arXiv subjects

Michael Mulligan

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Mulligan.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Symmetry-Protected Topological Interfaces and Entanglement Sequences

Gapped interfaces (and boundaries) of two-dimensional (2D) Abelian topological phases are shown to support a remarkably rich sequence of 1D symmetry-protected topological (SPT) states. We show that such interfaces can provide a physical interpretation for the corrections to the topological entanglement entropy of a 2D state with Abelian topological order found in Ref.~\onlinecite{cano-2015}. The topological entanglement entropy decomposes as $γ= γ_a + γ_s$, where $γ_a > 0$ only depends on universal topological properties of the 2D state, while a correction $γ_s > 0$ signals the emergence of the 1D SPT state that is produced by interactions along the entanglement cut and provides a direct measure of the stabilizing symmetry of the resulting SPT state. A correspondence is established between the possible values of $γ_s$ associated with a given interface - which is named Boundary Topological Entanglement Sequence - and classes of 1D SPT states. We show that symmetry-preserving domain walls along such 1D interfaces (or boundaries) generally host localized parafermion-like excitations that are stable to local symmetry-preserving perturbations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Non-Abelian Fermionization and Fractional Quantum Hall Transitions

There has been a recent surge of interest in dualities relating theories of Chern-Simons gauge fields coupled to either bosons or fermions within the condensed matter community, particularly in the context of topological insulators and the half-filled Landau level. Here, we study the application of one such duality to the long-standing problem of quantum Hall inter-plateaux transitions. The key motivating experimental observations are the anomalously large value of the correlation length exponent $ν\approx 2.3$ and that $ν$ is observed to be super-universal, i.e., the same in the vicinity of distinct critical points. Duality motivates effective descriptions for a fractional quantum Hall plateau transition involving a Chern-Simons field with $U(N_c)$ gauge group coupled to $N_f = 1$ fermion. We study one class of theories in a controlled limit where $N_f \gg N_c$ and calculate $ν$ to leading non-trivial order in the absence of disorder. Although these theories do not yield an anomalously large exponent $ν$ within the large $N_f \gg N_c$ expansion, they do offer a new parameter space of theories that is apparently different from prior works involving abelian Chern-Simons gauge fields.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Two-dimensional conductors with interactions and disorder from particle-vortex duality

We study Dirac fermions in two spatial dimensions (2D) coupled to strongly fluctuating U(1) gauge fields in the presence of quenched disorder. Such systems are dual to theories of free Dirac fermions, which are vortices of the original theory. In analogy to superconductivity, when these fermionic vortices localize, the original system becomes a perfect conductor, and when the vortices possess a finite conductivity, the original fermions do as well. We provide several realizations of this principle and thereby introduce new examples of strongly interacting 2D metals that evade Anderson localization.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Weiss oscillations and particle-hole symmetry at the half-filled Landau level

Particle-hole symmetry in the lowest Landau level of the two-dimensional electron gas requires the electrical Hall conductivity to equal $\pm e^2/2h$ at half-filling. We study the consequences of weakly broken particle-hole symmetry for magnetoresistance oscillations about half-filling in the presence of an applied periodic one-dimensional electrostatic potential using the Dirac composite fermion theory proposed by Son. At fixed electron density, the oscillation minima are asymmetrically biased towards higher magnetic fields, while at fixed magnetic field, the oscillations occur symmetrically as the electron density is varied about half-filling. We find an approximate "sum rule" obeyed for all pairs of oscillation minima that can be tested in experiment. The locations of the magnetoresistance oscillation minima for the composite fermion theory of Halperin, Lee, and Read (HLR) and its particle-hole conjugate agree exactly. Within the current experimental resolution, the locations of the oscillation minima produced by the Dirac composite fermion coincide with those of HLR. These results may indicate that all three composite fermion theories describe the same long wavelength physics.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Nonsupersymmetric dualities from mirror symmetry

We study supersymmetry breaking perturbations of the simplest dual pair of 2+1-dimensional N = 2 supersymmetric field theories -- the free chiral multiplet and N = 2 super-QED with a single flavor. We find dual descriptions of a phase diagram containing four distinct massive phases. The equivalence of the intervening critical theories gives rise to several non-supersymmetric avatars of mirror symmetry: we find dualities relating scalar QED to a free fermion and Wilson-Fisher theories to both scalar and fermionic QED. Thus, mirror symmetry can be viewed as the multicritical parent duality from which these non-supersymmetric dualities directly descend.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Particle-vortex symmetric liquid

