arXiv subjects

J. H. Pixley

Publications and source records attributed to J. H. Pixley.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Complete Boundary Phase Diagram of the Spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ XXZ Chain with Boundary Fields in the Anti-Ferromagnetic Gapped Regime

We consider the spin $\frac{1}{2}$ XXZ chain with diagonal boundary fields and solve it exactly using Bethe ansatz in the gapped anti-ferromagnetic regime and obtain the complete phase boundary diagram. Depending on the values of the boundary fields, the system exhibits several phases which can be categorized based on the ground state exhibited by the system and also based on the number of bound states localized at the boundaries. We show that the Hilbert space is comprised of a certain number of towers whose number depends on the number of boundary bound states exhibited by the system. The system undergoes boundary phase transitions when boundary fields are varied across certain critical values. There exist two types of phase transitions. In the first type the ground state of the system undergoes a change. In the second type, named the `Eigenstate phase transition', the number of towers of the Hilbert space changes, which is again associated with the change in the number of boundary bound states exhibited by the system. We use the DMRG and exact diagonalization techniques to probe the signature of the Eigenstate phase transition and the ground state phase transition by analyzing the spin profiles in each eigenstate.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Concomitant Entanglement and Control Criticality Driven by Collective Measurements

Adaptive quantum circuits-where a quantum many-body state is controlled using measurements and conditional unitary operations-are a powerful paradigm for state preparation and quantum error correction tasks. They can support two types of nonequilibrium quantum phase transitions: measurement-induced transitions between volume- and area-law-entangled steady states and control-induced transitions where the system falls into an absorbing state, or an orbit visiting several absorbing states. Within this context, nonlocal conditional operations can alter the critical properties of the two transitions and the topology of the phase diagram. Here, we consider the scenario where the measurements are nonlocal, to engineer efficient control onto dynamical trajectories. Motivated by Rydberg-atom arrays, we consider a locally constrained model with global sublattice magnetization measurements and local correction operations to steer the system's dynamics onto a many-body orbit. The model has a well-defined classical limit, which we leverage to aid our analysis of the control transition. As a function of the density of local correction operations, we find control and entanglement transitions with continuously varying critical exponents. For sufficiently high densities of local correction operations, we find that both transitions acquire a dynamical critical exponent $z<1$, reminiscent of criticality in long-range power-law interacting systems. At low correction densities, we find that the criticality reverts to a short-range nature with $z\gtrsim 1$. In the long-range regime, the control and entanglement transitions are indistinguishable to within the resolution of our numerics, while in the short-range regime we find evidence that the transitions become distinct. We conjecture that the long-range criticality mediated by collective measurements is essential in driving the two transitions together.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Edge modes and boundary impurities in the anisotropic Heisenberg spin chain

We present a comprehensive analysis of boundary phenomena in a spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ anisotropic Heisenberg chain (XXZ-$\frac{1}{2}$) in the gapped antiferromagnetic phase, with a particular focus on the interplay between fractionalized spin-$\frac{1}{4} $ edge modes and a coupled spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ impurity at the edge. Employing a combination of Bethe Ansatz, exact diagonalization, and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods, we explore the intricate phase diagram that emerges when the impurity is coupled either integrably or non-integrably to the chain. For integrable antiferromagnetic impurity couplings, we identify two distinct phases: the Kondo phase, where the impurity is screened by a multiparticle Kondo effect, and the antiferromagnetic bound mode phase, where an exponentially localized bound state screens the impurity in the ground state. When coupled ferromagnetically while maintaining integrability, the impurity behaves as a free spin-$\frac{1}{2}$, leading to either a ferromagnetic bound mode phase, where the impurity remains free in the ground state but may be screened at higher energy excitations or an unscreened (or local moment) phase where impurity remains unscreened in every eigenstate whereas for non-integrable ferromagnetic coupling, the impurity is not free. In the case of non-integrable antiferromagnetic coupling, a third phase emerges, characterized by mid-gap excitations with two degenerate states below the mass gap on top of the Kondo and antiferromagnetic bound mode phases, further enriching the phase diagram. Our findings highlight the nuanced behavior of boundary impurities in gapped antiferromagnetic systems, offering new insights into Kondo effects and impurity screening in the presence of fractionalized edge modes and bulk antiferromagnetic order.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Twisted Nodal Superconductors

