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Samuel L. Braunstein

Publications and source records attributed to Samuel L. Braunstein.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Horizon entropy does not by itself determine a force between black holes

The Bekenstein-Hawking law fixes the total entropy of a horizon. Membrane, holographic, and entropic-force pictures go further and follow the entropy of individual horizon elements as a configuration changes. We show that this step needs structure that the horizon geometry does not supply. Along a family of horizons labeled by $λ$, a relabeling of horizon points by a tangential field $v^A$ shifts the temperature-weighted entropy variation $\int T\partial_λ(dS)$ exactly by $-\int v^AD_AT dS$, so the horizon data determine it only when the temperature is uniform. We test this on two black holes in exact Brill-Lindquist data. At fixed physical masses each horizon area is independent of the separation through five relative orders; the low-order equilibrium force reported earlier comes from holding the bare parameters fixed instead. Weighting the redistribution of area by the nonuniform Noether-charge temperature gives a candidate repulsion equal to $(ν/8)(GM/r_{12})^3$ times the Newtonian attraction, for total mass $M$, symmetric mass ratio $ν$, and coordinate separation $r_{12}$. As a static interaction it would shift the third post-Newtonian coefficient of the circular-orbit binding energy by $5ν/48$, in conflict with general relativity. The identity resolves the conflict. Through fourth post-Newtonian order the candidate lies entirely in the dipole of the area distribution, which the uniform part of the companion's field generates as a Möbius map of the labels, and which vanishes in the area-balanced conformal frame, where the functional begins at fifth order with a coefficient that a further relabeling can still change. The marginally trapped tube of the data and the tidally deformed horizon of a post-Newtonian binary, both of which do supply an identification, transport no dipole at the order the candidate requires.

gr-qc↗

Vortexable Chern Bands Sit Exactly on the Topological Floor of Flat-Band Superfluid Stiffness

Vortexable Chern bands host ideal fractional Chern insulators. Paired with time-reversed partners by orbital-diagonal on-site attraction, they are the least stiff flat-band superconductors at fixed Chern number $C$, filling, and pairing amplitude. For uniform pairing and a nondegenerate paired state, the exact $T=0$ stiffness determinant is the topological floor times $1+(\Torb/2π|C|)^2\le1+(\TLVP/2π|C|)^2$, where $\Torb$ and $\TLVP$ measure departures from vortexability. Enhancement costs vortexability, and the inequality is strict only if internal components share a site, as in heterostrained bilayers.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Minimal-length kinematics of coherent light and a proposed two-color vacuum chronoscopy

The unification of quantum theory and general relativity suggests the existence of a minimal measurable length, leading to a generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) and an energy-dependent vacuum group velocity. Testing these effects with macroscopic objects typically encounters the ``soccer-ball problem,'' where applying Planck-scale deformations to the total momentum predicts observationally ruled-out velocity deviations. We adopt the QFT-natural prescription in which the GUP modifies single-mode commutators, and verify by explicit calculation that the macroscopic group velocity of a multimode coherent pulse reduces to the single-photon GUP velocity evaluated at the central wavelength, multiplied by the classical Gaussian-beam factor, with no dependence on the total pulse energy. The energy--momentum relation $E=pc$ itself is unmodified; the deformation enters through the velocity--momentum relation and is equivalent to a modified dispersion relation in the wave vector, with a quadratic coefficient that depends on which of the two variables is used. The soccer-ball problem $\,$---$\,$ which arises only when the GUP is applied to the center-of-mass momentum of a composite system $\,$---$\,$ is therefore absent for coherent light, and macroscopic petawatt pulses probe the same parameter space as single high-energy photons. Building on this framework, we propose a two-color vacuum chronoscopy experiment using a short-pulse petawatt laser and its high-harmonic generation. By systematically varying the macroscopic beam waist, our setup separates Planck-scale kinematic shifts from classical diffraction delays, establishing a controlled, source-independent terrestrial methodology whose sensitivity we assess against current astrophysical bounds and against the dominant waist-independent systematics that limit it, residual-gas dispersion and the harmonic birth-time offset.

gr-qc↗

Extracting Chern numbers from the equilibrium transport noise of multiband bosons

