arXiv subjects

Lorenzo Maffi

Publications and source records attributed to Lorenzo Maffi.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Trimer Dynamics in Floquet-driven arrays of Rydberg Atoms

We analyze the WAHUHA Floquet protocol recently applied to arrays of Rydberg atoms and derive beyond-leading-order corrections in the high-frequency expansion of the effective spin theory. We find that an appropriate choice of the pulses times can enforce an approximate symmetry corresponding to the conservation of the total magnetization. The interaction channels emerging from higher-order Floquet terms affect three-body bound states (\emph{trimers}), which gain a significant mobility. We estimate the corresponding enhancement in 1D spin chains and conclude that their dynamics is within experimental reach. Detrimental effects due to the proliferation of particles outside of the trimer magnetization sector are found to occur and spread on time-scales slower than the trimer propagation. We further show that long-range interactions enhance trimer propagation and that two-dimensional triangular geometries can host energetically isolated trimer bands, providing a possible route to reduce resonant mixing with higher-magnetization sectors. Our results establish a concrete route to realizing mobile multiparticle bound states in Floquet-engineered Rydberg platforms.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2026

The topological Kondo model out of equilibrium

The topological Kondo effect is a genuine manifestation of the nonlocality of Majorana modes. We investigate its out-of-equilibrium signatures in a model with a Cooper-pair box hosting four of these topological modes, each connected to a metallic lead. Through an advanced matrix-product-state approach tailored to study the dynamics of superconductors, we simulate the relaxation of the Majorana magnetization, which allows us to determine the related Kondo temperature, and we analyze the onset of electric transport after a quantum quench of a lead voltage. Our results apply to Majorana Cooper-pair boxes fabricated in double nanowire devices and provide nonperturbative evidence of the crossover from weak-coupling states to the strongly correlated topological Kondo regime. The latter dominates at the superconductor charge degeneracy points and displays the expected universal fractional zero-bias conductance.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2026

Emergent chiral Higgs mode in $π$-flux frustrated lattices

Neutral-atom quantum simulators provide a powerful platform for realizing strongly correlated phases, enabling access to dynamical signatures of quasiparticles and symmetry breaking processes. Motivated by recent observations of quantum phases in flux-frustrated ladders with non-vanishing ground state currents, we investigate interacting bosons on the dimerized BBH lattice in two dimensions-originally introduced in the context of higher-order topology. After mapping out the phase diagram, which includes vortex superfluid (V-SF), vortex Mott insulator (V-MI), and featureless Mott insulator (MI) phases, we focus on the integer filling case. There, the MI/V-SF transition simultaneously breaks the $\mathbb Z_2^{T}$ and U(1) symmetries, where $\mathbb Z_2^{T}$ corresponds to time-reversal symmetry (TRS). Using a slave-boson description, we resolve the excitation spectrum across the transition and uncover a chiral Higgs mode whose mass softens at criticality, providing a dynamical hallmark of emergent chirality that we numerically probe via quench dynamics. Our results establish an experimentally realistic setting for probing unconventional TRS-broken phases and quasiparticles with intrinsic chirality in strongly interacting quantum matter.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Engineering a Josephson junction chain for the simulation of the clock model

The continuous improvement of fabrication techniques and high-quality semiconductor-superconductor interfaces allowed for unprecedented tunability of Josephson junction arrays (JJA), making them a promising candidate for analog quantum simulations of many-body phenomena. While most experimental proposals so far focused on quantum simulations of ensembles of two-level systems, the possibility of tuning the current-phase relation beyond the sinusoidal regime paves the way for studying statistical physics models with larger local Hilbert spaces. Here, we investigate a particular JJA architecture that can be mapped into a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ clock model. Through matrix-product-states simulations and bosonization analysis, we show that few experimentally accessible control parameters allow for the exploration of the rich phase diagrams of the associated low-energy field theories. Our results expand the horizon for analog quantum simulations with JJAs towards models that can not be efficiently captured with qubit architectures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

The poor man's Majorana tetron

The Majorana tetron is a prototypical topological qubit stemming from the ground state degeneracy of a superconducting island hosting four Majorana modes. This degeneracy manifests as an effective non-local spin degree of freedom, whose most paradigmatic signature is the topological Kondo effect. Degeneracies of states with different fermionic parities characterize also minimal Kitaev chains which have lately emerged as a platform to realize and study unprotected versions of Majorana modes, dubbed poor man's Majorana modes. Here, we introduce the ``poor man's Majorana tetron'', comprising four quantum dots coupled via a floating superconducting island. Its charging energy yields non-trivial correlations among the dots, although, unlike a standard tetron, it is not directly determined by the fermionic parity of the Majorana modes. The poor man's tetron displays parameter regions with a two-fold degenerate ground state with odd fermionic parity, that gives rise to an effective Anderson impurity model when coupled to external leads. We show that this system can approach a regime featuring the topological Kondo effect under a suitable tuning of experimental parameters. Therefore, the poor man's tetron is a promising device to observe the non-locality of Majorana modes and their related fractional conductance.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Quantum simulation of the tricritical Ising model in tunable Josephson junction ladders

