arXiv subjects

Xueda Wen

Publications and source records attributed to Xueda Wen.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Periodically, Quasi-periodically, and Randomly Driven Conformal Field Theories (II): Furstenberg's Theorem and Exceptions to Heating Phases

In this sequel (to [Phys. Rev. Res. 3, 023044(2021)], arXiv:2006.10072), we study randomly driven $(1+1)$ dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs), a family of quantum many-body systems with soluble non-equilibrium quantum dynamics. The sequence of driving Hamiltonians is drawn from an independent and identically distributed random ensemble. At each driving step, the deformed Hamiltonian only involves the energy-momentum density spatially modulated at a single wavelength and therefore induces a Möbius transformation on the complex coordinates. The non-equilibrium dynamics is then determined by the corresponding sequence of Möbius transformations, from which the Lyapunov exponent $λ_L$ is defined. We use Furstenberg's theorem to classify the dynamical phases and show that except for a few \emph{exceptional points} that do not satisfy Furstenberg's criteria, the random drivings always lead to a heating phase with the total energy growing exponentially in the number of driving steps $n$ and the subsystem entanglement entropy growing linearly in $n$ with a slope proportional to central charge $c$ and the Lyapunov exponent $λ_L$. On the contrary, the subsystem entanglement entropy at an exceptional point could grow as $\sqrt{n}$ while the total energy remains to grow exponentially. In addition, we show that the distributions of the operator evolution and the energy density peaks are also useful characterizations to distinguish the heating phase from the exceptional points: the heating phase has both distributions to be continuous, while the exceptional points could support finite convex combinations of Dirac measures depending on their specific type. In the end, we compare the field theory results with the lattice model calculations for both the entanglement and energy evolution and find remarkably good agreement.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2022

Flow of (higher) Berry curvature and bulk-boundary correspondence in parametrized quantum systems

This paper is concerned with the physics of parametrized gapped quantum many-body systems, which can be viewed as a generalization of conventional topological phases of matter. In such systems, rather than considering a single Hamiltonian, one considers a family of Hamiltonians that depend continuously on some parameters. After discussing the notion of phases of parametrized systems, we formulate a bulk-boundary correspondence for an important bulk quantity, the Kapustin-Spodyneiko higher Berry curvature, first in one spatial dimension and then in arbitrary dimension. This clarifies the physical interpretation of the higher Berry curvature, which in one spatial dimension is a flow of (ordinary) Berry curvature. In d dimensions, the higher Berry curvature is a flow of (d-1)-dimensional higher Berry curvature. Based on this, we discuss one-dimensional systems that pump Chern number to/from spatial boundaries, resulting in anomalous boundary modes featuring isolated Weyl points. In higher dimensions, there are pumps of the analogous quantized invariants obtained by integrating the higher Berry curvature. We also discuss the consequences for parametrized systems of Kitaev's proposal that invertible phases are classified by a generalized cohomology theory, and emphasize the role of the suspension isomorphism in generating new examples of parametrized systems from known invertible phases. Finally, we present a pair of general quantum pumping constructions, based on physical pictures introduced by Kitaev, which take as input a d-dimensional parametrized system, and produce new (d+1)-dimensional parametrized systems. These constructions are useful for generating examples, and we conjecture that one of the constructions realizes the suspension isomorphism in a generalized cohomology theory of invertible phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Floquet conformal field theories with generally deformed Hamiltonians

In this work, we study non-equilibrium dynamics in Floquet conformal field theories (CFTs) in 1+1D, in which the driving Hamiltonian involves the energy-momentum density spatially modulated by an arbitrary smooth function. This generalizes earlier work which was restricted to the sine-square deformed type of Floquet Hamiltonians, operating within a $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ sub-algebra. Here we show remarkably that the problem remains soluble in this generalized case which involves the full Virasoro algebra, based on a geometrical approach. It is found that the phase diagram is determined by the stroboscopic trajectories of operator evolution. The presence/absence of spatial fixed points in the operator evolution indicates that the driven CFT is in a heating/non-heating phase, in which the entanglement entropy grows/oscillates in time. Additionally, the heating regime is further subdivided into a multitude of phases, with different entanglement patterns and spatial distribution of energy-momentum density, which are characterized by the number of spatial fixed points. Phase transitions between these different heating phases can be achieved simply by changing the duration of application of the driving Hamiltonian. We demonstrate the general features with concrete CFT examples and compare the results to lattice calculations and find remarkable agreement.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Periodically, Quasi-periodically, and Randomly Driven Conformal Field Theories: Part I