We show that the equilibrium transport noise of a multiband bosonic system carries a measurable imprint of its Chern numbers, and we give the protocol that extracts them. For electrons the topological part of the Berry curvature is absent from the transport noise: over a filled band it yields the quantized anomalous Hall conductivity, yet at a Fermi surface the Chern number is invisible to the fluctuations of the Hall current. That cancellation is an accident of the Fermi surface: magnons and phonons populate every band thermally, each with its own Chern number, so the harmonic sector of the Hodge decomposition is not a single constant, and a variance does not annihilate it. What survives is the occupation-weighted dispersion of Chern numbers. That current noise sees band geometry is known, and at zero temperature the antisymmetric part of the noise sum rule already returns a Chern number; the new element is an object with no zero-temperature analogue, existing only when several bands are populated and weighted differently. We derive it from a fluctuating Boltzmann equation and resolve the energy-magnetization subtraction at the level of fluctuations: the subtracted term is a curl, contributing exactly zero to the current a transport measurement records, and no magnetization auto-correlation enters the antisymmetric cross-spectrum at any wavevector. Measurement uses an equilibrium sum rule on that cross-spectrum, with no drive and hence no suppression: its frequency-integrated form cannot in practice separate topological from geometric content, for a rank reason, whereas the frequency-resolved form does, at accessible resolution. The protocol is specified for Cu(1,3-bdc), with calibration and robustness characterized. A driven alternative lies twelve orders below the equilibrium floor. Two independent implementations agree on every convention-free quantity.

cond-mat.str-el↗

The modular energy range of an interval in chiral conformal field theory

We determine exactly the range of the modular Hamiltonian of an interval in a chiral conformal field theory over states of bounded energy. For an interval of length $R$ in a theory of central charge $c$, and states of mean energy at most $E$, the supremum of the modular energy is $M_{\max} = \frac{πR}{2}E + \frac{c}{6} - \frac{πc^{2}}{288\,RE} + O((RE)^{-2})$, and neither constant can be improved. The infimum is logarithmic, $M_{\min} \simeq -\frac{c}{12}[\ln(24πRE/c)-1]$, so the range is linear above and logarithmic below, the two meeting as $RE \to 0$; it is strictly wider above, by more than $\frac{2}{5}πRE$ at every energy, which reduces after a Stieltjes substitution to the positivity of a variance. Both bounds are attained, the one-parameter family of weights proving them being the Legendre structure of the answer. The two ingredients separate cleanly. The coefficient $πR/2$ is Möbius representation theory alone: the complementary weight is a translate of the special conformal generator, hence positive, so for the full modular Hamiltonian the bound needs no additive constant. The constant $c/6$ is precisely the price of truncating that weight at the endpoints, supplied by the quantum energy inequality of Fewster and Hollands; the saturating state places its negative energy exactly there. The constant is accordingly additive over entangling points, being $nc/6$ for $n$ disjoint intervals of equal length. Composing with positivity of relative entropy gives a sharp Bekenstein bound, $ΔS_I \leq \frac{πR}{2}E + \frac{c}{6}$, recovering the original form of that inequality from the modular form that by itself imposes no constraint.

math-ph↗

The Hodge structure of Berry-phase transport: topology, geometry, and noise

We show that the Hodge-de Rham decomposition of the Berry curvature organises the transport of a Bloch band and its fluctuations within a single geometric structure. Splitting the curvature into $L^2$-orthogonal harmonic, exact, and co-exact sectors yields a dictionary for both moments of the current. In the mean response the harmonic sector carries the topological anomalous-Hall conductivity, the exact sector the Fermi-surface geometry and the antisymmetric Berry-curvature dipole of polar metals, and, in three dimensions, the co-exact sector the chiral anomaly, quantised by the Weyl-node charges. In the fluctuations, described by a particle-conserving stochastic Boltzmann equation constrained by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT), the harmonic sector is silent, so topological transport is noiseless, while the field-driven noise is sourced by the geometric sectors (solely the exact sector in two dimensions); current-noise spectroscopy therefore separates global band topology from local band geometry. We prove that the harmonic null-space protection is dimension-independent, and we settle the remaining sector: the co-exact (monopole) sector carries no conservation law and, under the thermal sampling measure, mixes with the exact sector at $\mathcal{O}(1)$, so it furnishes no clean noise observable. The separation the noise provides is therefore two-way, topology versus geometry, in both two and three dimensions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

