arXiv subjects

Fiona J. Burnell

Publications and source records attributed to Fiona J. Burnell.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Open-system dynamics in local Lindbladians with chaotic spectra

We investigate the physical consequences of having a spectrum that satisfies random matrix theory (RMT) for generic Lindbladians, and compare its implications for spatially local and completely random Lindblad dynamics in one spatial dimension. We find that Lindbladians whose spectrum is described by RMT exhibit quasiuniversal early-time dynamics for quantities nonlinear in the density matrix, in the sense that for generic, highly entangled initial states, the early time evolution is independent of the choice of initial state. We numerically investigate how locality generically imposes constraints on the size-dependence of Lindblad eigenoperators. This size dependence implies that linear observables, such as expectation values of local operators, are highly sensitive to eigenmodes outside the bulk of the spectrum in the thermodynamic limit, and plays a central role in limiting operator growth in the presence of dissipation. We find that when single-site dissipation dominates, an operator's decoherence scales approximately linearly with its Pauli weight, even in the presence of two-site jump operators. When two-site only dissipation dominates, however, this generic trend in operator size can be violated for numerically accessible system sizes, leading to long-lived high Pauli-weight operators.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Stabilizing Non-Abelian Topological Order against Heralded Noise via Local Lindbladian Dynamics

An important open question for the current generation of highly controllable quantum devices is understanding which phases can be realized as stable steady-states under local quantum dynamics. In this work, we show how robust steady-state phases with both Abelian and non-Abelian mixed-state topological order can be stabilized, in two spatial dimensions (2d), against generic ``heralded" noise using active dynamics that incorporate measurement and feedback, modeled as a \emph{fully local} Lindblad master equation. These topologically ordered steady states are two-way connected to pure topologically ordered ground states using local quantum channels, and preserve quantum information for a time that is exponentially large in the system size. Specifically, we present explicit constructions of families of local Lindbladians for both Abelian ($\mathbb{Z}_2$) and non-Abelian ($D_4$) topological order whose steady-states host mixed-state topological order when the noise is below a threshold strength. As the noise strength is increased, these models exhibit first-order transitions to intermediate mixed state phases where they encode robust classical memories, followed by (first-order) transitions to a trivial steady state at high noise rates. When the noise is imperfectly heralded, steady-state order disappears but our active dynamics significantly enhances the lifetime of the encoded logical information. To carry out the numerical simulations for the non-Abelian $D_4$ case, we introduce a generalized stabilizer tableau formalism that permits efficient simulation of the non-Abelian Lindbladian dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Stable Symmetry-Protected Topological Phases in Systems with Heralded Noise

We present a family of local quantum channels whose steady-states exhibit stable mixed-state symmetry-protected topological (SPT) order. Motivated by recent experimental progress on "erasure conversion" techniques that allow one to identify ($\textit{herald}$) decoherence processes, we consider open systems with biased erasure noise, which leads to strongly symmetric heralded errors. We utilize this heralding to construct a local correction protocol that effectively confines errors into short-ranged pairs in the steady-state. Using a combination of numerical simulations and mean-field analysis, we show that our protocol stabilizes SPT order against a sufficiently low rate of decoherence. As the rate of heralded noise increases, SPT order is eventually lost through a directed percolation transition. We further find that while introducing unheralded errors destroys SPT order in the limit of long length- and time-scales, the correction protocol is sufficient for ensuring that local SPT order persists, with a correlation length that diverges as $ξ\sim (1-f_e)^{-1/2}$, where $f_e$ is the fraction of errors that are heralded.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Filling constraints on translation invariant dipole conserving systems

Systems with conserved dipole moment have drawn considerable interest in light of their realization in recent experiments on tilted optical lattices. An important question for such systems is delineating the conditions under which they admit a unique gapped ground state that is consistent with all symmetries. Here, we study one-dimensional translation-invariant lattices that conserve U(1) charge and $\mathbb{Z}_L$ dipole moment, where discreteness of the dipole symmetry is enforced by periodic boundary conditions, with $L$ the system size. We show that in these systems, a symmetric, gapped, and non-degenerate ground state requires not only integer charge filling, but also a fixed value of the dipole filling, while other fractional dipole fillings enforce either a gapless or symmetry-breaking ground state. In contrast with prior results in the literature, we find that the dipole filling constraint depends both on the charge filling as well as the system size, emphasizing the subtle interplay of dipole symmetry with boundary conditions. We support our results with numerical simulations and exact results.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Anomalous crystalline-electromagnetic responses in semimetals

