits galore and quantum hyperscarring in highly frustrated magnets

Highly frustrated magnets, with their macroscopically-degenerate classical ground states and massively-entangled quantum spin liquid phases, have been pivotal to the development of modern condensed matter concepts such as emergent symmetries, topological order, and fractionalisation. The effects of frustration and massive degeneracies at high energy, where the many-body dynamics becomes chaotic, have hitherto been far less explored. Here, we identify a high-energy dynamical analog of highly-frustrated magnetism, in the form of an extensive manifold of classical ''interaction-suppressing'' configurations giving rise to unstable periodic orbits. These are in general neither protected by symmetry nor integrability, and emerge from a set of dynamical local constraints that effectively nullify the interactions while allowing extensively many local degrees of freedom. The proliferation of unstable periodic orbits corresponds in the quantum case to ''hyperscarring'', that is, quantum scarring on exponentially many unstable periodic orbits. On the product states associated to the latter, the amplitudes of the mid-spectrum thermal eigenstates exhibit a power-law distribution, in stark contrast to the expected exponential Porter-Thomas distribution that holds for generic product states. Our results reveal a new constrained dynamical regime where many-body quantum chaos coexists with structured manifolds of coherent dynamics, and establishes a mechanism for hitherto elusive extensive scarring.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2025

Random Transverse Field Effects on Magnetic Noise in Spin Systems

Motivated by experimental developments in non-Kramers spin ice materials and the unclear role of disorder therein, we study the impact of random transverse fields on the dynamics of correlated magnetic systems. We model the effect of dilute, randomly placed transverse fields on quantities such as magnetic noise/susceptibility and the diffusivity of topological excitations. We consider a random ferromagnetic Ising chain (RTFIC) as well as three-dimensional spin ice. At low temperatures, both exhibit (sub-)diffusive defect dynamics, i.e., of domain walls and magnetic monopoles, respectively. Introducing sparse transverse fields leads to the emergence of an additional timescale on the order of the single-spin flip time. We develop a Lindbladian framework that combines Monte Carlo simulations and exact diagonalization which allows us to characterize the dynamics and develop an analytical understanding of the phenomenon. This framework can be benchmarked in detail for the RTFIC. Our findings provide insights into the magnetization dynamics of disordered non-Kramers oxides, such as oxygen-diluted Ho$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$, and offer a framework for interpreting experimental observations in these systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2025

Probing anyonic statistics via Mach-Zehnder interferometry in quantum computers

We introduce a synthetic Mach-Zehnder interferometer for digitized quantum computing devices to probe fractional exchange statistics of anyonic excitations that appear in quantum spin liquids. Employing an IonQ quantum computer, we apply this scheme to the toric ladder, a quasi-one-dimensional reduction of the toric code. We observe interference patterns resulting from the movement of `electric' excitations in the presence and absence of `magnetic' ones. We model the noise in IonQ via depolarizing Lindbladian dynamics, and find quantitative agreement with the measurements obtained from the quantum device. The synthetic Mach-Zehnder interferometer can thus also serve as an effective means to probe the coherence length and time scales of multi-qubit noisy quantum devices.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2025

Standardized test of many-body coherence in gate-based quantum platforms

Quantum coherence is a crucial resource in achieving quantum advantage over classical information processing, and more generally developing new quantum technologies. While its effects are observable in current quantum platforms, there are no standardized tools for systematically measuring and quantifying multi-qubit coherence across different gate-based quantum hardware. In this work, we propose a method to define a many-body quantum coherence length scale using anyon interference effects in a spin-chain setup, which effectively mirrors the problem of a quantum particle on a ring, with or without flux through it. We propose using the maximum length of the ring for which the presence or absence of flux can be clearly discerned, as a simple measure of the many-body quantum coherence grade (Q-grade) in a given quantum hardware. We demonstrate how this approach can be implemented on gate-based quantum platforms to estimate and compare the quantum coherence of current devices, such as those from Google, IBM, IonQ, IQM, and Quantinuum that we considered here. This work aims to contribute to the creation of a live Web interface where the latest developments and advancements can be demonstrated, and progress in quantum coherence resources tracked over time. Establishing such a standardized quantum test would enable monitoring the growth of quantum coherence in gate-based quantum platforms, in a spirit similar to Moore's law.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2024