A sharp bound on spacetime distance from quantum entanglement

Ryu-Takayanagi established how boundary entanglement encodes bulk area. We provide the metric counterpart: boundary mutual information imposes a rigorous lower bound on bulk geodesic separation that diverges logarithmically as correlations vanish. A multiscale iteration promotes this local inequality to a global obstruction to bulk connectivity. For parallel strips in AdS$_5$/CFT$_4$, the bound necessitates a quantum resolution of the classical mutual-information transition and fixes the asymptotic growth of geodesic distance.

hep-th↗

Boundary conditions select the viscous operator on Riemannian hypersurfaces: formal analysis and rigorous thin-shell limits

A viscous fluid confined to a thin layer around a curved surface is governed, as the layer thickness vanishes, by an effective viscous operator on the surface. We show that the wall conditions select this operator. The vorticity-free (free) and stress-free (Navier) conditions, which coincide on flat walls but differ on curved ones by the shape operator, yield respectively the Hodge Laplacian and the deformation Laplacian, and these differ universally, on any hypersurface, by twice the Ricci curvature; a one-parameter family of wall conditions joins them, with an effective operator that couples to the extrinsic geometry only in between. We prove this in two forms: formally, by matched asymptotics, on an arbitrary hypersurface, and rigorously, as Mosco convergence of the viscous energy forms, hence with resolvent, semigroup and spectral convergence, on surfaces of revolution. The stress-free limit on general surfaces is due to Miura and is recovered here; the rigorous vorticity-free limit beyond the sphere, via a uniform Gaffney inequality, together with the interpolating family and the spectral packaging, is new, and the analysis makes precise a conflation of the two conditions in the classical spherical treatment. The extension-dependence of the operator found on the ellipsoid is explained as a dependence on the wall condition.

math-ph↗

Lubkin-Page typicality bounds for Type~II von~Neumann factors

Typicality arguments for emergent spacetime rely on the Lubkin-Page bounds, which show that generic quantum states have vanishing correlations between subsystems. These bounds assume a tensor-product Hilbert space (a Type~I von~Neumann algebra), but the observable algebras in quantum field theory and quantum gravity are generically Type~II or Type~III, raising the question of whether the bounds survive. We prove that they do for all Type~II von~Neumann factors. For the hyperfinite Type~II$_1$ factor with a tripartite decomposition $R \cong A \otimes B \otimes E$, the mutual information between subsystems $A$ and $B$ vanishes as $O((d_A d_B / d_E)^2)$ in finite-dimensional approximations, provided $d_A d_B \leq d_E$ (Theorem~1). For Type~II$_\infty$ factors, including the gravitational algebras constructed via the crossed-product method by Witten and by Chandrasekaran, Longo, Penington, and Witten, the bound acquires an additional exponential suppression controlled by the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy (Theorem~2). We identify the obstructions to extending the result to Type~III factors and discuss the open question of whether the commutant of the observable algebra can serve as a natural thermal bath that tightens the bound further.

hep-th↗

Hodge Topology of Semiclassical Transport: A Coordinate-Free Geometric Framework for the Anomalous Hall Effect and Non-Linear Berry Dipole

