arXiv subjects

Olexei Motrunich

Publications and source records attributed to Olexei Motrunich.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Dynamics in the presence of local symmetry-breaking impurities

Continuous symmetries lead to universal slow relaxation of correlation functions in quantum many-body systems. In this work, we study how local symmetry-breaking impurities affect the dynamics of these correlation functions using Brownian quantum circuits, which we expect to apply to generic non-integrable systems with the same symmetries. While explicitly breaking the symmetry is generally expected to lead to eventual restoration of full ergodicity, we find that approximately conserved quantities that survive under such circumstances can still induce slow relaxation. This can be understood using a super-Hamiltonian formulation, where low-lying excitations determine the late-time dynamics and exact ground states correspond to conserved quantities. We show that in one dimension, symmetry-breaking impurities modify diffusive and subdiffusive behaviors associated with U$(1)$ and dipole conservation at late-times, e.g., by increasing power-law decay exponents of the decay of autocorrelation functions. This stems from the fact that for these symmetries, impurities are relevant in the renormalization group sense, e.g., bulk impurities effectively disconnect the system, completely modifying both temporal and spatial correlations. On the other hand, for an impurity that disrupts strong Hilbert space fragmentation, the super-Hamiltonian only acquires an exponentially small gap, leading to prethermal plateaus in autocorrelation functions which extend for times that scale exponentially with the distance to the impurity. Overall, our approach systematically characterizes how symmetry breaking impurities affect relaxation dynamics in symmetric systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Finite-size generators for weak integrability breaking perturbations in the Heisenberg chain

An integrable model perturbed by special ''weak integrability-breaking'' perturbations thermalizes at timescales much longer than predicted by Fermi's golden rule. Recently, a systematic construction of such perturbations based on the so-called long-range deformations of integrable chains was formulated. These perturbations, obtained as truncations of the long-range deformations in some small parameter expansions, can be viewed as produced by unitary rotations of the short-range integrable models. For infinite systems, several ''generators'' (extensive local, boosted, and bilocal operators) of weak perturbations are known. The main aim of this work is to understand the appropriate generators in finite systems with periodic boundaries since simple counterparts to boosted and bilocal operators are not known in such cases. We approach this by studying the structure of the adiabatic gauge potential (AGP), a proxy for such generators in finite chains, which was originally introduced as a very sensitive measure of quantum chaos. We prove an exact relation between the AGPs for the boosted and bilocal classes of generators and note that the counterpart to boost does not seem to have a closed analytic form in finite systems but shows quasi-locality nonetheless. We also introduce and study strictly local variants of weak integrability-breaking perturbations.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2023

Robustness and eventual slow decay of bound states of interacting microwave photons in the Google Quantum AI experiment

Integrable models are characterized by the existence of stable excitations that can propagate indefinitely without decaying. This includes multi-magnon bound states in the celebrated XXZ spin chain model and its integrable Floquet counterpart. A recent Google Quantum AI experiment [A. Morvan et al., Nature 612, 240 (2022)] realizing the Floquet model demonstrated the persistence of such collective excitations even when the integrability is broken: this observation is at odds with the expectation of ergodic dynamics in generic non-integrable systems. We here study the spectrum of the model realized in the experiment using exact diagonalization and physical arguments. We find that isolated bands corresponding to the descendants of the exact bound states of the integrable model are clearly observable in the spectrum for a large range of system sizes. However, our numerical analysis of the localization properties of the eigenstates suggests that the bound states become unstable in the thermodynamic limit. A perturbative estimate of the decay rate agrees with the prediction of an eventual instability for large system sizes.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2023

Exotic quantum liquids in Bose-Hubbard models with spatially-modulated symmetries

We investigate the effect that spatially modulated continuous conserved quantities can have on quantum ground states. We do so by introducing a family of one-dimensional local quantum rotor and bosonic models which conserve finite Fourier momenta of the particle number, but not the particle number itself. These correspond to generalizations of the standard Bose-Hubbard model (BHM), and relate to the physics of Bose surfaces. First, we show that while having an infinite-dimensional local Hilbert space, such systems feature a non-trivial Hilbert space fragmentation for momenta incommensurate with the lattice. This is linked to the nature of the conserved quantities having a dense spectrum and provides the first such example. We then characterize the zero-temperature phase diagram for both commensurate and incommensurate momenta. In both cases, analytical and numerical calculations predict a phase transition between a gapped (Mott insulating) and quasi-long range order phase; the latter is characterized by a two-species Luttinger liquid in the infrared, but dressed by oscillatory contributions when computing microscopic expectation values. Following a rigorous Villain formulation of the corresponding rotor model, we derive a dual description, from where we estimate the robustness of this phase using renormalization group arguments, where the driving perturbation has ultra-local correlations in space but power law correlations in time. We support this conclusion using an equivalent representation of the system as a two-dimensional vortex gas with modulated Coulomb interactions within a fixed symmetry sector. We conjecture that a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless-type transition is driven by the unbinding of vortices along the temporal direction.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Weak integrability breaking perturbations of integrable models

