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Philipp Werner

Publications and source records attributed to Philipp Werner.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Berry Curvature Signatures in Chiroptical Excitonic Transitions

The topology of the electronic band structure of solids can be described by its Berry curvature distribution across the Brillouin zone. We theoretically introduce and experimentally demonstrate a general methodology based on the measurement of energy- and momentum-resolved optical transition rates, allowing to reveal signatures of Berry curvature texture in reciprocal space. By performing time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of atomically thin WSe$_2$ using polarization-modulated excitations, we demonstrate that excitons become an asset in extracting the quantum geometrical properties of solids. We also investigate the resilience of our measurement protocol against ultrafast scattering processes following direct chiroptical transitions.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

Correlated electronic structure of Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO4)$_6$O

Recently, above-room temperature superconductivity was reported in the Cu doped lead apatite Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO4)$_6$O, dubbed LK-99. By relaxing the structure with Cu substitution, we derive a four-band low-energy model with two 3/4 filled bands of predominantly Cu $d_{xz}$ and $d_{yz}$ character and two filled O $p_x$ and $p_y$ bands. This model is further downfolded to a two-band Cu-$d_{xz/yz}$ model. Using {\it ab-initio} derived interaction parameters, we perform dynamical mean field theory calculations to determine the correlated electronic structure in the normal state. These calculations yield a Mott insulator at $x=1$ and a strongly correlated non-Fermi liquid metal upon doping. The very large interaction versus bandwidth ratio $U/W\approx 30$-$50$ and the local moment paramagnetic behavior in the relevant filling regime are hard to reconcile with diamagnetism and high-temperature superconductivity. Hence, our calculations suggest that this behavior should come from a component with a different stoichiometry.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Suppression of Heating by Multi-color Driving Protocols in Floquet Engineered Strongly Correlated Systems

Heating effects in Floquet engineered system are detrimental to the control of physical properties. In this work, we show that the heating of periodically driven strongly correlated systems can be suppressed by multi-color driving, i.e., by applying auxiliary excitations which interfere with the absorption processes from the main drive. We focus on the Mott insulating single-band Hubbard model and study the effects of multi-color driving with nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory. The main excitation is a periodic electric field with frequency $Ω$ smaller than the Mott gap, while for the auxiliary excitations, we consider additional electric fields and/or hopping modulations with a higher harmonic of $Ω$. To suppress the 3-photon absorption of the main excitation, which is a parity-odd process, we consider auxiliary electric-field excitations and a combination of electric-field excitations and hopping modulations. On the other hand, to suppress the 2-photon absorption, which is a parity-even process, we consider hopping modulations. The conditions for an efficient suppression of heating are well captured by the Floquet effective Hamiltonian derived with the high-frequency expansion in a rotating frame. As an application, we focus on the exchange couplings of the spins (pseudo-spins) in the repulsive (attractive) model, and demonstrate that the suppression of heating allows to realize and clearly observe a significant Floquet-induced change of the low energy physics.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Fermion quartets on the square lattice

We study a microscopic model for four spinless fermions on the square lattice which exhibits a quartet bound state in the strong coupling regime. The four-particle quantum states are analyzed using symmetry arguments and by introducing a zoo of relevant lattice animals. These considerations, as well as variational and exact diagonalization calculations demonstrate the existence of a narrow quartet band at small hopping and a first order transition to delocalized fermions at a critical hopping parameter, in qualitative contrast to, e. g., the BCS-BEC crossover in the attractive Hubbard model. In the case of pure attraction, an intermediate phase is found, in which a more extended and presumably more mobile hybrid quartet dominates the ground state. We comment on the relevance of the spin degree of freedom and on the reasons why electron quartetting is rarely observed in real materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Stochastic semiclassical theory for non-equilibrium electron-phonon coupled systems

We discuss a semiclassical approach to solve the quantum impurity model within non-equilibrium dynamical mean-field theory for electron-lattice models. The effect of electronic fluctuations on the phonon is kept beyond Ehrenfest dynamics, leading to a stochastic phonon evolution with damping and noise terms that are self-consistently determined by the electronic correlation functions in the fluctuating phonon field. Together with a solution of the electronic model based on a non-perturbative quantum Boltzmann equation, the approach can be used to address the coupled dynamics of the electrons and the lattice during photo-induced phase transitions. Results for the Anderson-Holstein model are benchmarked against numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo data. We find good agreement for the phonon distribution function at temperatures comparable to the charge ordering temperature. The general formulation can be extended to models with electron-electron interactions or multi-orbital systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Instability of Pa$\overline 3$ Cs$_{3}$C$_{60}$ at ambient pressure and superconducting state of the FCC phase