We establish a coordinate-free differential geometric framework for anomalous transport in topological bands using the Hodge-de Rham decomposition of the Brillouin zone. Standard formulations face mathematical singularities (Dirac strings) when using the quantum Berry connection in bands with non-zero Chern numbers. Applying this decomposition to the Berry curvature 2-form isolates the quantized topological monopole flux from a globally smooth geometric 1-form proxy potential, $\mathcal{A}$. Substituting this regularized potential into semiclassical transport integrals yields distinct analytical advantages. For linear transverse transport, our cohomological decomposition enables an exact geometric derivation of Haldane's insight via the co-area formula, partitioning the response into a continuous Fermi sea topological background and a localized Fermi surface geometric line integral. For non-linear transport, this globally smooth proxy unifies the geometric description, reproducing the high numerical stability of scalar integration-by-parts techniques directly from its exact sector, accommodating arbitrary Chern numbers. By enforcing the continuous Coulomb-Hodge gauge ($δ\mathcal{A} = 0$) alongside vanishing harmonic holonomies over fundamental 1-cycles ($\oint_{γ_i} \mathcal{A} = 0$), we map the Hodge potential $\mathcal{A}$ to the Maximally Localized Wannier Function (MLWF) gauge in trivial bands, providing a non-singular computational proxy for topologically obstructed bands. Finally, we analytically demonstrate that solving the Hodge Laplacian for $\mathcal{A}$ zeroes the macroscopic Brillouin zone average (uniform $\mathbf{R}=0$ zero-mode) topological divergence, yielding a mathematically consistent covariant formulation that matches the algorithmic robustness of standard methods against discrete $\mathbf{k}$-grid noise.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Quantum typicality survives non-Abelian gauge constraints: exact analytical prediction confirmed in $SU(2)$ lattice gauge theory

Arguments for emergent spacetime require that quantum typicality, the generic absence of inter-subsystem correlations, persists on the physical Hilbert space of a gauge theory, where non-Abelian constraints could in principle inject geometry-supporting entanglement. Using $SU(2)$ lattice gauge theory on two-dimensional tori ($d_{\mathrm{phys}}$ up to $4{,}193$), we show that it does: the typical mutual information between strictly disjoint links matches an exact parameter-free analytical prediction combining a microcanonical baseline with Haar-random fluctuations. The Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian generates correlations from states of definite geometry (such as the electric vacuum), while generic states show only regression to the mean, establishing that the arrow of correlation growth requires a non-generic initial condition.

quant-ph↗

Global exponential stability for the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations on hyperbolic space

We prove that the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with the deformation Laplacian on hyperbolic 3-space $\HH^3$ admit a unique global mild solution for sufficiently small initial data in $L^3(\HH^3)$, and that this solution decays exponentially to zero. The exponential decay rate is $μλ_\Def^{(3)}$, where $μ$ is the kinematic viscosity and $λ_\Def^{(3)} = 26/9$ is the effective spectral gap of the deformation Laplacian in $L^3$. On flat $\R^3$, the corresponding Kato-type result gives only algebraic decay. The exponential stability is a macroscopic consequence of the spectral gap provided by negative curvature. We also show that the $L^2$ norm is supercritical on $\HH^3$ (as on $\R^3$), with the obstruction arising from the local ultraviolet scaling of the heat kernel, which is insensitive to global geometry. The boundary between what curvature can and cannot improve is located exactly: the Fujita-Kato integral has a scaling exponent $1/2 - 3/(2p)$ that depends only on the integrability of the initial data, not on the geometry of the manifold. For $p \geq 3$ (the Kato critical space), the integral is bounded and the spectral gap contributes exponential time decay. For $p < 3$, the integral diverges at $t = 0$ (and strictly diverges for all $t>0$ when $p \le 3/2$) regardless of the curvature.

math-ph↗

Resolving the viscosity operator ambiguity on Riemannian manifolds via a kinematic selection principle

On a general Riemannian manifold the Navier-Stokes equations admit several inequivalent formulations, differing in the choice of viscous operator: the Hodge Laplacian, the Bochner Laplacian, or the deformation Laplacian. We show that a Lagrangian kinematic construction, in which the strain rate is built from the rate of change of inner products of Lie-dragged connecting vectors, uniquely selects the deformation Laplacian for fluids whose configuration space is intrinsically the manifold. The Hodge Laplacian is excluded at the kinematic step (before introducing constitutive assumptions) because the strain rate constructed from inner-product geometry is symmetric and has no antisymmetric part. We further show that when the fluid arises as a thin-shell limit of an ambient three-dimensional flow, the operator that emerges depends on the boundary condition imposed in the normal direction: stress-free (Navier slip) conditions recover the deformation Laplacian, while Hodge boundary conditions recover the Hodge Laplacian, via an explicit decomposition of the ambient Bochner Laplacian into intrinsic and extrinsic pieces. The intrinsic piece is the deformation Laplacian regardless of the boundary condition. As an analytical confirmation, we show that the kinematic selection is consistent with the known failure of the energy inequality for the Hodge Laplacian on the hyperbolic plane $\HH^2$: the deformation Laplacian is coercive on $\HH^2$ while the Hodge Laplacian is not, because the Ricci term has the opposite sign in the two operators. We further prove that on any complete two-dimensional manifold with Gaussian curvature bounded above by a negative constant, the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation with the deformation Laplacian admits a unique global weak solution with exponential energy decay, resolving the analytical obstruction preventing the corresponding result for the Hodge Laplacian.

