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Claudio Chamon

Publications and source records attributed to Claudio Chamon.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2015

Topological BF theory of the quantum hydrodynamics of incompressible polar fluids

We analyze a hydrodynamical model of a polar fluid in (3+1)-dimensional spacetime. We explore a spacetime symmetry -- volume preserving diffeomorphisms -- to construct an effective description of this fluid in terms of a topological BF theory. The two degrees of freedom of the BF theory are associated to the mass (charge) flows of the fluid and its polarization vorticities. We discuss the quantization of this hydrodynamic theory, which generically allows for fractionalized excitations. We propose an extension of the Girvin-MacDonald-Platzman algebra to (3+1)-dimensional spacetime by the inclusion of the vortex-density operator in addition to the usual charge density operator and show that the same algebra is obeyed by massive Dirac fermions that represent the bulk of $\mathbb{Z}^{\,}_{2}$ topological insulators in three-dimensional space.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2014

Irreversibility and Entanglement Spectrum Statistics in Quantum Circuits

We show that in a quantum system evolving unitarily under a stochastic quantum circuit the notions of irreversibility, universality of computation, and entanglement are closely related. As the state evolves from an initial product state, it gets asymptotically maximally entangled. We define irreversibility as the failure of searching for a disentangling circuit using a Metropolis-like algorithm. We show that irreversibility corresponds to Wigner-Dyson statistics in the level spacing of the entanglement eigenvalues, and that this is obtained from a quantum circuit made from a set of universal gates for quantum computation. If, on the other hand, the system is evolved with a non-universal set of gates, the statistics of the entanglement level spacing deviates from Wigner-Dyson and the disentangling algorithm succeeds. These results open a new way to characterize irreversibility in quantum systems.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2014

Accessing topological order in fractionalized liquids with gapped edges

We consider manifestations of topological order in time-reversal-symmetric fractional topological liquids (TRS-FTLs), defined on planar surfaces with holes. We derive a formula for the topological ground state degeneracy of such a TRS-FTL, which applies to cases where the edge modes on each boundary are fully gapped by appropriate backscattering terms. The degeneracy is exact in the limit of infinite system size, and is given by $q^{N^{\,}_{\mathrm{h}}}$, where $N^{\,}_{\mathrm{h}}$ is the number of holes and $q$ is an integer that is determined by the topological field theory. When the degeneracy is lifted by finite-size effects, the holes realize a system of $N^{\,}_{\mathrm{h}}$ coupled spin-like $q$-state degrees of freedom. In particular, we provide examples where $\mathbb Z^{\,}_{q}$ quantum clock models are realized on the low-energy manifold of states. We also investigate the possibility of measuring the topological ground state degeneracy with calorimetry, and briefly revisit the notion of topological order in $s$-wave BCS superconductors.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2014

Fractional (Chern and topological) insulators

We review various features of interacting Abelian topological phases of matter in two spatial dimensions, placing particular emphasis on fractional Chern insulators (FCIs) and fractional topological insulators (FTIs). We highlight aspects of these systems that challenge the intuition developed from quantum Hall physics - for instance, FCIs are stable in the limit where the interaction energy scale is much larger than the band gap, and FTIs can possess fractionalized excitations in the bulk despite the absence of gapless edge modes.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2014

Effective field theory for the bulk-edge correspondence in a two-dimensional Z_2 topological insulator with Rashba interactions

We determine the effective field theory in (2+1)-dimensional space and time that captures the long wave length and low-energy limit of fermions hopping on a honeycomb lattice at half-filling when both a dominant intrinsic and subdominant Rashba spin-orbit couplings are present. This effective field theory for a Z_2 topological insulator (the Kane-Mele model at vanishing uniform and staggered chemical potentials) is a perturbation around a double Chern-Simons theory, with the U(1) gauge invariance associated to spin conservation explicitly broken due to the Rashba spin orbit coupling. Nonetheless, we find that the effective field theory has a BRST symmetry that allows us to construct the bulk-edge correspondence.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2014