We present a unifying framework that allows us to study the mixed crystalline-electromagnetic responses of topological semimetals in spatial dimensions up to $D = 3$ through dimensional augmentation and reduction procedures. We show how this framework illuminates relations between the previously known topological semimetals, and use it to identify a new class of quadrupolar nodal line semimetals for which we construct a lattice tight-binding Hamiltonian. We further utilize this framework to quantify a variety of mixed crystalline-electromagnetic responses, including several that have not previously been explored in existing literature, and show that the corresponding coefficients are universally proportional to weighted momentum-energy multipole moments of the nodal points (or lines) of the semimetal. We introduce lattice gauge fields that couple to the crystal momentum and describe how tools including the gradient expansion procedure, dimensional reduction, compactification, and the Kubo formula can be used to systematically derive these responses and their coefficients. We further substantiate these findings through analytical physical arguments, microscopic calculations, and explicit numerical simulations employing tight-binding models.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Anyon condensation in the string-net models

We study condensation of abelian bosons in string-net models, by constructing a family of Hamiltonians that can be tuned through any such transition. We show that these Hamiltonians admit two exactly solvable, string-net limits: one deep in the uncondensed phase, described by an initial, uncondensed string net Hamiltonian, and one deep in the condensed phase, described by a final, condensed string net model. We give a systematic description of the condensed string net model in terms of the uncondensed string net and the data associated with the condensing abelian bosons. Specifically, if the uncondensed string net is described by a fusion category $\mathcal{C}$, we show how the string labels and fusion data of the fusion category $\mathcal{\tilde{C}}$ describing the condensed string net can be obtained from that of $\mathcal{C}$ and the data describing the string oeprators that create the condensing boson. This construction generalizes previous approaches to anyon condensation in string nets, by allowing the condensation of arbitrary abelian bosons, including chiral bosons in string nets constructed from (for example) Chern-Simons theories, which describe time-reversal invariant bilayer states. This gives a method for obtaining the full data for string nets without explicit time-reversal symmetry from such bilayer models. We illustrate our approach with several examples.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

A multi-player, multi-team nonlocal game for the toric code

Nonlocal games yield an unusual perspective on entangled quantum states. The defining property of such games is that a set of players in joint possession of an entangled state can win the game with higher probability than is allowed by classical physics. Here we construct a nonlocal game that can be won with certainty by $2N$ players if they have access to the ground state of the toric code on as many qubits. By contrast, the game cannot be won by classical players more than half the time in the large $N$ limit. Our game differs from previous examples because it arranges the players on a lattice and allows them to carry out quantum operations in teams, whose composition is dynamically specified. This is natural when seeking to characterize the degree of quantumness of non-trivial many-body states, which potentially include states in much more varied phases of matter than the toric code. We present generalizations of the toric code game to states with $\mathbb{Z}_M$ topological order.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Playing nonlocal games with phases of quantum matter

The parity game is an example of a nonlocal game: by sharing a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state before playing this game, the players can win with a higher probability than is allowed by classical physics. The GHZ state of $N$ qubits is also the ground state of the ferromagnetic quantum Ising model on $N$ qubits in the limit of vanishingly weak quantum fluctuations. Motivated by this observation, we examine the probability that $N$ players who share the ground state of a generic quantum Ising model, which exhibits non-vanishing quantum fluctuations, still win the parity game using the protocol optimized for the GHZ state. Our main result is a modified parity game for which this protocol asymptotically exhibits quantum advantage in precisely the ferromagnetic phase of the quantum Ising model. We further prove that the ground state of the exactly soluble $d=1+1$ transverse-field Ising model can provide a quantum advantage for the parity game over an even wider region, which includes the entire ferromagnetic phase, the critical point and part of the paramagnetic phase. By contrast, we find examples of topological phases and symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases of matter, namely the deconfined phase of the toric code Hamiltonian and the $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ SPT phase in one dimension, that do not exhibit an analogous quantum advantage away from their fixed points.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Disordered Graphene Ribbons as Topological Multicritical Systems

