arXiv subjects

T. Pereg-Barnea

Publications and source records attributed to T. Pereg-Barnea.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Ferroelectric superconductivity in noncentrosymmetric metals

It has recently been shown in experiments that certain materials can display both superconductivity and ferroelectricity, contrary to a long-standing conjecture that these two phenomena are incompatible, or at least unrelated. In this work we study superconductivity in ferroelectric metals, using a formalism of ionic polarization fields coupled to itinerant electrons, both of which are treated at the microscopic level. The ferroelectric order manifests as a spontaneous polarization that may be uniform or spatially modulated, and fluctuations of the polarization mediate interactions between the electrons. The polarization fluctuations give rise to attractive interactions that can lead to Cooper pairing in certain lattice configurations, analogous to the nonpolar phonons in conventional BCS theory. Working with a simplified BCS model, we derive conditions under which superconductivity can coexist with and even emerge from ferroelectricity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Flat-band formation and chiral superconductivity in driven topological insulators

We demonstrate that circularly polarized light can be used to Floquet-engineer nearly flat or Mexican-hat like electronic bands on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators (3D TIs), which under suitable conditions, can support topological superconductivity via purely repulsive Coulomb interactions. The driving acts not merely by gapping out the Dirac cone on the surface of the 3D TI, but can be used to diminish, and even flip in sign, the intrinsic curvature of the surface state dispersion away from the Dirac point. Using parameters for canonical 3D TIs, we find that the flat band limit is attained for reasonable electric fields and the bands realized by changing the strength of the driving field have a similar energetic and spatial profile to those obtained in rhombohedral graphene under varying displacement field, where the case for superconductivity with purely repulsive interactions has recently been made. We find that, with the aid of appropriately placed screening metallic gate, one can obtain $T_c \sim 7 $K in this setup while avoiding Wigner crystallization for low electron densities in the range of $10^{11}-10^{12}/\text{cm}^2$.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2026

Shuttling Majorana zero modes in disordered and noisy topological superconductors

The braiding of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) forms the fundamental building block for topological quantum computation. Braiding protocols which involve the physical exchange of MZMs are typically envisioned on a network of topological superconducting wires. An essential component of these protocols is the transport of MZMs, which can be performed by using electric gates to locally tune sections of the wire between topologically trivial and non-trivial phases. In this work, we numerically simulate this transport by tuning a single section of a superconducting wire which contains either disorder (uncorrelated and correlated) or noise. We focus on the impact of these additional effects on the diabatic error, which describes unwanted transitions between the ground state and excited states. We show that the behavior of the average diabatic error is predominantly controlled by the statistics of the minimum bulk energy gap which is suppressed in the presence of disorder. The increase in diabatic error can be several orders of magnitude and is most deleterious when the disorder correlation length is a finite fraction of the transport distance and negligible when these lengths are far apart. In the presence of noise, the diabatic error is significantly enhanced due to optical transitions which depend on the minimum bulk energy gap as well as the frequency modes present in the noise. The results presented here serve to further characterize the diabatic error in disordered and noisy settings, which are important considerations in practical implementations of physical braiding schemes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Majorana zero modes in superconductor-magnet heterostructures with d-wave order

Magnetic skyrmions in proximity to superconductors offer a route to engineering topological superconductivity due to the synthetic spin-orbit coupling engendered by the spin twist of the skyrmion texture. Previous theoretical works show that this leads to Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in skyrmion-vortex pairs for s-wave superconductors. Here we investigate this mechanism in fully gapped d+is and d+id superconductors. We find the surprising result that while stable MZMs are found in large parts of the phase diagram, strongly enhanced d-wave pairing or stronger skyrmion-induced spin twisting can in fact destroy topology unlike in s-wave superconductors. This effect can be understood from the non-trivial spatial structure of the d-wave pairing, and mixing of odd and even angular-momentum pairing channels in a rotated frame which untwists the skyrmion texture. Our results inform the feasibility of realizing MZMs with unconventional superconductors in such heterostructures.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Tunable multi-magnon Floquet topological edge states

We show that periodically time-modulating the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in a two-dimensional magnon insulator may induce a topological phase transition that results in the presence of robust edge modes. To this end, we study a square lattice of spins interacting via an XXZ Heisenberg model with a ferromagnetic longitudinal coupling and antiferromagnetic transverse coupling, as well as the aforementioned time-modulated DMI. The topologically protected edge states of this system are composed of coherent superpositions of single-magnon excitations and two magnon bound states. Furthermore, we show that the chirality of the edge states can be controlled by adjusting the relative phase for the drive on the DMI associated with nearest neighbors in the x and y directions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Unifying Anderson transitions and topological amplification in non-Hermitian chains