In this paper and its sequel, we study non-equilibrium dynamics in driven 1+1D conformal field theories (CFTs) with periodic, quasi-periodic, and random driving. We study a soluble family of drives in which the Hamiltonian only involves the energy-momentum density spatially modulated at a single wavelength. The resulting time evolution is then captured by a Möbius coordinate transformation. In this Part I, we establish the general framework and focus on the first two classes. In periodically driven CFTs, we generalize earlier work and study the generic features of entanglement/energy evolution in different phases, i.e. the heating, non-heating phases and the phase transition between them. In quasi-periodically driven CFTs, we mainly focus on the case of driving with a Fibonacci sequence. We find that (i) the non-heating phases form a Cantor set of measure zero; (ii) in the heating phase, the Lyapunov exponents (which characterize the growth rate of the entanglement entropy and energy) exhibit self-similarity, and can be arbitrarily small; (iii) the heating phase exhibits periodicity in the location of spatial structures at the Fibonacci times; (iv) one can find exactly the non-heating fixed point, where the entanglement entropy/energy oscillate at the Fibonacci numbers, but grow logarithmically/polynomially at the non-Fibonacci numbers; (v) for certain choices of driving Hamiltonians, the non-heating phases of the Fibonacci driving CFT can be mapped to the energy spectrum of electrons propagating in a Fibonacci quasi-crystal. In addition, another quasi-periodically driven CFT with an Aubry-André like sequence is also studied. We compare the CFT results to lattice calculations and find remarkable agreement.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2020

Classification of $SL_2$ deformed Floquet Conformal Field Theories

Classification of the non-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics is a challenging problem in condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics. In this work, we study the basic question that whether a (1+1) dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) is stable or not under a periodic driving with $N$ non-commuting Hamiltonians. Previous works showed that a Floquet (or periodically driven) CFT driven by certain $SL_2$ deformed Hamiltonians exhibit both non-heating (stable) and heating (unstable) phases. In this work, we show that the phase diagram depends on the types of driving Hamiltonians. In general, the heating phase is generic, but the non-heating phase may be absent in the phase diagram. For the existence of the non-heating phases, we give sufficient and necessary conditions for $N=2$, and sufficient conditions for $N>2$. These conditions are composed of $N$ layers of data, with each layer determined by the types of driving Hamiltonians. Our results also apply to the single quantum quench problem with $N=1$.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2020

Emergent Spatial Structure and Entanglement Localization in Floquet Conformal Field Theory

We study the energy and entanglement dynamics of $(1+1)$D conformal field theories (CFTs) under a Floquet drive with the sine-square deformed (SSD) Hamiltonian. Previous work has shown this model supports both a non-heating and a heating phase. Here we analytically establish several robust and `super-universal' features of the heating phase which rely on conformal invariance but not on the details of the CFT involved. First, we show the energy density is concentrated in two peaks in real space, a chiral and anti-chiral peak, which leads to an exponential growth in the total energy. The peak locations are set by fixed points of the Möbius transformation. Second, all of the quantum entanglement is shared between these two peaks. In each driving period, a number of Bell pairs are generated, with one member pumped to the chiral peak, and the other member pumped to the anti-chiral peak. These Bell pairs are localized and accumulate at these two peaks, and can serve as a source of quantum entanglement. Third, in both the heating and non-heating phases we find that the total energy is related to the half system entanglement entropy by a simple relation $E(t)\propto c \exp \left( \frac{6}{c}S(t) \right)$ with $c$ being the central charge. In addition, we show that the non-heating phase, in which the energy and entanglement oscillate in time, is unstable to small fluctuations of the driving frequency in contrast to the heating phase. Finally, we point out an analogy to the periodically driven harmonic oscillator which allows us to understand global features of the phases, and introduce a quasiparticle picture to explain the spatial structure, which can be generalized to setups beyond the SSD construction.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Entanglement spectrum and entropy in topological non-Hermitian systems and non-unitary conformal field theories

We propose a method of computing and studying entanglement quantities in non-Hermitian systems by use of a biorthogonal basis. We find that the entanglement spectrum characterizes the topological properties in terms of the existence of mid-gap states in the non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model with parity and time-reversal symmetry (PT symmetry) and the non-Hermitian Chern insulators. In addition, we find that at a critical point in the PT symmetric SSH model, the entanglement entropy has a logarithmic scaling with corresponding central charge $c=-2$. This critical point then is a free-fermion lattice realization of the non-unitary conformal field theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Gapped domain walls between 2+1D topologically ordered states