The low energy spectrum of a zigzag graphene ribbon contains two gapless bands with highly non-linear dispersion, $ε(k)=\pm |π-k|^W$, where $W$ is the width of the ribbon. The corresponding states are located at the two opposite zigzag edges. Their presence reflects the fact that the clean ribbon is a quasi one dimensional system naturally fine-tuned to the topological {\em multicritical} point. This quantum critical point separates a topologically trivial phase from the topological one with the index $W$. Here we investigate the influence of the (chiral) symmetry-preserving disorder on such a multicritical point. We show that the system harbors delocalized states with the localization length diverging at zero energy in a manner consistent with the $W=1$ critical point. The same is true regarding the density of states (DOS), which exhibits the universal Dyson singularity, despite the clean DOS being substantially dependent on $W$. On the other hand, the zero-energy localization length critical exponent, associated with the lattice staggering, is not universal and depends on the topological index $W$.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2022

Two parameter scaling in the crossover from symmetry class BDI to AI

The transport statistics of the 1D chain and metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons with hopping disorder are studied, with a focus on understanding the cross-over between the zero-energy critical point and the localized regime at large energy. In this cross-over region, transport is found to be described by a 2-parameter scaling with the ratio $s$ of system size to mean-free-path, and the product $r$ of energy and scattering time. This 2-parameter scaling shows excellent data collapse across a wide a variety of system sizes, energies, and disorder strengths. The numerically obtained transport distributions in this regime are found to be well-described by a Nakagami distribution, whose form is controlled up to an overall scaling by the ratio $s / |\ln r|^2$. For sufficiently small values of this parameter, transport appears virtually identical to that of the zero-energy critical point, while at large values, a localized, Gaussian distribution is recovered. For intermediate values, the distribution interpolates smoothly between these two limits.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2022

Many-body constraints and non-thermal behavior in 1D open systems with Haldane exclusion statistics

We study the impact of the inter-level energy constraints imposed by Haldane Exclusion Statistics on relaxation processes in 1-dimensional systems coupled to a bosonic bath. By formulating a second-quantized description of the relevant Fock space, we identify certain universal features of this relaxation dynamics, and show that it is generically slower than that of spinless fermions. Our study focuses on the Calogero-Sutherland model, which realizes Haldane Exclusion statistics exactly in one dimension; however our results apply to any system that has the associated pattern of inter-level occupancy constraints in Fock space.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Anomaly Inflow for Subsystem Symmetries

We study 't Hooft anomalies and the related anomaly inflow for subsystem global symmetries. These symmetries and anomalies arise in a number of exotic systems, including models with fracton order such as the X-cube model. As is the case for ordinary global symmetries, anomalies for subsystem symmetries can be canceled by anomaly inflow from a bulk theory in one higher dimension; the corresponding bulk is therefore a non-trivial subsystem symmetry protected topological (SSPT) phase. We demonstrate these phenomena in several examples with continuous and discrete subsystem global symmetries, as well as time-reversal symmetry. For each example we describe the boundary anomaly, and present classical continuum actions for the corresponding bulk SSPT phases, which describe the response of background gauge fields associated with the subsystem symmetries. Interestingly, we show that the anomaly does not uniquely specify the bulk SSPT phase. In general, the latter may also depend on how the symmetry and the associated foliation structure on the boundary are extended into the bulk.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Generalized string-net models: A thorough exposition

We describe how to construct generalized string-net models, a class of exactly solvable lattice models that realize a large family of 2D topologically ordered phases of matter. The ground states of these models can be thought of as superpositions of different "string-net configurations", where each string-net configuration is a trivalent graph with labeled edges, drawn in the $xy$ plane. What makes this construction more general than the original string-net construction is that, unlike the original construction, tetrahedral reflection symmetry is not assumed, nor is it assumed that the ground state wave function $Φ$ is "isotropic": i.e. in the generalized setup, two string-net configurations $X_1, X_2$ that can be continuously deformed into one another can have different ground state amplitudes, $Φ(X_1) \neq Φ(X_2)$. As a result, generalized string-net models can realize topological phases that are inaccessible to the original construction. In this paper, we provide a more detailed discussion of ground state wave functions, Hamiltonians, and minimal self-consistency conditions for generalized string-net models than what exists in the previous literature. We also show how to construct string operators that create anyon excitations in these models, and we show how to compute the braiding statistics of these excitations. Finally, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for generalized string-net models to have isotropic ground state wave functions on the plane or the sphere -- a property that may be useful in some applications.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Unexpected two-fold symmetric superconductivity in few-layer NbSe$_2$