Recent proposals for the realization of time-reversal symmetry breaking and topological superconductivity in twisted nodal superconductors have led to a surge of theoretical and experimental studies of these systems, marking one of the newest entries in the rapidly growing field of moiré materials. The interplay between order parameters of the separate layers makes twisted superconductors unique, leading to additional emergent phenomena in regimes usually not of importance in moiré physics, such as bulk interfaces and large twist angles. We review the physics of twisted nodal superconductors, highlighting both similarities and qualitative differences with other moiré platforms. While inspired by the rise of moiré materials, the field is anchored in studies of unconventional superconductivity preceding the moiré era, which we discuss in detail. In addition to summarizing the developments at the present stage, we present a detailed outlook on the major open questions in the field and some of the most exciting future directions.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2025

Quantum geometric photocurrents of quasiparticles in superconductors

Nonlinear optical response is a sensitive probe of the geometry and symmetry of electronic Bloch states in solids. Here, we extend this notion to the Bogoliubiov-de-Gennes (BdG) quasiparticles in superconductors. We present a theory of photocurrents in superconductors and show that they sensitively depend on the quantum geometry of the BdG excitation spectrum. For all light polarizations, the photocurrent is proportional to the quantum geometric tensor: for linear polarized light it is related to the quantum metric and for circular polarization -- the Berry curvature dipole of the associated BdG bands. We further relate the photocurrent to the ground state symmetries, providing a symmetry dictionary for the allowed photocurrent responses. For light not at normal incidence to the sample, photocurrent probes time-reversal symmetry breaking in systems with chiral point groups (such as twisted bilayers). We demonstrate that photocurrents allow to probe topology and TRS breaking in twisted $d$-wave superconductors and test the nature of superconductivity in twisted WSe$_2$ and multilayer stacks of rhombohedral graphene. Our results pave the way to contactless measurement of the quantum geometric properties and symmetry of superconductivity in materials and heterostructures.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2025

Separate surface and bulk topological Anderson localization transitions in disordered axion insulators

In topological phases of matter for which the bulk and boundary support distinct electronic gaps, there exists the possibility of decoupled mobility gaps in the presence of disorder. This is in analogy with the well-studied problem of realizing separate or concomitant bulk-boundary criticality in conventional Landau theory. Using a three-dimensional axion insulator having clean, gapped surfaces with $e^2/2h$ quantized Hall conductance, we show the bulk and surface mobility gap evolve differently in the presence of disorder. The decoupling of the bulk and surface topology yields a regime that realizes a two-dimensional, unquantized anomalous Hall metal in the Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE), which shares some spectral and response properties akin to the surface states of a conventional three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator. The generality of these results as well as extensions to other insulators and superconductors is discussed.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2025

Disentangling Interacting Systems with Fermionic Gaussian Circuits: Application to Quantum Impurity Models

Tensor network quantum states are powerful tools for strongly correlated systems, tailored to capture local correlations such as in ground states with entanglement area laws. When applying tensor network states to interacting fermionic systems, a proper choice of the basis or orbitals can reduce the bond dimension of tensors and provide physically relevant orbitals. We introduce such a change of basis with unitary gates obtained from compressing fermionic Gaussian states into quantum circuits corresponding to various tensor networks. These circuits can reduce the ground state entanglement entropy and improve the performance of algorithms such as the density matrix renormalization group. We study the Anderson impurity model with one and two impurities to show the potential of the method for improving computational efficiency and interpreting impurity physics. Furthermore, fermionic Gaussian circuits can also suppress entanglement during the time evolution out of low-energy state. Last, we consider Gaussian multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (GMERA) circuits which compress fermionic Gaussian states hierarchically. The emergent coarse-grained physical models from these GMERA circuits are studied in terms of their entanglement properties and suitability for performing time evolution.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Critical Properties of Weak Measurement Induced Phase Transitions in Random Quantum Circuits