A quantum integrable system slightly perturbed away from integrability is typically expected to thermalize on timescales of order $\tau\sim \lambda^{-2}$, where $\lambda$ is the perturbation strength. We here study classes of perturbations that violate this scaling, and exhibit much longer thermalization times $\tau\sim \lambda^{-2\ell}$ where $\ell>1$ is an integer. Systems with these "weak integrability breaking" perturbations have an extensive number of quasi-conserved quantities that commute with the perturbed Hamiltonian up to corrections of order $\lambda^\ell$. We demonstrate a systematic construction to obtain families of such weak perturbations of a generic integrable model for arbitrary $\ell$. We then apply the construction to various models, including the Heisenberg, XXZ, and XYZ chains, the Hubbard model, models of spinless free fermions, and the quantum Ising chain. Our analytical framework explains the previously observed evidence of weak integrability breaking in the Heisenberg and XXZ chains under certain perturbations.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2015

Numerical detection of symmetry enriched topological phases with space group symmetry

Topologically ordered phases of matter, in particular so-called symmetry enriched topological (SET) phases, can exhibit quantum number fractionalization in the presence of global symmetry. In Z_2 topologically ordered states in two dimensions, fundamental translations T_x and T_y acting on anyons can either commute or anticommute. This property, crystal momentum fractionalization, can be seen in a periodicity of the excited-state spectrum in the Brillouin zone. We present a numerical method to detect the presence of this form of symmetry enrichment given a projected entangled pair state (PEPS); we study the minima of spectrum of correlation lengths of the transfer matrix for a cylinder. As a benchmark, we demonstrate our method using a modified toric code model with perturbation. An enhanced periodicity in momentum clearly reveals the anticommutation relation {T_x,T_y}=0$ for the corresponding quasiparticles in the system.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Model Realization and Numerical Studies of a Three-Dimensional Bosonic Topological Insulator and Symmetry-Enriched Topological Phases

We study a topological phase of interacting bosons in (3+1) dimensions which is protected by charge conservation and time-reversal symmetry. We present an explicit lattice model which realizes this phase and which can be studied in sign-free Monte Carlo simulations. The idea behind our model is to bind bosons to topological defects called hedgehogs. We determine the phase diagram of the model and identify a phase where such bound states are proliferated. In this phase we observe a Witten effect in the bulk whereby an external monopole binds half of the elementary boson charge, which confirms that it is a bosonic topological insulator. We also study the boundary between the topological insulator and a trivial insulator. We find a surface phase diagram which includes exotic superfluids, a topologically ordered phase, and a phase with a Hall effect quantized to one-half of the value possible in a purely two-dimensional system. We also present models that realize symmetry-enriched topologically-ordered phases by binding multiple hedgehogs to each boson; these phases show charge fractionalization and intrinsic topological order as well as a fractional Witten effect.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2001

Particle-hole symmetric localization in two dimensions

We revisit two-dimensional particle-hole symmetric sublattice localization problem, focusing on the origin of the observed singularities in the density of states $ρ(E)$ at the band center E=0. The most general such system [R. Gade, Nucl. Phys. B {\bf 398}, 499 (1993)] exhibits critical behavior and has $ρ(E)$ that diverges stronger than any integrable power-law, while the special {\it random vector potential model} of Ludwiget al [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 50}, 7526 (1994)] has instead a power-law density of states with a continuously varying dynamical exponent. We show that the latter model undergoes a dynamical transition with increasing disorder--this transition is a counterpart of the static transition known to occur in this system; in the strong-disorder regime, we identify the low-energy states of this model with the local extrema of the defining two-dimensional Gaussian random surface. Furthermore, combining this ``surface fluctuation'' mechanism with a renormalization group treatment of a related vortex glass problem leads us to argue that the asymptotic low $E$ behavior of the density of states in the {\it general} case is $ρ(E) \sim E^{-1} e^{-|\ln E|^{2/3}}$, different from earlier prediction of Gade. We also study the localized phases of such particle-hole symmetric systems and identify a Griffiths ``string'' mechanism that generates singular power-law contributions to the low-energy density of states in this case.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2000