The 2+1D topological order can be characterized by the mapping-class-group representations for Riemann surfaces of genus-1, genus-2, etc. In this paper, we use those representations to determine the possible gapped boundaries of a 2+1D topological order, as well as the domain walls between two topological orders. We find that mapping-class-group representations for both genus-1 and genus-2 surfaces are needed to determine the gapped domain walls and boundaries. Our systematic theory is based on the fixed-point partition functions for the walls (or the boundaries), which completely characterize the gapped domain walls (or the boundaries). The mapping-class-group representations give rise to conditions that must be satisfied by the fixed-point partition functions, which leads to a systematic theory. Such conditions can be viewed as bulk topological order determining the (non-invertible) gravitational anomaly at the domain wall, and our theory can be viewed as finding all types of the gapped domain wall given a (non-invertible) gravitational anomaly. We also developed a systematic theory of gapped domain walls (boundaries) based on the structure coefficients of condensable algebras.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Entanglement Hamiltonian of Many-body Dynamics in Strongly-correlated Systems

A powerful perspective in understanding non-equilibrium quantum dynamics is through the time evolution of its entanglement content. Yet apart from a few guiding principles for the entanglement entropy, to date, not much else is known about the refined characters of entanglement propagation. Here, we unveil signatures of the entanglement evolving and information propagation out-of-equilibrium, from the view of entanglement Hamiltonian. As a prototypical example, we study quantum quench dynamics of a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model by means of time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group simulation. Before reaching equilibration, it is found that a current operator emerges in entanglement Hamiltonian, implying that entanglement spreading is carried by particle flow. In the long-time limit subsystem enters a steady phase, evidenced by the dynamic convergence of the entanglement Hamiltonian to the expectation of a thermal ensemble. Importantly, entanglement temperature of steady state is spatially independent, which provides an intuitive trait of equilibrium. We demonstrate that these features are consistent with predictions from conformal field theory. These findings not only provide crucial information on how equilibrium statistical mechanics emerges in many-body dynamics, but also add a tool to exploring quantum dynamics from perspective of entanglement Hamiltonian.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Distinguish modular categories and 2+1D topological orders beyond modular data: Mapping class group of higher genus manifold

It was believed that modular data are enough to distinguish different modular categories (and topological orders in 2+1-dimensions). Then counterexamples to this conjecture were found by Mignard and Schauenburg in 2017. In this work, we show that the simplest counterexamples can be distinguished by studying the representations of mapping class groups of a punctured torus or a genus-2 closed manifold.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Entanglement hamiltonian evolution during thermalization in conformal field theory

In this work, we study the time evolution of the entanglement hamiltonian during the process of thermalization in a (1+1)-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) after a quantum quench from a special class of initial states. In particular, we focus on a subsystem which is a finite interval at the end of a semi-infinite line. Based on conformal mappings, the exact forms of both entanglement hamiltonian and entanglement spectrum of the subsystem can be obtained. Aside from various interesting features, it is found that in the infinite time limit the entanglement hamiltonian and entanglement spectrum are exactly the same as those in the thermal ensemble. The entanglement spectrum approaches the steady state spectrum exponentially in time. We also study the modular flows generated by the entanglement hamiltonian in Minkowski spacetime, which provides us with an intuitive picture of how the entanglement propagates and how the subsystem is thermalized. Furthermore, the effect of a generic initial state is also discussed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Quantum dynamics in sine-square deformed conformal field theory: Quench from uniform to non-uniform CFTs

In this work, motivated by the sine-square deformation (SSD) for (1+1)-dimensional quantum critical systems, we study the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics of a conformal field theory (CFT) with SSD, which was recently proposed to have continuous energy spectrum and continuous Virasoro algebra. In particular, we study the time evolution of entanglement entropy after a quantum quench from a uniform CFT, which is defined on a finite space of length $L$, to a sine-square deformed CFT. We find there is a crossover time $t^{\ast}$ that divides the entanglement evolution into two interesting regions. For $t\ll t^{\ast}$, the entanglement entropy does not evolve in time; for $t\gg t^{\ast}$, the entanglement entropy grows as $S_A(t)\simeq \frac{c}{3}\log t$, which is independent of the lengths of the subsystem and the total system. This $\log t$ growth with no revival indicates that a sine-square deformed CFT effectively has an infinite length, in agreement with previous studies based on the energy spectrum analysis. Furthermore, we study the quench dynamics for a CFT with M$\ddot{\text{o}}$bius deformation, which interpolates between a uniform CFT and a sine-square deformed CFT. The entanglement entropy oscillates in time with period $L_{\text{eff}}=L\cosh(2θ)$, with $θ=0$ corresponding to the uniform case and $θ\to \infty$ corresponding to the SSD limit. Our field theory calculation is confirmed by a numerical study on a (1+1)-d critical fermion chain.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Floquet conformal field theory