The effects of different forms of weak measurements on the nature of the measurement induced phase transition are theoretically studied in hybrid random quantum circuits of qubits. We use a combination of entanglement measures, ancilla purification dynamics, and a transfer matrix approach to compute the critical exponents, the effective central charge, and the multifractal spectrum of the measurement induced transitions. We compare weak measurements with an infinite number of discrete outcomes to a protocol with only a pair of outcomes and find that to within our numerical accuracy the universal critical properties are unaffected by the weak measurement protocols and are consistent with the universality class found for strong projective measurements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Charge and Entanglement Criticality in a U(1)-Symmetric Hybrid Circuit of Qubits

We study critical properties of the entanglement and charge-sharpening measurement-induced phase transitions in a non-unitary quantum circuit evolving with a U(1) conserved charge. Our numerical estimation of the critical properties of the entanglement transition at finite system sizes appears distinct from the generic non-conserving case and percolation. We provide two possible interpretations of this observation: (a) these two transitions occur at different measurement rates in the thermodynamic limit, but at finite system sizes their critical fans overlap and the critical exponents we probed here show a combination of both the criticality. Nonetheless, the multifractal properties of the entanglement transition remain distinct from the generic case without any symmetry, indicating a unique universality class due to the U(1) symmetry. (b) these two transitions occur at the same measurement rate at any length scale. Within this interpretation, our estimation of all the critical exponents are sharply different than the non-conserving case, again confirming the presence of a new universality class due U(1) symmetry. We compute entanglement critical exponents and correlation functions via various ancilla measures, use a transfer matrix for multifractality, and compute correlators associated with charge sharpening to explain these findings. Through these correlators, we also find evidence consistent with the charge-sharpening transition being of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type (including the predicted ``jump'' in stiffness), which simultaneously argues for a broad critical fan for this transition. As a result, attempts to measure critical properties in this finite-size system will see anomalously large exponents predicted by our numerical analysis.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2024

Charge transfer spin-polarons and ferromagnetism in weakly doped AB-stacked TMD heterobilayers

We study the formation of ferromagnetic and magnetic polaron states in weakly doped heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides in the ``heavy fermion'' limit in which one layer hosts a dense set of local moments and the other hosts a low density of itinerant holes. We show that interactions among the carriers in the itinerant layer induces a ferromagnetic exchange. We characterize the ground state finding a competition, controlled by the carrier concentration and interlayer exchange, between a layer decoupled phase of itinerant carriers in a background of local moments, a fully polarized ferromagnet and a canted antiferromagnet. In the canted antiferromagnet phase the combination of the in-plane 120$^{\circ}$ Néel order and Ising spin orbit couplings induces winding in the electronic wavefunction giving rise to a topologically non-trivial spin texture and an observable anomalous Hall effect. At larger carrier density the ferromagnetically ordered phase transitions into a paramagnetic heavy Fermi liquid state. This theory enables a comprehensive understanding of the existing experimental observations while also making predictions including experimental signatures enabling direct imaging of spin polaron bound states with scanning tunneling microscopy. Our work shows that the prevailing paradigm of the (Doniach) phase diagram of heavy fermion metals is fundamentally modified in the low doping regime of heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Vacancy-induced tunable Kondo effect in twisted bilayer graphene