We introduce an effective theory with manifest particle-vortex symmetry for disordered thin films undergoing a magnetic field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition. The theory may enable one to access both the critical properties of the strong-disorder limit, which has recently been confirmed by Breznay et al. [PNAS 113, 280 (2016)] to exhibit particle-vortex symmetric electrical response, and the nearby metallic phase discovered earlier by Mason and Kapitulnik [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5341 (1999)] in less disordered samples. Within the effective theory, the Cooper-pair and field-induced vortex degrees of freedom are simultaneously incorporated into an electrically-neutral Dirac fermion minimally coupled to an (emergent) Chern-Simons gauge field. A derivation of the theory follows upon mapping the superconductor-insulator transition to the integer quantum Hall plateau transition and the subsequent use of Son's particle-hole symmetric composite Fermi liquid. Remarkably, particle-vortex symmetric response does not require the introduction of disorder; rather, it results when the Dirac fermions exhibit vanishing Hall effect. The theory predicts approximately equal (diagonal) thermopower and Nernst signal with a deviation parameterized by the measured electrical Hall response at the symmetric point.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Bosonization and Mirror Symmetry

We study bosonization in 2+1 dimensions using mirror symmetry, a duality that relates pairs of supersymmetric theories. Upon breaking supersymmetry in a controlled way, we dynamically obtain the bosonization duality that equates the theory of a free Dirac fermion to QED3 with a single scalar boson. This duality may be used to demonstrate the bosonization duality relating an $O(2)$-symmetric Wilson-Fisher fixed point to QED3 with a single Dirac fermion, Peskin-Dasgupta-Halperin duality, and the recently conjectured duality relating the theory of a free Dirac fermion to fermionic QED3 with a single flavor. Chern-Simons and BF couplings for both dynamical and background gauge fields play a central role in our approach. In the course of our study, we describe a chiral mirror pair that may be viewed as the minimal supersymmetric generalization of the two bosonization dualities.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Stability of $SU(N_c)$ QCD3 from the $ε$-Expansion

QCD with gauge group $SU(N_c)$ flows to an interacting conformal fixed point in three spacetime dimensions when the number of four-component Dirac fermions $N_f \gg N_c$. We study the stability of this fixed point via the $ε$-expansion about four dimensions. We find that when the number of fermions is lowered to $N_f^{\rm crit} \approx {11 \over 2} N_c + (6 + {4 \over N_c}) ε$, a certain four-fermion operator becomes relevant and the theory flows to a new infrared fixed point (massless or massive). F-theorem or entanglement monotonicity considerations complement our $ε$-expansion calculation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Transport in a One-Dimensional Hyperconductor

We define a `hyperconductor' to be a material whose electrical and thermal DC conductivities are infinite at zero temperature and finite at any non-zero temperature. The low-temperature behavior of a hyperconductor is controlled by a quantum critical phase of interacting electrons that is stable to all potentially-gap-generating interactions and potentially-localizing disorder. In this paper, we compute the low-temperature DC and AC electrical and thermal conductivities in a one-dimensional hyperconductor, studied previously by the present authors, in the presence of both disorder and umklapp scattering. We identify the conditions under which the transport coefficients are finite, which allows us to exhibit examples of violations of the Wiedemann-Franz law. The temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity, which is characterized by the parameter $Δ_X$, is a power law, $σ\propto 1/T^{1 - 2(2-Δ_X)}$ when $Δ_X \geq 2$, down to zero temperature when the Fermi surface is commensurate with the lattice. There is a surface in parameter space along which $Δ_X = 2$ and $Δ_X \approx 2$ for small deviations from this surface. In the generic (incommensurate) case with weak disorder, such scaling is seen at high-temperatures, followed by an exponential increase of the conductivity $\ln σ\sim 1/T$ at intermediate temperatures and, finally, $σ\propto 1/T^{2-2(2-{Δ_X})}$ at the lowest temperatures. In both cases, the thermal conductivity diverges at low temperatures.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Emergent particle-hole symmetry in the half-filled Landau level

