arXiv subjects

Sarang Gopalakrishnan

Publications and source records attributed to Sarang Gopalakrishnan.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Weak crystallization theory of metallic alloys

We extend the Weak Crystallization theory to the case of metallic alloys. The additional ingredient -- itinerant electrons -- generates nontrivial dependence of free energy on the angles between ordering wave vectors of ionic density. That leads to stabilization of FCC, Rhombohedral, and icosahedral quasicrystalline (iQC) phases, which are absent in the generic theory with only local interactions. The condition for stability of iQC that we find, is consistent with the Hume-Rothery rules known empirically for majority of stable iQC; namely, the length of the primary Bragg peak wavevector is approximately equal to the diameter of the Fermi surface.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Low-frequency conductivity in many-body localized systems

We argue that the a.c. conductivity $σ(ω)$ in the many-body localized phase is a power law of frequency $ω$ at low frequency: specifically, $σ(ω) \sim ω^α$ with the exponent $α$ approaching 1 at the phase transition to the thermal phase, and asymptoting to 2 deep in the localized phase. We identify two separate mechanisms giving rise to this power law: deep in the localized phase, the conductivity is dominated by rare resonant pairs of configurations; close to the transition, the dominant contributions are rare regions that are locally critical or in the thermal phase. We present numerical evidence supporting these claims, and discuss how these power laws can also be seen through polarization-decay measurements in ultracold atomic systems.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2015

Mobile magnetic impurities in a Fermi superfluid: a route to designer molecules

A magnetic impurity in a fermionic superfluid hosts bound quasiparticle states known as Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states. We argue here that, if the impurity is mobile (i.e., has a finite mass), the impurity and its bound YSR quasiparticle move together as a midgap molecule, which has an unusual "Mexican-hat" dispersion that is tunable via the fermion density. We map out the impurity dispersion, which consists of an "atomic" branch (in which the impurity is dressed by quasiparticle pairs) and a "molecular" branch (in which the impurity binds a quasiparticle). We discuss the experimental realization and detection of midgap Shiba molecules, focusing on lithium-cesium mixtures, and comment on the prospects they offer for realizing exotic many-body states.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2015

Anomalous diffusion and Griffiths effects near the many-body localization transition

We explore the high-temperature dynamics of the disordered, one-dimensional XXZ model near the many-body localization (MBL) transition, focusing on the delocalized (i.e., "metallic") phase. In the vicinity of the transition, we find that this phase has the following properties: (i) Local magnetization fluctuations relax subdiffusively; (ii) the a.c. conductivity vanishes near zero frequency as a power law; (iii) the distribution of resistances becomes increasingly broad at low frequencies, approaching a power law in the zero-frequency limit. We argue that these effects can be understood in a unified way if the metallic phase near the MBL transition is a Griffiths phase. We establish scaling relations between the associated exponents, using exact linear-response arguments as well as a phenomenological resistor-capacitor model.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2015

Limit cycle phase in driven-dissipative spin systems

We explore the phase diagram of interacting spin-$1/2$ systems in the presence of anisotropic interactions, spontaneous decay and driving. We find a rich phase diagram featuring a limit cycle phase in which the magnetization oscillates in time. We analyze the spatio-temporal fluctuations of this limit cycle phase at the Gaussian level, and show that spatial fluctuations lead to quasi-long-range limit cycle ordering for dimension $d = 2$. This result can be interpreted in terms of a spatio-temporal Goldstone mode corresponding to phase fluctuations of the limit cycle. We also demonstrate that the limit-cycle phase exhibits an asymmetric power spectrum measurable in fluorescence experiments.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

A mean-field theory of nearly many-body localized metals

We develop a mean-field theory of the metallic phase near the many-body localization (MBL) transition, using the observation that a system near the MBL transition should become an increasingly slow heat bath for its constituent parts. As a first step, we consider the properties of a many-body localized system coupled to a generic ergodic bath whose characteristic dynamical timescales are much slower than those of the system. As we discuss, a wide range of experimentally relevant systems fall into this class; we argue that relaxation in these systems is dominated by collective many-particle rearrangements, and compute the associated timescales and spectral broadening. We then use the observation that the self-consistent environment of any region in a nearly localized metal can itself be modeled as a slowly fluctuating bath to outline a self-consistent mean-field description of the nearly localized metal and the localization transition. In the nearly localized regime, the spectra of local operators are highly inhomogeneous and the typical local spectral linewidth is narrow. The local spectral linewidth is proportional to the DC conductivity, which is small in the nearly localized regime. This typical linewidth and the DC conductivity go to zero as the localized phase is approached, with a scaling that we calculate, and which appears to be in good agreement with recent experimental results.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2014