Griffiths effects and quantum critical points in dirty superconductors without spin-rotation invariance: One-dimensional examples

We introduce a strong-disorder renormalization group (RG) approach suitable for investigating the quasiparticle excitations of disordered superconductors in which the quasiparticle spin is not conserved. We analyze one-dimensional models with this RG and with elementary transfer matrix methods. We find that such models with broken spin rotation invariance {\it generically} lie in one of two topologically distinct localized phases. Close enough to the critical point separating the two phases, the system has a power-law divergent low-energy density of states (with a non-universal continuously varying power-law) in either phase, due to quantum Griffiths singularities. This critical point belongs to the same infinite-disorder universality class as the one dimensional particle-hole symmetric Anderson localization problem, while the Griffiths phases in the vicinity of the transition are controlled by lines of strong (but not infinite) disorder fixed points terminating in the critical point.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2000

Dynamics and transport in random quantum systems governed by strong-randomness fixed points

We present results on the low-frequency dynamical and transport properties of random quantum systems whose low temperature ($T$), low-energy behavior is controlled by strong disorder fixed points. We obtain the momentum and frequency dependent dynamic structure factor in the Random Singlet (RS) phases of both spin-1/2 and spin-1 random antiferromagnetic chains, as well as in the Random Dimer (RD) and Ising Antiferromagnetic (IAF) phases of spin-1/2 random antiferromagnetic chains. We show that the RS phases are unusual `spin metals' with divergent low-frequency spin conductivity at T=0, and we also follow the conductivity through novel `metal-insulator' transitions tuned by the strength of dimerization or Ising anisotropy in the spin-1/2 case, and by the strength of disorder in the spin-1 case. We work out the average spin and energy autocorrelations in the one-dimensional random transverse field Ising model in the vicinity of its quantum critical point. All of the above calculations are valid in the frequency dominated regime $ω\agt T$, and rely on previously available renormalization group schemes that describe these systems in terms of the properties of certain strong-disorder fixed point theories. In addition, we obtain some information about the behavior of the dynamic structure factor and dynamical conductivity in the opposite `hydrodynamic' regime $ω< T$ for the special case of spin-1/2 chains close to the planar limit (the quantum x-y model) by analyzing the corresponding quantities in an equivalent model of spinless fermions with weak repulsive interactions and particle-hole symmetric disorder.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv1999

Dynamics and Transport in Random Antiferromagnetic Spin Chains

We present the first results on the low-frequency dynamical and transport properties of random antiferromagnetic spin chains at low temperature ($T$). We obtain the momentum and frequency dependent dynamic structure factor in the Random Singlet (RS) phases of both spin-1/2 and spin-1 chains, as well as in the Random Dimer phase of spin-1/2 chains. We also show that the RS phases are unusual `spin-metals' with divergent low-frequency conductivity at T=0, and follow the spin conductivity through `metal-insulator' transitions tuned by the strength of dimerization or Ising anisotropy in the spin-1/2 case, and by the strength of disorder in the spin-1 case.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv1999

Infinite-randomness quantum Ising critical fixed points

We examine the ground state of the random quantum Ising model in a transverse field using a generalization of the Ma-Dasgupta-Hu renormalization group (RG) scheme. For spatial dimensionality d=2, we find that at strong randomness the RG flow for the quantum critical point is towards an infinite-randomness fixed point, as in one-dimension. This is consistent with the results of a recent quantum Monte Carlo study by Pich, et al., including estimates of the critical exponents from our RG that agree well with those from the quantum Monte Carlo. The same qualitative behavior appears to occur for three-dimensions; we have not yet been able to determine whether or not it persists to arbitrarily high d. Some consequences of the infinite-randomness fixed point for the quantum critical scaling behavior are discussed. Because frustration is irrelevant in the infinite-randomness limit, the same fixed point should govern both ferromagnetic and spin-glass quantum critical points. This RG maps the random quantum Ising model with strong disorder onto a novel type of percolation/aggregation process.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