In single sheets of graphene, vacancy-induced states have been shown to host an effective spin-1/2 hole that can be Kondo-screened at low temperatures. Here, we show how these vacancy-induced impurity states survive in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), which thus provides a tunable system to probe the critical destruction of the Kondo effect in pseudogap hosts. Ab-initio calculations and atomic-scale modeling are used to determine the nature of the vacancy states in the vicinity of the magic angle in TBG, demonstrating that the vacancy can be treated as a quantum impurity. Utilizing this insight, we construct an Anderson impurity model with a TBG host that we solve using the numerical renormalization group combined with the kernel polynomial method. We determine the phase diagram of the model and show how there is a strict dichotomy between vacancies in the AA/BB versus AB/BA tunneling regions. In AB/BA vacancies, the Kondo temperature at the magic angle develops a broad distribution with a tail to vanishing temperatures due to multifractal wavefunctions at the magic angle. We argue that scanning tunneling microscopy in the vicinity of the vacancy can act as a probe of both the critical single-particle states and the underlying many-body ground state in magic-angle TBG.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Topological superconductivity from repulsive interactions in twisted WSe$_2$

The recent observation of superconductivity in twisted bilayer WSe$_2$ raises intriguing questions concerning the origin and the properties of superconducting states realized in bands with non-trivial topological properties and repulsive electron-electron interactions. Using a continuum band structure model, we analyze a mechanism for Coulomb interaction-driven superconductivity in twisted bilayers of WSe$_2$. We discuss the symmetries and the phenomenological properties of the resulting superconducting phases and their evolution with interlayer potential difference, tunable via an out of plane electric field. The pairing strength is a non-monotonic function of interlayer potential, being larger at intermediate values due to mixing of singlet and triplet pairing. In contrast, at larger interlayer potential, the pairing tendency is suppressed due to enhanced Coulomb repulsion. The superconducting state is chiral in a large regime of parameters and undergoes a transition to a nodal nematic superconductor at a critical potential difference. The chiral state, characterized by an intervalley-symmetric superposition of triplet and singlet pairs, is classified as a topological superconductor within the Altland-Zirnbauer class C. At zero interlayer potential difference, the superconducting state is instead of class D, which hosts Majorana zero modes, making it a promising candidate for applications in quantum computation.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Local and nonlocal stochastic control of quantum chaos: Measurement- and control-induced criticality

We theoretically study the topology of the phase diagram of a family of quantum models inspired by the classical Bernoulli map under stochastic control. The quantum models inherit a control-induced phase transition from the classical model and also manifest an entanglement phase transition intrinsic to the quantum setting. This measurement-induced phase transition has been shown in various settings to either coincide or split off from the control transition, but a systematic understanding of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the two transitions to coincide in this case has so far been lacking. In this work, we generalize the control map to allow for either local or global control action. While this does not affect the classical aspects of the control transition that is described by a random walk, it significantly influences the quantum dynamics, leading to the universality class of the measurement-induced transition being dependent on the locality of the control operation. In the presence of a global control map, the two transitions coincide and the control-induced phase transition dominates the measurement-induced phase transition. Contrarily, the two transitions split in the presence of the local control map or additional projective measurements and generically take on distinct universality classes. For local control, the measurement-induced phase transition recovers the Haar logarithmic conformal field theory universality class found in feedback-free models. However, for global control, a novel universality class with correlation length exponent $ν\approx 0.7$ emerges from the interplay of control and projective measurements. This work provides a more refined understanding of the relationship between the control- and measurement-induced phase transitions.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Sine-Gordon model at finite temperature: the method of random surfaces

We study the sine-Gordon quantum field theory at finite temperature by generalizing the method of random surfaces to compute the free energy and one-point functions of exponential operators non-perturbatively. Focusing on the gapped phase of the sine-Gordon model, we demonstrate the method's accuracy by comparing our results to the predictions of other methods and to exact results in the thermodynamic limit. We find excellent agreement between the method of random surfaces and other approaches when the temperature is not too small with respect to the mass gap. Extending the method to more general problems in strongly interacting one-dimensional quantum systems is discussed.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2024