math-ph↗

Exponential stability for the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations on negatively curved manifolds

We extend the exponential stability theorem for the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations from hyperbolic 3-space $\HH^3$ (established in a companion paper) to complete simply connected Riemannian 3-manifolds $(M^3, g)$ with pinched negative sectional curvature $-b^2 \leq K \leq -a^2 < 0$ and bounded geometry (including a strictly positive injectivity radius). The deformation Laplacian $Δ_\Def = Δ_B + \Ric$ remains the viscous operator, selected by Lagrangian kinematics. We prove that the {exact} system admits a unique global mild solution for small $L^3$ data, with exponential decay at a rate determined by the spectral gap of the Stokes operator. The extension overcomes three obstacles absent on $\HH^3$: (i) the semigroup factorisation $e^{tΔ_\Def} = e^{-2t}e^{tΔ_B}$ fails because $\Ric$ is not a scalar multiple of the metric; (ii) the Leray projector no longer commutes with $Δ_\Def$; (iii) the exact spectral gap is unknown. We resolve (i) unconditionally, without any curvature restriction, by observing that the Ricci perturbation $V = \Ric + 2a^2 g$ is negative semi-definite and applying a Trotter product bound with the diamagnetic inequality. We resolve (ii) by an algebraic reduction of the commutator $[\PP, Δ_\Def]$ to the complementary projector $(I-\PP)$ applied to the shifted Ricci endomorphism, giving a clean zeroth-order bound proportional to the curvature variation $b^2 - a^2$. This is the sole source of a curvature pinching constraint. We resolve (iii) via McKean's theorem, the diamagnetic inequality, and the Weitzenböck identity. The Fujita-Kato temporal singularity exponent $1/2 - 3/(2p)$ is unchanged from the $\HH^3$ case, confirming that the ultraviolet scaling obstruction is local and geometry-independent, driven fundamentally by an unresolvable temporal scaling mismatch.

math.AP↗

Non-Perturbative Closed Form for the Typical Bipartite Mutual Information of Haar-Random States

The average bipartite quantum mutual information $\langle I(A{:}B)\rangle$ of Haar-random pure states can be expressed exactly through Page's formula in terms of digamma functions. We show that this quantity admits a single non-perturbative closed form: $\langle I(A{:}B)\rangle = (d_A^2-1)(d_B^2-1)\,\mathcal{G}(d_A,d_B,d_E)$, where $\mathcal{G}$ is given by an explicit convergent integral over a Bose--Einstein kernel. The overall factor $(d_A^2-1)(d_B^2-1)=\dim[\mathfrak{su}(d_A)]\cdot\dim[\mathfrak{su}(d_B)]$ is exact, not merely asymptotic. The asymptotic expansion of $\mathcal{G}$ in $1/N$ yields a Bernoulli-factorised series whose coefficients involve $ζ(1{-}2k)$; this series diverges, and our integral is its exact Borel sum. The integral representation also makes $\langle I\rangle < (d_A^2{-}1)(d_B^2{-}1)/(2N)$ manifest via a scale-inversion symmetry of the kernel. Our derivation traces the mutual information's structure to an exact decomposition of Page's entropy into a diagonal (Dirichlet) contribution and a Schur-majorisation eigenvalue correction, whose assembly into the mutual information cleanly separates classical from quantum correlations.

quant-ph↗

Exact Geometric Typicality and Bipartite Entanglement from the Projected Central Limit Theorem on Hyperspheres