The alkali-doped fulleride Cs$_{3}$C$_{60}$, crystallized in the space group Fm$\overline 3$m or Pm$\overline 3$n, exhibits unconventional $s$-wave superconductivity under pressure with a maximum $T_c\sim 38$ K. Recently, a new primitive-cubic-structured Cs$_{3}$C$_{60}$ phase corresponding to the space group Pa$\overline 3$ has been reported (arXiv:2208.09429) and the authors observed superconductivity at ambient pressure. Using density-functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show that the proposed Pa$\overline 3$ structure is not stable under ionic relaxation, but transforms into the FCC structure. We study the normal and superconducting state of the stable FCC phase at different temperatures and volumes using DFT plus dynamical mean-field theory (DFT+DMFT) in the Nambu formalism. As temperature increases, the transition between superconductor and normal metal (Mott insulator) at small (big) volume is found to be second (first) order. The recently developed maximum entropy analytic continuation method for the anomalous-self-energy is used to study the momentum-resolved spectra and optical conductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Dynamical mean-field approach to disordered interacting systems and applications to quantum transport problem

We discuss a non-equilibrium dynamical mean-field framework for simulating inhomogeneous Hubbard models with local disorders. Our approach treats electron interactions and disorders on equal footing, by considering only local dynamical fluctuations. The theory reduces to non-equilibrium dynamical mean-field theory in the presence of only electron-electron interactions and to the coherent potential approximation in noninteracting systems with disorders. Both time-dependent and steady-state problems are treated by implementing the theory on the three branch Kadanoff-Baym contour and two-branch Keldysh contour, respectively. Benchmarks on an $8$-site cube show that the method yields rather accurate spectral functions in both the weakly and strongly interacting regimes. In a cubic lattice, we demonstrate energy conservation after an interaction quench and thermalization after just a few hopping times in both clean and disordered systems. As an application, we study transport through a serial double quantum-dot sandwiched between two leads, focusing on the current and dot occupations after a voltage quench.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Light-induced insulator-metal transition in Sr$_2$IrO$_4$ reveals the nature of the insulating ground state

Sr$_2$IrO$_4$ has attracted a lot of attention due to its structural and electronic similarities to La$_2$CuO$_4$ which is the parent compound of high-T$_c$ superconducting cuprates. It was proposed to be a strong spin-orbit coupled J$_{eff}$ = 1/2 Mott insulator, but the Mott nature of its insulating ground state and the origin of the gap have not been conclusively established. Here, we use ultrafast laser pulses to realize an insulator-metal transition in Sr$_2$IrO$_4$ and probe the resulting dynamics using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We observe a closing of the gap and the formation of weakly-renormalized electronic bands in the gap region. Comparing these observations to the expected temperature and doping evolution of Mott gaps and Hubbard bands provides clear evidence that the insulating state does not originate from Mott correlations. We instead propose a correlated band insulator picture, where antiferromagnetic correlations play a key role in the opening of the gap. More broadly, our results demonstrate that energy-momentum resolved nonequilibrium dynamics can be used to clarify the nature of equilibrium states in correlated materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Twisted chiral superconductivity in photodoped frustrated Mott insulators

Recent advances in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy provide access to hidden phases of correlated matter, including light-induced superconducting states, but the theoretical understanding of these nonequilibrium phases remains limited. Here we report how a new type of chiral superconducting phase can be stabilized in photodoped frustrated Mott insulators. The metastable phase features a spatially varying order parameter with a $120^\circ$ phase twist which breaks both time-reversal and inversion symmetry. Under an external electric pulse, the $120^\circ$ chiral superconducting state can exhibit a second-order supercurrent perpendicular to the field in addition to a first-order parallel response, similar to a nonlinear anomalous Hall effect. This phase can be tuned by artificial gauge fields when the system is dressed by high-frequency periodic driving. The mechanism revealed in this study applies to Mott insulators on various frustrated lattices and the hidden superconducting phase can be realized in both cold-atom quantum simulators and correlated solids.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Non-thermal superconductivity in photo-doped multi-orbital Hubbard systems