Non-Hermitian systems with non-reciprocal hopping may display the non-Hermitian skin effect, where states under open boundary conditions localize exponentially at one edge of the system. This localization has been linked to spectral winding and topological gain, forming a bulk-boundary correspondence akin to the one relating edge modes to bulk topological invariants in topological insulators and superconductors. In this work, we establish a bulk-boundary correspondence for disordered Hatano-Nelson models. We relate the localization of states to spectral winding using the Lyapunov exponent and the Thouless formula. We identify two kinds of phase transitions and relate them to transport properties. Our framework is relevant to a broad class of 1D non-Hermitian models, opening new directions for disorder-resilient transport and quantum-enhanced sensing in photonic, optomechanical, and superconducting platforms.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2025

Topological Amplification of the Bosonic Kitaev Chain with Non-Uniform Loss

The bosonic Kitaev chain is known to have extraordinary properties distinct from its fermionic counterpart. For example, it exhibits the non-Hermitian skin effect -- its eigenmodes are exponentially localized to the edges of the chain -- even when the system is Hermitian. Such non-Hermitian effects originate from the fact that the dynamics of bosonic quadratic Hamiltonians is governed by a non-Hermitian matrix. In the topological phase of the model, the modes conspire to lead to phase-dependent and directional exponential amplification of a classical drive. In this work, we study the robustness of this topological amplification to on-site dissipations. We examine the effect of uniform and non-uniform losses under various configurations. We find a remarkable resilience to dissipation in some configurations, while in others the dissipation causes a topological phase transition which eliminates the exponential amplification. In particular, when the dissipation is placed on every other site, the system remains topological and the exponential amplification persists even for very large loss rates which exceed the system's non-Hermitian gap. On the other hand, we find that dividing the chain into unit cells of an odd number of sites and placing dissipation on the first site leads to a topological phase transition at a certain critical value of the dissipation. Our work thus provides insights into the robustness against losses of the topological amplification of non-Hermitian systems and sets explicit limits on the bosonic Kitaev chain's ability to act as a multimode quantum sensor in realistic lossy scenarios.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Disorder induced topological phase transition in a driven Majorana chain

We study a periodically driven one dimensional Kitaev model in the presence of disorder. In the clean limit our model exhibits four topological phases corresponding to the existence or non-existence of edge modes at zero and pi quasienergy. When disorder is added, the system parameters get renormalized and the system may exhibit a topological phase transition. When starting from the Majorana $π$ Mode (MPM) phase, which hosts only edge Majoranas with quasienergy pi, disorder induces a transition into a neighboring phase with both pi and zero modes on the edges. We characterize the disordered system using (i) exact diagonalization (ii) Arnoldi mapping onto an effective tight binding chain and (iii) topological entanglement entropy.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2025

Long-range multipartite entanglement near measurement-induced transitions

Measurements profoundly impact quantum systems, and can be used to create novel states of matter out of equilibrium. We investigate the multipartite entanglement structure that emerges in hybrid quantum circuits involving unitaries and measurements. We describe how a balance between measurements and unitary evolution can lead to multipartite entanglement spreading to distances far greater than what is found in non-monitored systems, thus evading the usual fate of entanglement. We introduce a graphical representation based on spanning graphs that allows to infer the evolution of genuine multipartite entanglement for general subregions. We exemplify our findings on hybrid random Haar circuits that realize a 1d measurement-induced dynamical phase transition, where we find genuine 3-party entanglement at all separations. At criticality, our data is consistent with power-law decay with a tripartite exponent strictly larger than the one of the bipartite logarithmic negativity. The 4-party case is also explored. Finally, we discuss how our approach can provide fundamental insights regarding entanglement dynamics for a wide class of quantum circuits and architectures.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Strain-induced superconductivity in Sr2IrO4