Saddles-to-minima topological crossover and glassiness in the Rubik's Cube

Slow relaxation and glassiness have been the focus of extensive research attention, along with popular and technological interest, for many decades. While much understanding has been attained through mean-field and mode-coupling models, energy landscape paradigms, and real-space descriptions of dynamical heterogeneities and facilitation, a complete framework about the origins and existence of a glass transition is yet to be achieved. In this work we propose a discrete model glass-former, inspired by the famous Rubik's Cube, where these questions can be answered with surprising depth. By introducing a swap-move Monte Carlo algorithm, we are able to access thermal equilibrium states above and below the temperature of dynamical arrest. Exploiting the discreteness of the model, we probe directly the energy-resolved connectivity structure of the model, and we uncover a saddles-to-minima topological crossover underpinning the slowing down and eventual arrest of the dynamics. We demonstrate that the smooth behaviour in finite-size systems tends asymptotically to a sharp step-change in the thermodynamic limit, identifying a well-defined energy threshold where the onset of stretched exponential behaviour and the dynamical arrest come to coincide. Our results allow us to shed light on the origin of the glassy behaviour, and how this is resolved by changing connectivity upon introducing swap-moves.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗
arXiv2024

Experimentally tunable QED in dipolar-octupolar quantum spin ice

We propose a readily achievable experimental setting where an external magnetic field is used to tune the emergent quantum electrodynamics (eQED) of dipolar-octupolar quantum spin ice (DO-QSI). In $U(1)_π$ DO-QSI -- the proposed ground state of QSI candidates Ce$_2$Zr$_2$O$_7$, Ce$_2$Sn$_2$O$_7$ and Ce$_2$Hf$_2$O$_7$ -- we show that the field can be used to control the emergent speed of light (and, consequently, the emergent fine structure constant). Depending on the field's alignment with the crystal, one may induce different speeds for the two polarizations of the emergent photons, in a fascinating analogue of the electro-optic Kerr effect. In $U(1)_0$ DO-QSI -- yet to be uncovered experimentally -- we find a number of unusual field-induced transitions, including a transition between $0$- and $π$-flux QSI phases, as well as phases with frustrated flux configurations. We discuss experimental signatures of these effects in the spinon excitation spectrum, which can be readily accessed for instance in inelastic neutron scattering measurements. Our proposal opens the gate to a plethora of experimentally accessible, engineerable eQED phenomena in the emergent universes of quantum spin ice.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2024

Reentrant localisation transitions and anomalous spectral properties in off-diagonal quasiperiodic systems

We investigate the localisation properties of quasiperiodic tight-binding chains with hopping terms modulated by the interpolating Aubry-André-Fibonacci (IAAF) function. This off-diagonal IAAF model allows for a smooth and controllable interpolation between two paradigmatic quasiperiodic models: the Aubry-André and the Fibonacci model. Our analysis shows that the spectrum of this model can be divided into three principal bands, namely, two molecular bands at the edge of the spectrum and one atomic band in the middle, for all values of the interpolating parameter. We reveal that the states in the molecular bands undergo multiple re-entrant localisation transitions, a behaviour previously reported in the diagonal IAAF model. We link the emergence of these reentrant phenomena to symmetry points of the quasiperiodic modulation and, with that, explain the main ground state properties of the system. The atomic states in the middle band show no traces of localised phases and remain either extended or critical for any value of the interpolating parameter. Using a renormalisation group approach, adapted from the Fibonacci model, we explain the extended nature of the middle band. These findings expand our knowledge of phase transitions within quasiperiodic systems and highlight the interplay between extended, critical, and localised states.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗
arXiv2024

Topological phase diagrams of in-plane field polarized Kitaev magnets

While the existence of a magnetic field induced quantum spin liquid in Kitaev magnets remains under debate, its topological properties often extend to proximal phases where they can lead to unusual behaviors of both fundamental and applied interests. Subjecting a generic nearest neighbor spin model of Kitaev magnets to a sufficiently strong in-plane magnetic field, we study the resulting polarized phase and the associated magnon excitations. In contrast to the case of an out-of-plane magnetic field where the magnon band topology is enforced by symmetry, we find that it is possible for topologically trivial and nontrivial parameter regimes to coexist under in-plane magnetic fields. We map out the topological phase diagrams of the magnon bands, revealing a rich pattern of variation of the Chern number over the parameter space and the field angle. We further compute the magnon thermal Hall conductivity as a weighted summation of Berry curvatures, and discuss experimental implications of our results to planar thermal Hall effects in Kitaev magnets.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2024

Magic in generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson wavefunctions