Superconductivity in laser-excited correlated electron systems has attracted considerable interest due to reports of light-induced superconducting-like states. Here we explore the possibility of non-thermal superconducting order in strongly interacting multi-orbital Hubbard systems, using non-equilibrium dynamical mean field theory. We find that a staggered $η$-type superconducting phase can be realized on a bipartite lattice in the high photo-doping regime, if the effective temperature of the photo-carriers is sufficiently low. The $η$ superconducting state is stabilized by Hund coupling - a positive Hund coupling favors orbital-singlet spin-triplet $η$ pairing, whereas a negative Hund coupling stabilizes spin-singlet orbital-triplet $η$ pairing.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Multiscale space-time ansatz for correlation functions of quantum systems based on quantics tensor trains

Correlation functions of quantum systems -- central objects in quantum field theories -- are defined in high-dimensional space-time domains. Their numerical treatment thus suffers from the curse of dimensionality, which hinders the application of sophisticated many-body theories to interesting problems. Here, we propose a multi-scale space-time ansatz for correlation functions of quantum systems based on quantics tensor trains (QTT), ``qubits'' describing exponentially different length scales. The ansatz then assumes a separation of length scales by decomposing the resulting high-dimensional tensors into tensor trains (known also as matrix product states). We numerically verify the ansatz for various equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems and demonstrate compression rates of several orders of magnitude for challenging cases. Essential building blocks of diagrammatic equations, such as convolutions or Fourier transforms are formulated in the compressed form. We numerically demonstrate the stability and efficiency of the proposed methods for the Dyson and Bethe-Salpeter equations. {The QTT representation} provides a unified framework for implementing efficient computations of quantum field theories.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Maximum entropy analytic continuation of anomalous self-energies

The anomalous self-energy plays an important role in the analysis of superconducting states. Its spectral weight provides information on the pairing glue of superconductors, but it can change in sign. In many numerical approaches, for example Monte Carlo methods based on the Nambu formalism, the anomalous self-energy is obtained on the Matsubara axis, and nonpositive spectral weight cannot be directly obtained using the standard maximum entropy analytic continuation method. Here, we introduce an auxiliary self-energy corresponding to a linear combination of the normal and anomalous self-energies. We analytically and numerically prove that this auxiliary function has non-negative spectral weight independent of the pairing symmetry, which allows to compute the sign-changing spectrum of the original self-energy using the maximum entropy approach. As an application, we calculate the momentum-resolved spectral function of K$_3$C$_{60}$ in the superconducting state.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Spin, charge and $η$-spin separation in one-dimensional photo-doped Mott insulators

We show that effectively cold metastable states in one-dimensional photo-doped Mott insulators described by the extended Hubbard model exhibit spin, charge and $η$-spin separation. Namely, their wave functions in the large on-site Coulomb interaction limit can be expressed as $|Ψ\rangle =|Ψ_{\rm charge}\rangle|Ψ_{\rm spin}\rangle |Ψ_{\rm η-spin}\rangle$, which is analogous to the Ogata-Shiba states of the doped Hubbard model in equilibrium. Here $η$-spin represents the type of the photo-generated pseudeparticles (doublon or holon). $|Ψ_{\rm charge}\rangle$ is determined by spinless free fermions, $|Ψ_{\rm spin}\rangle$ by the isotropic Heisenberg model in the squeezed spin space, and $|Ψ_{\rm η-spin}\rangle$ by the XXZ model in the squeezed $η$-spin space. In particular, the metastable $η$-pairing and charge-density-wave (CDW) states correspond to the gapless and gapful states of the XXZ model. The specific form of the wave function allows us to accurately determine the exponents of correlation functions. The form also suggests that the central charge of the $η$-pairing state is 3 and that of the CDW phase is 2, which we numerically confirm. Our study provides analytic and intuitive insights into the correlations between active degrees of freedom in photo-doped strongly correlated systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Dynamical Mean Field Theory extension to the nonequilibrium Two-Particle Self-Consistent approach