Multi-orbital quantum materials with strong interactions can host a variety of novel phases. In this work we study the possibility of interaction-driven superconductivity in the iridate compound Sr$_2$IrO$_4$ under strain and doping. We find numerous regimes of strain-induced superconductivity in which the pairing structure depends on model parameters. Spin-fluctuation mediated superconductivity is modeled by a Hubbard-Kanamori model with an effective particle-particle interaction, calculated via the random phase approximation. Magnetic orders are found using the Stoner criterion. The most likely superconducting order we find has $d$-wave pairing, predominantly in the total angular momentum, $J=1/2$ states. Moreover, an $s_{\pm}$-order which mixes different bands is found at high Hund's coupling, and at high strain anisotropic $s$- and $d$-wave orders emerge. Finally, we show that in a fine-tuned region of parameters a spin-triplet $p$-wave order exists. The combination of strong spin-orbit coupling, interactions, and a sensitivity of the band structure to strain proves a fruitful avenue for engineering new quantum phases.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2023

Magnetism and superconductivity in doped triangular-lattice Mott insulators

Inspired by recent advances in the fabrication of surface superlattices, and in particular the triangular lattice made of tin (Sn) atoms on silicon, we study an extended Hubbard mode on a triangular lattice. The observations of magnetism in these systems justify the inclusion of a strong on-site repulsion and the observation of superconductivity suggests including an effective, nearest-neighbor attractive interaction. The attractive interaction mimics the effect of strong on-site repulsion near half filling, which can be seen in strong coupling vertex calculations such as the Eliashberg method. With this extended Hubbard model on a triangular lattice with its geometrical frustration, we find a rich phase diagram of various magnetic orders and pairing functions, within the framework of self-consistent mean field theory. We uncover the competition among magnetism and unconventional superconductivity, and their coexistence for triplet pairings. We follow the Fermi surface of the system as the system is doped away from half filling and find nesting vectors and a Lifshitz transition which provide an intuitive understanding of the phase transitions between the many orders we consider.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Optical conductivity of a topological system driven using a realistic pulse

The effect of a time-periodic perturbation, such as radiation, on a system otherwise at equilibrium has been studied in the context of Floquet theory with stationary states replaced by Floquet states and the energy replaced by quasienergy. These quasienergy bands in general differ from the energy bands in their dispersion and, especially in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, in their states. This may, in some cases, alter the topology when the quasienergy bands exhibit different topological invariants than their stationary counterparts. In this work, motivated by advances in pump-probe techniques, we consider the optical response of driven topological systems when the drive is not purely periodic but is instead multiplied by a pulse shape/envelope function. We use real time-evolved states to calculate the optical conductivity and compare it to the response calculated using Floquet theory. We find that the conductivity bears a memory of the initial equilibrium state even when the pump is turned on slowly and the measurement is taken well after the ramp. The response of the time-evolved system is interpreted as coming from Floquet bands whose population has been determined by their overlap with the initial equilibrium state. In particular, at band inversion points in the Brillouin zone the population of the Floquet bands is inverted as well.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Signatures of the order parameter of a superconducting adatom layer in magnetic field dependent quasiparticle interference

Experiments have observed superconductivity in atomically-thin metallic layers deposited on semiconducting substrates. As in any superconductor, it is important to determine the structure of the superconducting pairing function in order to reveal the mechanism responsible for superconductivity. To that end, we study the possible superconducting states of two-dimensional triangular lattices. We calculate the quasiparticle interference (QPI) patterns which would result from various nearest-neighbor pairing order parameters, and show how the QPI can be used to distinguish between those order parameters. The QPI patterns are the momentum-space representations of real-space local density-of-states fluctuations: the QPI signal at momentum $q$ reveals the strength of scattering processes at that momentum transfer. We show how characteristic differences between scattering from charge disorder (i.e. impurities) and from order-parameter disorder (i.e. vortices) can be used to identify the angular momentum of the superconducting pairs.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2023