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been attracting significant interest due to a range of properties, such as layer-dependent inversion symmetry, valley-contrasted Berry curvatures, and strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Of particular interest is niobium diselenide (NbSe2), whose superconducting state in few-layer samples is profoundly affected by an unusual type of SOC called Ising SOC. Combined with the reduced dimensionality, the latter stabilizes the superconducting state against magnetic fields up to ~35 T and could lead to other exotic properties such as nodal and crystalline topological superconductivity. Here, we report transport measurements of few-layer NbSe$_2$ under in-plane external magnetic fields, revealing an unexpected two-fold rotational symmetry of the superconducting state. In contrast to the three-fold symmetry of the lattice, we observe that the magnetoresistance and critical field exhibit a two-fold oscillation with respect to an applied in-plane magnetic field. We find similar two-fold oscillations deep inside the superconducting state in differential conductance measurements on NbSe$_2$/CrBr$_3$ superconductor-magnet junctions. In both cases, the anisotropy vanishes in the normal state, demonstrating that it is an intrinsic property of the superconducting phase. We attribute the behavior to the mixing between two closely competing pairing instabilities, namely, the conventional s-wave instability typical of bulk NbSe$_2$ and an unconventional d- or p-wave channel that emerges in few-layer NbSe2. Our results thus demonstrate the unconventional character of the pairing interaction in a few-layer TMD, opening a new avenue to search for exotic superconductivity in this family of 2D materials.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2019

Do Rydberg chains yield Fibonacci anyons?

Recent experiments have focused attention on the properties of chains of atoms in which the atoms are either in their ground states or in highly excited Rydberg states which block similar excitations in their immediate neighbors. As the low energy Hilbert space of such chains is isomorphic to that of a chain of Fibonacci anyons, they have been proposed as a platform for topological quantum computation and for simulating anyon dynamics. We show that generic local operators in the Rydberg chain correspond to non-local anyonic operators that do not preserve a topological symmetry of the physical anyons. Consequently, we argue that Rydberg chains do not yield Fibonacci anyons and quantum computation with Rydberg atoms is not topologically protected.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Frustrated topological symmetry breaking: geometrical frustration and anyon condensation

We study the phase diagram of a topological string-net type lattice model in the presence of geometrically frustrated interactions. These interactions drive several phase transitions that reduce the topological order, leading to a rich phase diagram including both Abelian ($\mathbb{Z}_2$) and non-Abelian ($\text{Ising}\times \overline{\text{Ising}}$) topologically ordered phases, as well as phases with broken translational symmetry. Interestingly, one of these phases simultaneously exhibits (Abelian) topological order and long-ranged order due to translational symmetry breaking, with non-trivial interactions between excitations in the topological order and defects in the long-ranged order. We introduce a variety of effective models, valid along certain lines in the phase diagram, which can be used to characterize both topological and symmetry-breaking order in these phases, and in many cases allow us to characterize the phase transitions that separate them. We use exact diagonalization and high-order series expansion to study areas of the phase diagram where these models break down, and to approximate the location of the phase boundaries.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2015

Anomalous Symmetry Fractionalization and Surface Topological Order

In addition to possessing fractional statistics, anyon excitations of a 2D topologically ordered state can realize symmetry in distinct ways , leading to a variety of symmetry enriched topological (SET) phases. While the symmetry fractionalization must be consistent with the fusion and braiding rules of the anyons, not all ostensibly consistent symmetry fractionalizations can be realized in 2D systems. Instead, certain `anomalous' SETs can only occur on the surface of a 3D symmetry protected topological (SPT) phase. In this paper we describe a procedure for determining whether an SET of a discrete, onsite, unitary symmetry group $G$ is anomalous or not. The basic idea is to gauge the symmetry and expose the anomaly as an obstruction to a consistent topological theory combining both the original anyons and the gauge fluxes. Utilizing a result of Etingof, Nikshych, and Ostrik, we point out that a class of obstructions are captured by the fourth cohomology group $H^4( G, \,U(1))$, which also precisely labels the set of 3D SPT phases, with symmetry group $G$. We thus establish a general bulk-boundary correspondence between the anomalous SET and the 3d bulk SPT whose surface termination realizes it. We illustrate this idea using the chiral spin liquid ($U(1)_2$) topological order with a reduced symmetry $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2 \subset SO(3)$, which can act on the semion quasiparticle in an anomalous way. We construct exactly solved 3d SPT models realizing the anomalous surface terminations, and demonstrate that they are non-trivial by computing three loop braiding statistics. Possible extensions to anti-unitary symmetries are also discussed.

cond-mat.str-el↗