Spectral features of a many-body localized system weakly coupled to a heat bath

We study many-body-localized (MBL) systems that are weakly coupled to thermalizing environments, focusing on the spectral functions of local operators. We argue that these spectral functions carry signatures of localization even away from the limit of perfectly isolated systems. We find that, in the limit of vanishing coupling to a bath, MBL systems come in two varieties, with either discrete or continuous local spectra. Both varieties of MBL systems exhibit a "soft gap" at zero frequency in the spatially-averaged spectral functions of local operators, which serves as a diagnostic for localization. We estimate the degree to which coupling to a bath broadens these spectral features, and find that characteristics of incipient localization survive as long as the system-bath coupling is much weaker than the characteristic energy scales of the system. Since perfect isolation is impossible, we expect the ideas discussed in this paper to be relevant for all experiments on many-body localization.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2014

Many-body Localization with Dipoles

Systems of strongly interacting dipoles offer an attractive platform to study many-body localized phases, owing to their long coherence times and strong interactions. We explore conditions under which such localized phases persist in the presence of power-law interactions and supplement our analytic treatment with numerical evidence of localized states in one dimension. We propose and analyze several experimental systems that can be used to observe and probe such states, including ultracold polar molecules and solid-state magnetic spin impurities.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2013

Reply to Comment on "Quantum quasicrystals of spin-orbit coupled dipolar bosons''

In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 185304 (2013)], we proposed a scheme for realizing quantum quasicrystals using spin-orbit coupled dipolar bosons. We remarked that these quantum quasicrystals have additional ``phason''-like modes compared with their classical counterparts. A recent comment by Lifshitz [arXiv:1312.1388] contests this claim. We argue here that our enumeration of gapless modes is indeed the physically relevant one; whether the additional modes are ``phasons'' is, however, a matter of definition.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Quantum quasicrystals of spin-orbit coupled dipolar bosons

We study quasi-two-dimensional dipolar Bose gases in which the bosons experience a Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We show that the degenerate dispersion minimum due to the spin-orbit coupling, combined with the long-range dipolar interaction, can stabilize a number of quantum crystalline and quasicrystalline ground states. Coupling the bosons to a fermionic species can further stabilize these phases. We estimate that the crystalline and quasicrystalline phases should be detectable in realistic dipolar condensates, e.g., dysprosium, and discuss their symmetries and excitations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Controllable quantum spin glasses with magnetic impurities embedded in quantum solids

Magnetic impurities embedded in inert solids can exhibit long coherence times and interact with one another via their intrinsic anisotropic dipolar interaction. We argue that, as a consequence of these properties, disordered ensembles of magnetic impurities provide an effective platform for realizing a controllable, tunable version of the dipolar quantum spin glass seen in LiHo$_x$Y$_{1-x}$F$_4$. Specifically, we propose and analyze a system composed of dysprosium atoms embedded in solid helium. We describe the phase diagram of the system and discuss the realizability and detectability of the quantum spin glass and antiglass phases.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Unconventional magnetism via optical pumping of interacting spin systems

We consider strongly interacting systems of effective spins, subject to dissipative spin-flip processes associated with optical pumping. We predict the existence of novel magnetic phases in the steady-state of this system, which emerge due to the competition between coherent and dissipative processes. Specifically, for strongly anisotropic spin-spin interactions, we find ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, spin-density-wave, and staggered-XY steady states, which are separated by nonequilibrium phase transitions meeting at a Lifshitz point. These transitions are accompanied by quantum correlations, resulting in spin squeezing. Experimental implementations in ultracold atoms and trapped ions are discussed.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Disclination classes, fractional excitations, and the melting of quantum liquid crystals