Charged magnons on the surface of a topological insulator

We study a system of two-dimensional Dirac electrons (as is realized on the surface of a 3D topological insulator) coupled to an array of localized spins. The spins are coupled ferromagnetically to each other, forming an ordered ground state with low-energy spin-wave excitations (magnons). The Dirac electrons couple to the spins through a spin-dependent effective Zeeman field. The out-of-plane effective Zeeman field therefore serves as a Dirac mass that gaps the electronic spectrum. Once a spin is flipped, it creates a surrounding domain in which the sign of the Dirac mass is opposite to that of the rest of the sample. Therefore, an electronic bound state appears on the domain wall, as predicted by Jackiw and Rebbi. However, in a quantum magnet, a localized spin flip does not produce an eigenstate. Instead, the eigenstates correspond to delocalized spin waves (magnons). As in the case of the single flipped spin, the delocalized magnon also binds an in-gap electronic state. We name this excitation a `Jackiw-Rebbi-Magnon' (JRM) and study its signature in the dynamic spin susceptibility. When the sample is tunnel-coupled to an electronic reservoir, a magnon produced in a system without any electrons hybridizes with a JRM (which binds a single electron), producing magnon-JRM polaritons. For such a system, we identify a quantum phase transition when the magnon-JRM polariton energy falls below that of the fully polarized ferromagnetic ground state.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Optimizing the transport of Majorana zero modes in one-dimensional topological superconductors

Topological quantum computing is based on the notion of braiding non-Abelian anyons, such as Majorana zero modes (MZMs), to perform gate operations. A crucial building block of these protocols is the adiabatic shuttling of MZMs through topological superconductors. Here, we consider the "piano key" approach, where MZMs are transported using local electric gates to tune sections ("keys") of a wire between topologically trivial and nontrivial phases. We numerically simulate this transport on a single wire and calculate the diabatic error corresponding to exciting the system. We find that this error is typically reduced when transport is facilitated by using multiple keys as one may expect from modeling each piano key press as an effective Landau-Zener process. However, further increasing the number of keys increases errors; thus, there exists a nontrivial optimal number of keys that minimizes the diabatic error given a fixed total shuttle time. As we show, this optimal number of keys can be explained by modeling each key press as an effective Landau-Zener process while paying careful attention to power-law corrections that arise due to the nonanalytic behavior of the time-dependent modulation of the chemical potential at the beginning and end of each key press.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Tunnelling theory of Weyl semimetals in proximity to a metallic band

We study the effects of tunnelling on the band structure and Fermi arc of a time-reversal broken Weyl semimetal (WSM). When coupled to a non-magnetic parabolic band, the WSM's chiral arc state lowers in energy and forms, together with a previously extended state, a noticeable spin-dependent asymmetry in the interface spectrum in the vicinity of the Weyl nodes. We study these effects with a lattice model which we solve numerically on a finite sample and analytically through using an ansatz on an infinite sample. Our ansatz agrees very well with the numerical simulation as it accurately describes the behaviour of the chiral state, from its energy asymmetry to the spin canting at the interface. We find that the tunnelling effectively increases the Fermi arc length, allowing for the presence of interface states beyond the bare Weyl nodes. These additional states may carry current along the interface and their contribution can be detected in the conductance. Across the interface, the spin-independent conductance reproduces the results of an electron tunnelling experiment to reveal the WSM's density of states. Besides conductivity, the effect of tunnelling between the WSM and the metallic band can be seen in quantum oscillations experiments which we briefly comment about.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Renormalization-group-inspired neural networks for computing topological invariants

We show that artificial neural networks (ANNs) can, to high accuracy, determine the topological invariant of a disordered system given its two-dimensional real-space Hamiltonian. Furthermore, we describe a "renormalization-group" (RG) network, an ANN which converts a Hamiltonian on a large lattice to another on a small lattice while preserving the invariant. By iteratively applying the RG network to a "base" network that computes the Chern number of a small lattice of set size, we are able to process larger lattices without re-training the system. We therefore show that it is possible to compute real-space topological invariants for systems larger than those on which the network was trained. This opens the door for computation times significantly faster and more scalable than previous methods.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2022

Magnetic skyrmion crystal at a topological insulator surface

We consider a magnetic skyrmion crystal formed at the surface of a topological insulator. Incorporating the exchange interaction between the helical Dirac surface states and the periodic Néel or Bloch skyrmion texture, we obtain the resulting electronic band structure and discuss the constraints that symmetries impose on the energies and Berry curvature. We find substantive qualitative differences between the Néel and Bloch cases, with the latter generically permitting a multiband low energy tight-binding representation whose parameters are tightly constrained by symmetries. We explicitly compute the associated Wannier orbitals, which resemble the ringlike chiral bound states of helical Dirac fermions coupled to a single skyrmion in a ferromagnetic background. We construct a two-band tight-binding model with real nearest-neighbor hoppings which captures the salient topological features of the low-energy bands. Our results are relevant to magnetic topological insulators (TIs), as well as to TI-magnetic thin film heterostructures, in which skyrmion crystals may be stabilized.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