Emergent irreversibility and entanglement spectrum statistics

We study the problem of irreversibility when the dynamical evolution of a many-body system is described by a stochastic quantum circuit. Such evolution is more general than a Hamiltonian one, and since energy levels are not well defined, the well-established connection between the statistical fluctuations of the energy spectrum and irreversibility cannot be made. We show that the entanglement spectrum provides a more general connection. Irreversibility is marked by a failure of a disentangling algorithm and is preceded by the appearance of Wigner-Dyson statistical fluctuations in the entanglement spectrum. This analysis can be done at the wave-function level and offers an alternative route to study quantum chaos and quantum integrability.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2014

Topological gaps without masses in driven graphene-like systems

We illustrate the possibility of realizing band gaps in graphene-like systems that fall outside the existing classification of gapped Dirac Hamiltonians in terms of masses. As our primary example we consider a band gap arising due to time-dependent distortions of the honeycomb lattice. By means of an exact, invertible, and transport-preserving mapping to a time-independent Hamiltonian, we show that the system exhibits Chern-insulating phases with quantized Hall conductivities $\pm e^2/h$. The chirality of the corresponding gapless edge modes is controllable by both the frequency of the driving and the manner in which sublattice symmetry is broken by the dynamical lattice modulations. Finally, we discuss a promising possible realization of this physics in photonic lattices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2014

Erratum for "Elementary formula for the Hall conductivity of interacting systems"

When deriving a formula for the Hall conductivity of interacting electrons in Phys. Rev. B 86, 165133, we have relied on an unjustified implicit assumption that a certain gauge choice could be made. Only under this condition would the formula follow. If this condition fails, the formula we derived does not lead to the exactly quantized value of the Hall conductance in fractional Chern insulators.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2013

Fractional Chern insulators with strong interactions far exceeding bandgaps

We study two models for spinless fermions featuring topologically non-trivial bands characterized by Chern numbers $C=\pm1$ at fractional filling. Using exact diagonalization, we show that, even for infinitely strong nearest-neighbor repulsion, the ground states of these models belong to the recently discovered class of quantum liquids called fractional Chern insulators (FCI). We thus establish that FCI states can arise even if interaction strengths are arbitrarily larger than the noninteracting band gap, going beyond the limits in which FCI states have been previously studied. The strong-coupling FCI states therefore depart from the usual isolated-band picture that parallels the fractional quantum Hall effect in Landau levels and demonstrate how a topologically ordered state can arise in a truly multiband system.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2013

Generalized energy and time-translation invariance in a driven, dissipative system

Driven condensed matter systems consistently pose substantial challenges to theoretical understanding. Progress in the study of such systems has been achieved using the Floquet formalism, but certain aspects of this approach are not well understood. In this paper, we consider the exceptionally simple case of the rotating Kekulé mass in graphene through the lens of Floquet theory. We show that the fact that this problem is gauge-equivalent to a time-independent problem implies that the "quasi-energies" of Floquet theory correspond to a continuous symmetry of the full time-dependent Lagrangian. We use the conserved Noether charge associated with this symmetry to recover notions of equilibrium statistical mechanics.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2013

Electrons turn into anyons under an elastic membrane

We show that electrons acquire anyonic statistics if a two-dimensional electron gas is placed in proximity to a charged magnetic membrane. In this two-layered system, electrons become anyons through electromagnetic field mediated interactions with a membrane phonon. The statistical parameter is irrational and depends on the membrane tension and on the electric charge and magnetic dipolar densities on the membrane. We propose a measurement that yields the value of the statistical parameter.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2013

Materials design from non-equilibrium steady states: driven graphene as a tunable semiconductor with topological properties

Controlling the properties of materials by driving them out of equilibrium is an exciting prospect that has only recently begun to be explored. In this paper we give a striking theoretical example of such materials design: a tunable gap in monolayer graphene is generated by exciting a particular optical phonon. We show that the system reaches a steady state whose transport properties are the same as if the system had a static electronic gap, controllable by the driving amplitude. Moreover, the steady state displays topological phenomena: there are chiral edge currents, which circulate a fractional charge e/2 per rotation cycle, with frequency set by the optical phonon frequency.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2013