Starting from the exact Projected Central Limit Theorem on hyperspheres, we rederive the Beta distribution for subsystem occupation probabilities and Lubkin's purity formula from elementary hyperspherical moments, quantifying the finite-size ``platykurtic'' suppression of tails relative to the Gaussian approximation used in standard eigenstate-thermalization and typicality treatments. Our main new result concerns the bipartite quantum mutual information $\langle I(A{:}B)\rangle$ for Haar-random pure states. We show that its full asymptotic expansion in $1/N$ admits a Bernoulli-factorized form in which every order $k \ge 1$ carries the symmetric factor $(d_A^{2k}-1)(d_B^{2k}-1)$ and all higher odd-order corrections vanish identically. Through an exact algebraic reorganization of Page's formula (conjectured in Ref.~\cite{Page1993} and subsequently proven~\cite{Foong1994, SanchezRuiz1995, Sen1996}), we establish that the leading finite-size correction separates into a dominant $\mathfrak{su}(d_A) \otimes \mathfrak{su}(d_B)$ bipartite quantum coherence contribution $(d_A^2 - 1)(d_B^2 - 1)/(2N)$ and a subtracted classical-probability (Cartan $\otimes$ Cartan) contribution $(d_A - 1)(d_B - 1)/(2N)$, and we trace this separation to the difference between diagonal and eigenvalue entropies via Schur's majorisation theorem, with the dimensional counts $(d-1)$ and $(d^2-1)$ acquiring meaning through the Cartan structure of the generalised Bloch decomposition. These results admit a single non-perturbative closed form: the exact typical mutual information factors as $\langle I(A{:}B)\rangle = (d_A^2-1)(d_B^2-1)\,\mathcal{G}(d_A,d_B,d_E)$, with $\mathcal{G}$ given by an explicit Bose--Einstein integral whose asymptotic expansion in $1/N$ reproduces the Bernoulli series.

quant-ph↗

Logarithmic Sobolev inequality and hypercontractivity for the Navier-Stokes Fokker-Planck operator

The stochastic incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on $\TT^3$, completed by the fluctuation-dissipation noise, have a Fokker-Planck generator that decomposes into a self-adjoint Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (dissipative) part and an antisymmetric (convective) part. We prove two results about this generator. First, the logarithmic Sobolev inequality holds with the same optimal constant as the pure Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator, $c_\mathrm{LSI} = νλ_1$ (where $ν$ is the viscosity and $λ_1$ is the smallest nonzero eigenvalue of the Laplacian on $\TT^3$), independent of the number of retained Fourier modes. Second, the full semigroup is hypercontractive with the same rate as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck semigroup. Both results follow from a single structural property: the convective generator is antisymmetric in $L^2(P_\mathrm{eq})$ (where $P_\mathrm{eq}$ is the Gibbs measure), and therefore contributes nothing to the Dirichlet form or the $L^q$ norm evolution. The antisymmetry is a consequence of two properties of the incompressible Navier-Stokes nonlinearity: energy conservation and phase-space volume preservation (the Liouville property). These are the same properties that underpin the fluctuation-dissipation theorem for the nonlinear Navier-Stokes equations.

math-ph↗

Physical completion of the Navier-Stokes equations

The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations contain viscous dissipation but no thermal noise. I show, using a topological argument based on Poincaré's lemma, that the fluctuation-dissipation relation for the full nonlinear dynamics can be derived without the linearisation or structural assumptions that all previous derivations require. The nonlinear convective term is Hamiltonian (energy-preserving and phase-space-volume-preserving) and drops out of the Fokker-Planck equilibrium condition exactly, so the noise derived from linearised fluctuations near equilibrium is in fact exact for the full nonlinear system. This result proves, rather than assumes, the reversible/irreversible decomposition that the GENERIC framework postulates, provided Poincaré's lemma holds on the phase space. The resulting stochastic system, with a physical molecular-scale spectral cutoff, is trivially globally well-posed: a finite-dimensional stochastic differential equation with non-degenerate noise and a confining Lyapunov function. It has a unique Gibbs equilibrium and converges to it exponentially. The difficulty of the Clay Millennium Prize Problem arises entirely from two idealisations, zero temperature and infinite spectral resolution, neither of which is satisfied by any physical fluid.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