Nonlocal correlations play an essential role in correlated electron systems, especially in the vicinity of phase transitions and crossovers, where two-particle correlation functions display a distinct momentum dependence. In nonequilibrium settings, the effect of nonlocal correlations on dynamical phase transitions, prethermalization phenomena and trapping in metastable states is not well understood. In this paper, we introduce a dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) extension to the nonequilibrium Two-particle Self-Consistent (TPSC) approach, which allows to perform nonequilibrium simulations capturing short- and long-ranged nonlocal correlations in the weak-, intermediate- and strong-correlation regime. The method self-consistently computes local spin and charge vertices, from which a momentum-dependent self-energy is constructed. Replacing the local part of the self-energy by the DMFT result within this self-consistent scheme provides an improved description of local correlation effects. We explain the details of the formalism and the implementation, and demonstrate the versatility of DMFT+TPSC with lattice hopping quenches and dimensional crossovers in the Hubbard model.

cond-mat.str-el↗

QUICK$^3$ -- Design of a satellite-based quantum light source for quantum communication and extended physical theory tests in space

Modern quantum technologies have matured such that they can now be used in space applications, e.g., long-distance quantum communication. Here, we present the design of a compact true single photon source that can enhance the secure data rates in satellite-based quantum key distribution scenarios compared to conventional laser-based light sources. Our quantum light source is a fluorescent color center in hexagonal boron nitride. The emitter is off-resonantly excited by a diode laser and directly coupled to an integrated photonic processor that routes the photons to different experiments performed directly on-chip: (i) the characterization of the single photon source and (ii) testing a fundamental postulate of quantum mechanics, namely the relation of the probability density and the wave function (known as Born's rule). The described payload is currently being integrated into a 3U CubeSat and scheduled for launch in 2024 into low Earth orbit. We can therefore evaluate the feasibility of true single photon sources and reconfigurable photonic circuits in space. This provides a promising route toward a high-speed quantum network.

quant-ph↗

Quantum optics measurement scheme for quantum geometry and topological invariants

We show how a quantum optical measurement scheme based on heterodyne detection can be used to explore geometrical and topological properties of condensed matter systems. Considering a 2D material placed in a cavity with a coupling to the environment, we compute correlation functions of the photons exiting the cavity and relate them to the hybrid light-matter state within the cavity. Different polarizations of the intracavity field give access to all components of the quantum geometric tensor on contours in the Brillouin zone defined by the transition energy. Combining recent results based on the metric-curvature correspondence with the measured quantum metric allows us to characterize the topological phase of the material. Moreover, in systems where $S_z$ is a good quantum number, the procedure also allows us to extract the spin Chern number. As an interesting application, we consider a minimal model for twisted bilayer graphene at the magic angle, and discuss the feasibility of extracting the Euler number.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Photo-induced charge dynamics in 1$T$-TaS$_2$

Recent theoretical studies showed that the electronic structure of 1$T$-TaS$_2$ in the low-temperature commensurate charge density wave phase exhibits a nontrivial interplay between band-insulating and Mott insulating behavior. This has important implications for the interpretation of photo-doping experiments. Here we use nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory simulations of a realistic multi-layer structure to clarify the charge carrier dynamics induced by a laser pulse. The solution is propagated up to the picosecond timescale by employing a memory-truncation scheme. While long-lived doublons and holons only exist in the surface state of a specific structure, the disturbance of bonding states in the bilayers which make up the bulk of the system explain the almost instantaneous appearance of in-gap states. Our simulations consistently explain the coexistence of a doublon feature with a prominent ``background" signal in previous time-resolved photoemission experiments, and they suggest strategies for the selective population of the ingap and doublon states by exploiting the sensitivity to the pump polarization and pump frequency.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Dynamical mean-field study of a photon-mediated ferroelectric phase transition

The interplay of light and matter gives rise to intriguing cooperative effects in quantum many-body systems. This is even true in thermal equilibrium, where the electromagnetic field can hybridize with collective modes of matter, and virtual photons can induce interactions in the solid. Here, we show how these light-mediated interactions can be treated using the dynamical mean-field theory formalism. We consider a minimal model of a two-dimensional material that couples to a surface plasmon polariton mode of a metal-dielectric interface. Within the mean-field approximation, the system exhibits a ferroelectric phase transition that is unaffected by the light-matter coupling. Bosonic dynamical mean-field theory provides a more accurate description and reveals that the photon-mediated interactions enhance the ferroelectric order and stabilize the ferroelectric phase.

cond-mat.str-el↗