We consider how fractional excitations bound to a dislocation evolve as the dislocation is separated into a pair of disclinations. We show that some dislocation-bound excitations (such as Majorana modes and half-quantum vortices) are possible only if the elementary dislocation consists of two inequivalent disclinations, as is the case for stripes or square lattices but not for triangular lattices. The existence of multiple inequivalent disclination classes governs the two-dimensional melting of quantum liquid crystals (i.e., nematics and hexatics), determining whether superfluidity and orientational order can simultaneously vanish at a continuous transition.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

BEC-BCS crossover and the mobility edge: superfluid-insulator transitions and reentrant superfluidity in disordered Fermi gases

A superfluid-insulator transition is known to occur in strongly disordered Fermi gases, in both the BCS and BEC regimes; here, we address the properties of this transition across the BEC-BCS crossover. We argue that the critical disorder strength at which superfluidity is lost changes non-monotonically with detuning from Feshbach resonance, and that a reentrant superfluid phase arises for detunings near the fermionic mobility edge. Our analysis of the intermediate regime is quantitatively valid for narrow resonances and near four dimensions, and provides a simple physical picture of this regime, in terms of two distinct but coexisting insulators.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Stability of edge states in strained graphene

Spatially inhomogeneous strains in graphene can simulate the effects of valley-dependent magnetic fields. As demonstrated in recent experiments, the realizable magnetic fields are large enough to give rise to well-defined flat pseudo-Landau levels, potentially having counter-propagating edge modes. In the present work we address the conditions under which such edge modes are visible. We find that, whereas armchair edges do not support counter-propagating edge modes, zigzag edges do so, through a novel selective-hybridization mechanism. We then discuss effects of interactions on the stability of counter-propagating edge modes, and find that, for the experimentally relevant case of Coulomb interactions, interactions typically decrease the stability of the edge modes. Finally, we generalize our analysis to address the case of spontaneous valley polarization, which is expected to occur in charge-neutral strained graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Fate of global superconductivity in arrays of long SNS junctions

Normal-metal films overlaid with arrays of superconducting islands undergo Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) superconducting transitions at a temperature $T_{BKT}$. We present measurements of T$_{BKT}$ for arrays of mesoscopic Nb islands patterned on Au films for a range of island spacings $d$. We show that $T_{BKT} \sim 1/d^2$, and explain this dependence in terms of the quasiclassical prediction that the Thouless energy, rather than the superconducting gap, governs the inter-island coupling. We also find two deviations from the quasiclassical theory: (i) $T_{BKT}$ is sensitive to island height, because the islands are mesoscopic; and (ii) for widely spaced islands the transition appears to lead, not to a superconducting state, but to a finite-resistance "metallic" one.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2012

Designer quantum spin Hall phase transition in molecular graphene

Graphene was the first material predicted to be a time-reversal-invariant topological insulator; however, the insulating gap is immeasurably small owing to the weakness of spin-orbit interactions in graphene. A recent experiment [1] demonstrated that designer honeycomb lattices with graphene-like "Dirac" band structures can be engineered by depositing a regular array of carbon monoxide atoms on a metallic substrate. Here, we argue that by growing such designer lattices on metals or semiconductors with strong spin-orbit interactions, one can realize an analog of graphene with strong intrinsic spin-orbit coupling, and hence a highly controllable two-dimensional topological insulator. We estimate the range of substrate parameters for which the topological phase is achievable, and consider the experimental feasibility of some candidate substrates.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Non-Abelian SU(2) gauge fields through density-wave order and strain in graphene

Spatially varying strain patterns can qualitatively alter the electronic properties of graphene, acting as effective valley-dependent magnetic fields and giving rise to pseudo-Landau-level (PLL) quantization. Here, we show that the strain-induced magnetic field is one component of an SU(2) non-Abelian gauge field within the low-energy theory of graphene, and identify the other two components as period-3 charge-density waves. We show that these density-waves, if spatially varied, give rise to PLL quantization. We also argue that strain-induced magnetic fields can induce density-wave order in graphene, thus dynamically gapping out the lowest PLL; moreover, the ordering should generically be accompanied by dislocations. We discuss experimental signatures of these effects.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