Topological Kondo semimetal and insulator in AB-stacked heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides

Recent experiments reported the realization of a heavy Fermi liquid in AB-stacked MoTe$_2$/WSe$_2$ heterobilayers. In this paper we show that the AB-stacked heterobilayer configuration is particularly suited to realize topological Kondo semimetal and topological Kondo insulator ground states at a doping of two holes per moiré unit cell. The small lattice mismatch between the MoTe$_2$ and WSe$_2$ monolayers and the different bandwidths of their highest lying moiré valence bands means that, in the experimentally relevant range of hole dopings, the MoTe$_2$ layer is effectively a Mott insulator with only low-lying magnetic excitations Kondo-coupled to more itinerant electrons in the WSe$_2$. The crucial consequence of the AB-stacking configuration is that the interlayer tunnelling connects orbitals of opposite parity in the two layers, leading to a chiral Kondo coupling. We show that the chiral Kondo coupling favors a topological Kondo semimetal at filling $ν=1+1$, with a non-quantized spin Hall conductance arising from edge modes, whose spectrum and overlap with bulk states we determine. We further show that a spatially random strain field that locally breaks the rotation symmetry can convert the Kondo semimetal to a narrow gap topological Kondo insulator featuring a quantized spin Hall conductance.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Absence of quantization in the circular photogalvanic effect in disordered chiral Weyl semimetals

The circularly polarized photogalvanic effect (CPGE) is studied in chiral Weyl semimetals with short-ranged quenched disorder. Without disorder, the topological properties of chiral Weyl semimetals lead to the quantization of the CPGE, which is a second-order optical response. Using a combination of diagrammatic perturbation theory in the continuum and exact numerical calculations via the kernel polynomial method on a lattice model we show that disorder perturbatively destabilizes the quantization of the CPGE.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Edge Spin fractionalization in one-dimensional spin-$S$ quantum antiferromagnets

We show that a gapped spin-$S$ chain with antiferromagnetic (AFM) order exhibits in the thermodynamic limit exponentially localized fractional $\pm \frac{S}{2}$ edge modes when the system possesses U(1) symmetry. We show this for integrable and non integrable spin chains both analytically and numerically. Through exact analytical solutions, we show that an AFM spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ chain with {\it explicitly} broken $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry and an integrable AFM spin-$1$ chain with {\it spontaneously} broken $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry have $\pm \frac{1}{4}$ and $\pm \frac{1}{2}$ fractionalized edge modes, respectively. Furthermore, employing the density matrix renormalization group technique, we extend this analysis to {\it generic} $XXZ-S$ chains with $S\leq 3$ and demonstrate that these fractional spins are robust quantum observables, substantiated by the observation of a variance of the associated fractional spin operators that is consistent with a vanishing functional form in the thermodynamic limit. Moreover, we find that the edge modes are robust to disorder that couples to the Néel order parameter.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Measurement induced criticality in quasiperiodic modulated random hybrid circuits

We study one-dimensional hybrid quantum circuits perturbed by quenched quasiperiodic (QP) modulations across the measurement-induced phase transition (MIPT). Considering non-Pisot QP structures, characterized by unbounded fluctuations, allows us to tune the wandering exponent $β$ to exceed the Luck bound $ν\ge 1/(1-β)$ for the stability of the MIPT, where $ν=1.28(2)$. Via robust numerical simulations of random Clifford circuits interleaved with local projective measurements, we find that sufficiently large QP structural fluctuations destabilize the MIPT and induce a flow to a broad family of critical dynamical phase transitions of the infinite QP type that is governed by the wandering exponent, $β$. We numerically determine the associated critical properties, including the correlation length exponent consistent with saturating the Luck bound, and a universal activated dynamical scaling with activation exponent $ψ\cong β$, finding excellent agreement with the conclusions of real space renormalization group calculations.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