We provide an effective description of a particle-hole symmetric state of electrons in a half-filled Landau level, starting from the traditional approach pioneered by Halperin, Lee and Read. Specifically, we study a system consisting of alternating quasi-one-dimensional strips of composite Fermi liquid (CFL) and composite hole liquid (CHL), both of which break particle-hole symmetry. When the CFL and CHL strips are identical in size, the resulting state is manifestly invariant under the combined action of a particle-hole transformation with respect to a single Landau level (which interchanges the CFL and CHL) and translation by one unit, equal to the strip width, in the direction transverse to the strips. At distances long compared to the strip width, we demonstrate that the system is described by a Dirac fermion coupled to an emergent gauge field, with an anti-unitary particle-hole symmetry, as recently proposed by Son.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Mirror symmetry and the half-filled Landau level

We study the dynamics of the half-filled zeroth Landau level of Dirac fermions using mirror symmetry, a supersymmetric duality between certain pairs of $2+1$-dimensional theories. We show that the half-filled zeroth Landau level of a pair of Dirac fermions is dual to a pair of Fermi surfaces of electrically-neutral composite fermions, coupled to an emergent gauge field. Thus, we use supersymmetry to provide a derivation of flux attachment and the emergent Fermi liquid-like state for the lowest Landau level of Dirac fermions. We find that in the dual theory the Coulomb interaction induces a dynamical exponent $z=2$ for the emergent gauge field, making the interactions classically marginal. This enables us to map the problem of $2+1$-dimensional Dirac fermions in a finite transverse magnetic field, interacting via a strong Coulomb interaction, into a perturbatively controlled model. We analyze the resulting low-energy theory using the renormalization group and determine the nature of the BCS interaction in the emergent composite Fermi liquid.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Composite fermions and the field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition

In several two-dimensional films that exhibit a magnetic field-tuned superconductor to insulator transition (SIT), stable metallic phases have been observed. Building on the `dirty boson' description of the SIT, we suggest that the metallic region is analogous to the composite Fermi liquid observed about half-filled Landau levels of the two-dimensional electron gas. The composite fermions here are mobile vortices attached to one flux quantum of an emergent gauge field. The composite vortex liquid is a 2D non-Fermi liquid metal, which we argue is stable to weak quenched disorder. We describe several experimental consequences of the emergent composite vortex liquid.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Particle-Hole Symmetry and the Composite Fermi Liquid

The half-filled Landau level is widely believed to be described by the Halperin-Lee-Read theory of the composite Fermi liquid (CFL). In this paper, we develop a theory for the particle-hole conjugate of the CFL, the Anti-CFL, which we argue to be a distinct phase of matter as compared with the CFL. The Anti-CFL provides a possible explanation of a recent experiment [Kamburov et. al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 196801 (2014)] demonstrating that the density of composite fermions in GaAs quantum wells corresponds to the electron density when the filling fraction $ν< 1/2$ and to the hole density when $ν> 1/2$. We introduce a local field theory for the CFL and Anti-CFL in the presence of a boundary, which we use to study CFL - Insulator - CFL junctions, and the interface between the Anti-CFL and CFL. We show that the CFL - Anti-CFL interface allows partially fused boundary phases in which "composite electrons" can directly tunnel into "composite holes," providing a non-trivial example of transmutation between topologically distinct quasiparticles. We discuss several observable consequences of the Anti-CFL, including a predicted resistivity jump at a first order transition between uniform CFL and Anti-CFL phases. We also present a theory of a continuous quantum phase transition between the CFL and Anti-CFL. We conclude that particle-hole symmetry requires a modified view of the half-filled Landau level, in the presence of strong electron-electron interactions and weak disorder, as a critical point between the CFL and the Anti-CFL.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Interactions along an Entanglement Cut in 2+1D Abelian Topological Phases