Cooling through optimal control of quantum evolution

Nonadiabatic unitary evolution with tailored time-dependent Hamiltonians can prepare systems of cold atomic gases with various desired properties. For a system of two one-dimensional quasicondensates coupled with a time-varying tunneling amplitude, we show that the optimal protocol, for maximizing any figure of merit in a given time, is bang-bang, i.e., the coupling alternates between only two values through a sequence of sudden quenches. Minimizing the energy of one of the quasicondensates with such nonadiabatic protocols, and then decoupling it at the end of the process, can result in effective cooling beyond the current state of the art. Our cooling method can be potentially applied to arbitrary systems through an integration of the experiment with simulated annealing computations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2013

Renyi entropies as a measure of the complexity of counting problems

Counting problems such as determining how many bit strings satisfy a given Boolean logic formula are notoriously hard. In many cases, even getting an approximate count is difficult. Here we propose that entanglement, a common concept in quantum information theory, may serve as a telltale of the difficulty of counting exactly or approximately. We quantify entanglement by using Renyi entropies S(q), which we define by bipartitioning the logic variables of a generic satisfiability problem. We conjecture that S(q\rightarrow 0) provides information about the difficulty of counting solutions exactly, while S(q>0) indicates the possibility of doing an efficient approximate counting. We test this conjecture by employing a matrix computing scheme to numerically solve #2SAT problems for a large number of uniformly distributed instances. We find that all Renyi entropies scale linearly with the number of variables in the case of the #2SAT problem; this is consistent with the fact that neither exact nor approximate efficient algorithms are known for this problem. However, for the negated (disjunctive) form of the problem, S(q\rightarrow 0) scales linearly while S(q>0) tends to zero when the number of variables is large. These results are consistent with the existence of fully polynomial-time randomized approximate algorithms for counting solutions of disjunctive normal forms and suggests that efficient algorithms for the conjunctive normal form may not exist.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2013

How to Measure the Quantum Geometry of Bloch Bands

Single-particle states in electronic Bloch bands form a Riemannian manifold whose geometric properties are described by two gauge invariant tensors, one being symmetric the other being antisymmetric, that can be combined into the so-called Fubini-Study metric tensor of the projective Hilbert space. The latter directly controls the Hall conductivity. Here we show that the symmetric part of the Fubini-Study metric tensor also has measurable consequences by demonstrating that it enters the current noise spectrum. In particular, we show that a non-vanishing equilibrium current noise spectrum at zero temperature is unavoidable whenever Wannier states have non-zero minimum spread, the latter being quantifiable by the symmetric part of the Fubini-Study metric tensor. We illustrate our results by three examples: (1) atomic layers of hexagonal boron nitride, (2) graphene, and (3) the surface states of three-dimensional topological insulators when gaped by magnetic dopants.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2013

Networks of quantum wire junctions: a system with quantized integer Hall resistance without vanishing longitudinal resistivity

We consider a honeycomb network built of quantum wires, with each node of the network having a Y-junction of three wires with a ring through which flux can be inserted. The junctions are the basic circuit elements for the network, and they are characterized by 3 x 3 conductance tensors. The low energy stable fixed point tensor conductances result from quantum effects, and are determined by the strength of the interactions in each wire and the magnetic flux through the ring. We consider the limit where there is decoherence in the wires between any two nodes, and study the array as a network of classical 3-lead circuit elements whose characteristic conductance tensors are determined by the quantum fixed point. We show that this network has some remarkable transport properties in a range of interaction parameters: it has a Hall resistance quantized at Rxy=h/e^2, although the longitudinal resistivity is non-vanishing. We show that these results are robust against disorder, in this case non-homogeneous interaction parameters g for the different wires in the network.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2012

Enhancing the stability of a fractional Chern insulator against competing phases

We construct a two-band lattice model whose bands can carry the Chern numbers C=0,pm1,pm2. By means of numerical exact diagonalization, we show that the most favorable situation that selects fractional Chern insulators (FCIs) is not necessarily the one that mimics Landau levels, namely a flat band with Chern number 1. First, we find that the gap, measured in units of the on-site electron-electron repulsion, can increase by almost two orders of magnitude when the bands are flat and carry a Chern number C=2 instead of C=1. Second, we show that giving a width to the bands can help to stabilize a FCI. Finally, we put forward a tool to characterize the real-space density profile of the ground state that is useful to distinguish FCI from other competing phases of matter supporting charge density waves or phase separation.

cond-mat.str-el↗