Modern hybrid superconductor-semiconductor Josephson junction arrays are a promising platform for analog quantum simulations. Their controllable and non-sinusoidal energy/phase relation opens the path to implement nontrivial interactions and study the emergence of exotic quantum phase transitions. Here, we propose the analysis of an array of hybrid Josephson junctions defining a 2-leg ladder geometry for the quantum simulation of the tricritical Ising phase transition. This transition provides the paradigmatic example of minimal conformal models beyond Ising criticality and its excitations are intimately related with Fibonacci non-Abelian anyons and topological order in two dimensions. We study this superconducting system and its thermodynamic phases based on bosonization and matrix-product-states techniques. Its effective continuous description in terms of a three-frequency sine-Gordon quantum field theory suggests the presence of the targeted tricritical point and the numerical simulations confirm this picture. Our results indicate which experimental observables can be adopted in realistic devices to probe the physics and the phase transitions of the model. Additionally, our proposal provides a useful one-dimensional building block to design exotic topological order in two-dimensional scalable Josephson junction arrays.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Bosonization of 2+1 dimensional fermions on the surface of topological insulators

Three-dimensional topological insulators can be described by an effective field theory involving two `hydrodynamic' Abelian gauge fields. The action contains a bulk topological BF term and a surface term, called loop model. This describes the massless 2+1 dimensional excitations and provides them with a semiclassical, yet non-trivial conformal invariant dynamics. Given that topological insulators are originally fermionic, this physical setting is ideal for realizing the bosonization of massless fermions in terms of gauge fields. Building on earlier analyses of the loop model, we find that fermions belong to the solitonic spectrum and can be described by Wilson lines, through the generalization of 1+1 dimensional vertex operators. Their correlation functions agree with conformal invariance. The bosonic loop model is then mapped into a fermionic theory by using the general construction of fermionic topological phases described in the literature. It requires the identification of the characteristic one-form $Z_2$ symmetry of the bosonic theory and its gauging, which originates the fermion number $(-1)^F$, the spin sectors and the time reversal symmetry obeying ${\cal T}^2=(-1)^F$. These results are detailed for the effective action and the partition function on the geometry $S^2\times S^1$.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Simulations of the dynamics of quantum impurity problems with matrix product states

The Anderson impurity model is a paradigmatic example in the study of strongly correlated quantum systems and describes an interacting quantum dot coupled to electronic leads. In this work, we characterize the emergence of the Kondo effect by investigating the model dynamics following a quantum quench based on matrix product state simulations. The relaxation of the impurity magnetization allows for the estimate of the predicted universal scaling of the Kondo temperature as a function of the impurity-lead hybridization and quantum dot repulsion. Additionally, our simulations permit us to evaluate the current in the nonequilibrium quasi-steady state appearing after the quench. Through their values, we examine the dependence of the conductance on the voltage bias $V_b$ and on the impurity chemical potential $V_g$, which displays a zero-bias Kondo peak. Our results are relevant for transport measurements in Coulomb blockaded devices, and, in particular, in quantum dots induced in nanowires.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

W-infinity Symmetry in the Quantum Hall Effect Beyond the Edge

The description of chiral quantum incompressible fluids by the W-infinity symmetry can be extended from the edge, where it encompasses the conformal field theory approach, to the non-conformal bulk. The two regimes are characterized by excitations with different sizes, energies and momenta within the disk geometry. In particular, the bulk quantities have a finite limit for large droplets. We obtain analytic results for the radial shape of excitations, the edge reconstruction phenomenon and the energy spectrum of density fluctuations in Laughlin states.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Quantization of a Self-dual Conformal Theory in (2+1) Dimensions

Compact nonlocal Abelian gauge theory in (2+1) dimensions, also known as loop model, is a massless theory with a critical line that is explicitly covariant under duality transformations. It corresponds to the large N_F limit of self-dual electrodynamics in mixed three-four dimensions. It also provides a bosonic description for surface excitations of three-dimensional topological insulators. Upon mapping the model to a local gauge theory in (3+1) dimensions, we compute the spectrum of electric and magnetic solitonic excitations and the partition function on the three torus T_3. Analogous results for the S^2 x S^1 geometry show that the theory is conformal invariant and determine the manifestly self-dual spectrum of conformal fields, corresponding to order-disorder excitations with fractional statistics.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Critical Ising Model in Varying Dimension by Conformal Bootstrap

The single-correlator conformal bootstrap is solved numerically for several values of dimension 4>d>2 using the available SDPB and Extremal Functional methods. Critical exponents and other conformal data of low-lying states are obtained over the entire range of dimensions with up to four-decimal precision and then compared with several existing results. The conformal dimensions of leading-twist fields are also determined up to high spin, and their d-dependence shows how the conformal states rearrange themselves around d=2.2 for matching the Virasoro conformal blocks in the d=2 limit. The decoupling of states at the Ising point is studied for 3>d>2 and the vanishing of one structure constant at d=3 is found to persist till d=2 where it corresponds to a Virasoro null-vector condition.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Bulk-Boundary Correspondence in the Quantum Hall Effect

We present a detailed microscopic study of edge excitations for n filled Landau levels. We show that the higher-level wavefunctions possess a non-trivial radial dependence that should be integrated over for properly defining the edge conformal field theory. This analysis let us clarify the role of the electron orbital spin s in the edge theory and to discuss its universality, thus providing a further instance of the bulk-boundary correspondence. We find that the values s_i for each level, i=1,...,n, parameterize a Casimir effect or chemical potential shift that could be experimentally observed. These results are generalized to fractional and hierarchical fillings by exploiting the W-infinity symmetry of incompressible Hall fluids.

hep-th↗