A given fractional quantum Hall state may admit multiple, distinct edge phases on its boundary. We explore the implications that multiple edge phases have for the entanglement spectrum and entropy of a given bulk state. We describe the precise manner in which the entanglement spectrum depends upon local (tunneling) interactions along an entanglement cut and throughout the bulk. The sensitivity to local conditions near the entanglement cut appears not only in gross features of the spectrum, but can also manifest itself in an additive, positive constant correction to the topological entanglement entropy, i.e., it increases its magnitude. A natural interpretation for this result is that the tunneling interactions across an entanglement cut can function as a barrier to certain types of quasiparticle transport across the cut, thereby, lowering the total entanglement between the two regions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

The Partially-Split Hall Bar: Tunneling in the Bosonic Integer Quantum Hall Effect

We study point-contact tunneling in the integer quantum Hall state of bosons. This symmetry-protected topological state has electrical Hall conductivity equal to $2 e^2/h$ and vanishing thermal Hall conductivity. In contrast to the integer quantum Hall state of fermions, a point contact can have a dramatic effect on the low energy physics. In the absence of disorder, a point contact generically leads to a partially-split Hall bar geometry. We describe the resulting intermediate fixed point via the two-terminal electrical (Hall) conductance of the edge modes. Disorder along the edge, however, both restores the universality of the two-terminal conductance and helps preserve the integrity of the Hall bar within the relevant parameter regime.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Perfect Metal Phases of One-Dimensional and Anisotropic Higher-Dimensional Systems

We show that a 1D quantum wire with $23$ channels of interacting fermions has a perfect metal phase in which all weak perturbations that could destabilize this phase are irrelevant. Consequently, weak disorder does not localize it, a weak periodic potential does not open a gap, and contact with a superconductor also fails to open a gap. Similar phases occur for $N \geq 24$ channels of fermions, except for $N=25$, and for $8k$ channels of interacting bosons, with $k\geq 3$. Arrays of perfect metallic wires form higher-dimensional fermionic or bosonic perfect metals, albeit highly-anisotropic ones.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Bulk-Edge Correspondence in 2+1-Dimensional Abelian Topological Phases

The same bulk two-dimensional topological phase can have multiple distinct, fully-chiral edge phases. We show that this can occur in the integer quantum Hall states at $ν=8$ and 12, with experimentally-testable consequences. We show that this can occur in Abelian fractional quantum Hall states as well, with the simplest examples being at $ν=8/7, 12/11, 8/15, 16/5$. We give a general criterion for the existence of multiple distinct chiral edge phases for the same bulk phase and discuss experimental consequences. Edge phases correspond to lattices while bulk phases correspond to genera of lattices. Since there are typically multiple lattices in a genus, the bulk-edge correspondence is typically one-to-many; there are usually many stable fully chiral edge phases corresponding to the same bulk. We explain these correspondences using the theory of integral quadratic forms. We show that fermionic systems can have edge phases with only bosonic low-energy excitations and discuss a fermionic generalization of the relation between bulk topological spins and the central charge. The latter follows from our demonstration that every fermionic topological phase can be represented as a bosonic topological phase, together with some number of filled Landau levels. Our analysis shows that every Abelian topological phase can be decomposed into a tensor product of theories associated with prime numbers $p$ in which every quasiparticle has a topological spin that is a $p^n$-th root of unity for some $n$. It also leads to a simple demonstration that all Abelian topological phases can be represented by $U(1)^N$ Chern-Simons theory parameterized by a K-matrix.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Short-Range Entangled Bosonic States with Chiral Edge Modes and $T$-duality of Heterotic Strings

We consider states of bosons in two dimensions that do not support anyons in the bulk, but nevertheless have stable chiral edge modes that are protected even without any symmetry. Such states must have edge modes with central charge $c=8k$ for integer $k$. While there is a single such state with $c=8$, there are, naively, two such states with $c=16$, corresponding to the two distinct even unimodular lattices in 16 dimensions. However, we show that these two phases are the same in the bulk, which is a consequence of the uniqueness of signature $(8k +n, n)$ even unimodular lattices. The bulk phases are stably equivalent, in a sense that we make precise. However, there are two different phases of the edge corresponding to these two lattices, thereby realizing a novel form of the bulk-edge correspondence. Two distinct fully chiral edge phases are associated with the same bulk phase, which is consistent with the uniqueness of the bulk since the transition between them, which is generically first-order, can occur purely at the edge. Our construction is closely related to $T$-duality of toroidally compactified heterotic strings. We discuss generalizations of these results.

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