Magic is a property of a quantum state that characterizes its deviation from a stabilizer state, serving as a useful resource for achieving universal quantum computation e.g., within schemes that use Clifford operations. In this work, we study magic, as quantified by the stabilizer Renyi entropy, in a class of models known as generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson systems, i.e., Hamiltonians that allow a stochastic matrix form (SMF) decomposition. The ground state wavefunctions of these systems can be written explicitly throughout their phase diagram, and their properties can be related to associated classical statistical mechanics problems, thereby allowing powerful analytical and numerical approaches that are not usually available in conventional quantum many body settings. As a result, we are able to express the SRE in terms of wave function coefficients that can be understood as a free energy difference of related classical problems. We apply this insight to a range of quantum many body SMF Hamiltonians, which affords us to study numerically the SRE of large high-dimensional systems, and in some cases to obtain analytical results. We observe that the behaviour of the SRE is relatively featureless across quantum phase transitions in these systems, although it is indeed singular (in its first or higher order derivative, depending on the nature of the transition). On the contrary, we find that the maximum of the SRE generically occurs at a cusp away from the quantum critical point, where the derivative suddenly changes sign. Furthermore, we compare the SRE and the logarithm of overlaps with specific stabilizer states, asymptotically realised in the ground state phase diagrams of these systems. We find that they display strikingly similar behaviors, which in turn establish rigorous bounds on the min-relative entropy of magic.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2024

Dichotomous Dynamics of Magnetic Monopole Fluids

A recent advance in the study of emergent magnetic monopoles was the discovery that monopole motion is restricted to dynamical fractal trajectories (J. Hallén et al, Science 378, 1218 (2022)) thus explaining the characteristics of magnetic monopole noise spectra (Dusad, R. et al. Nature 571, 234 (2019); Samarakoon, A. M. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 119, e2117453119 (2022)). Here we apply this new theory to explore the dynamics of field-driven monopole currents, finding them comprised of two quite distinct transport processes: initially swift fractal rearrangements of local monopole configurations followed by conventional monopole diffusion. This theory also predicts a characteristic frequency dependence of the dissipative loss-angle for AC-field-driven currents. To explore these novel perspectives on monopole transport, we introduce simultaneous monopole current control and measurement techniques using SQUID-based monopole current sensors. For the canonical material Dy2Ti2O7, we measure $Φ(t)$, the time-dependence of magnetic flux threading the sample when a net monopole current $J(t) = \dotΦ(t)/μ_0$ is generated by applying an external magnetic field $B_0(t)$. These experiments find a sharp dichotomy of monopole currents, separated by their distinct relaxation time-constants before and after $t \approx 600 μs$ from monopole current initiation. Application of sinusoidal magnetic fields $B_0(t) = Bcos(ωt)$ generates oscillating monopole currents whose loss angle $θ(f)$ exhibits a characteristic transition at frequency $f \approx 1.8$ kHz over the same temperature range. Finally, the magnetic noise power is also dichotomic, diminishing sharply after $t \approx 600 μs$. This complex phenomenology represents a new form of heterogeneous dynamics generated by the interplay of fractionalization and local spin configurational symmetry.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2024

Thermodynamics and fractal dynamics of nematic spin ice, a doubly frustrated pyrochlore Ising magnet

The Ising antiferromagnets on the triangular and on the pyrochlore lattices are two of the most iconic examples of magnetic frustration, paradigmatically illustrating many exotic properties such as emergent gauge fields, fractionalisation, and topological order. In this work, we show that the two instances of frustration can, remarkably, be combined in a single system, where they coexist without inducing conventional long range ordering. We show that the system undergoes a first order phase transition upon lowering the temperature, into a yet different frustrated phase that we characterise to exhibit nematic order. We argue that an extensive degeneracy survives down to zero temperature, at odds with a customary Pauling estimate. Dynamically, we find evidence of anomalous noise in the power spectral density, arising from an effectively anisotropic fractal motion of monopoles at low temperature.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2023

A pseudofermion functional renormalization group study of dipolar-octupolar pyrochlore magnets

Motivated by recent experiments on Ce$_2$Zr$_2$O$_7$ that reveal a dynamic, liquid-like ground state, we study the nearest neighbor XYZ Hamiltonian of dipolar-octupolar pyrochlore magnets with the pseudofermion functional renormalization group (PFFRG), which is numerically implemented by the SpinParser software. Taking the interaction between the octupolar components to be dominant and antiferromagnetic, we map out the phase diagram demarcating the quantum disordered and magnetically ordered states. We identify four distinct phases, namely the $0$-flux and $π$-flux quantum spin ices, and the all-in-all-out magnetic orders along the local $z$ and $x$ axes. We further use the static two-spin correlations output by the PFFRG algorithm to compute the polarized neutron scattering cross-sections, which are able to capture several qualitative features observed experimentally, in the materially relevant parameter regime that stabilizes the $π$-flux quantum spin ice. Our results provide support for a quantum spin liquid ground state in Ce$_2$Zr$_2$O$_7$.

cond-mat.str-el↗