Given a $generic$ two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT), we propose an analytically solvable setup to study the Floquet dynamics of the CFT, i.e., the dynamics of a CFT subject to a periodic driving. A complete phase diagram in the parameter space can be analytically obtained within our setup. We find two phases: the heating phase and the non-heating phase. In the heating phase, the entanglement entropy keeps growing linearly in time, indicating that the system keeps absorbing energy; in the non-heating phase, the entanglement entropy oscillates periodically in time, i.e., the system is not heated. At the phase transition, the entanglement entropy grows logarithmically in time in a universal way. Furthermore, we can obtain the critical exponent by studying the entanglement evolution near the phase transition. Mathematically, different phases (and phase transition) in a Floquet CFT correspond to different types of M$\ddot{\text{o}}$bius transformations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Entanglement evolution across a conformal interface

For two dimensional conformal field theories in the ground state, it is known that a conformal interface along the entanglement cut can suppress the entanglement entropy from $S_A\sim c\log L$ to $S_A\sim c_{\text{eff}}\log L$, where $L$ is the length of the subsystem $A$, and $c_{\text{eff}}\in [0, c]$ is the effective central charge which depends on the transmission property of the conformal interface. In this work, by making use of conformal mappings, we show that a conformal interface has the same effect on entanglement evolution in non-equilibrium cases, including global, local and certain inhomogeneous quantum quenches. I.e., a conformal interface suppresses the time evolution of entanglement entropy by effectively replacing the central charge $c$ with $c_{\text{eff}}$, where $c_{\text{eff}}$ is exactly the same as that in the ground state case. We confirm this conclusion by a numerical study on a critical fermion chain. Furthermore, based on the quasi-particle picture, we conjecture that this conclusion holds for an arbitrary quantum quench in CFTs, as long as the initial state can be described by a regularized conformal boundary state.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Entanglement entropy of (3+1)D topological orders with excitations

Excitations in (3+1)D topologically ordered phases have very rich structures. (3+1)D topological phases support both point-like and string-like excitations, and in particular the loop (closed string) excitations may admit knotted and linked structures. In this work, we ask the question how different types of topological excitations contribute to the entanglement entropy, or alternatively, can we use the entanglement entropy to detect the structure of excitations, and further obtain the information of the underlying topological orders? We are mainly interested in (3+1)D topological orders that can be realized in Dijkgraaf-Witten gauge theories, which are labeled by a finite group $G$ and its group 4-cocycle $ω\in\mathcal{H}^4[G;U(1)]$ up to group automorphisms. We find that each topological excitation contributes a universal constant $\ln d_i$ to the entanglement entropy, where $d_i$ is the quantum dimension that depends on both the structure of the excitation and the data $(G,\,ω)$. The entanglement entropy of the excitations of the linked/unlinked topology can capture different information of the DW theory $(G,\,ω)$. In particular, the entanglement entropy introduced by Hopf-link loop excitations can distinguish certain group 4-cocycles $ω$ from the others.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Interface Contributions to Topological Entanglement in Abelian Chern-Simons Theory

We study the entanglement entropy between (possibly distinct) topological phases across an interface using an Abelian Chern-Simons description with topological boundary conditions (TBCs) at the interface. From a microscopic point of view, these TBCs correspond to turning on particular gapping interactions between the edge modes across the interface. However, in studying entanglement in the continuum Chern-Simons description, we must confront the problem of non-factorization of the Hilbert space, which is a standard property of gauge theories. We carefully define the entanglement entropy by using an extended Hilbert space construction directly in the continuum theory. We show how a given TBC isolates a corresponding gauge invariant state in the extended Hilbert space, and hence compute the resulting entanglement entropy. We find that the sub-leading correction to the area law remains universal, but depends on the choice of topological boundary conditions. This agrees with the microscopic calculation of \cite{Cano:2014pya}. Additionally, we provide a replica path integral calculation for the entropy. In the case when the topological phases across the interface are taken to be identical, our construction gives a novel explanation of the equivalence between the left-right entanglement of (1+1)d Ishibashi states and the spatial entanglement of (2+1)d topological phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Quantum interference induced by multiple Landau-Zener transitions in a strongly driven rf-SQUID qubit

We irradiated an rf-SQUID qubit with large-amplitude and high frequency electromagnetic field. Population transitions between macroscopic distinctive quantum states due to Landau-Zener transitions at energy-level avoided crossings were observed. The qubit population on the excited states as a function of flux detuning and microwave power exhibits interference patterns. Some novel features are found in the interference and a model based on rate equations can well address the features.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Bridging global and local quantum quenches in conformal field theories

Entanglement evolutions after a global quantum quench and a local quantum quench in 1+1 dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) show qualitatively different behaviors, and are studied within two different setups. In this work, we bridge global and local quantum quenches in (1+1)-d CFTs in the same setup, by studying the entanglement evolution from a specific inhomogeneous initial state. By utilizing conformal mappings, this inhomogeneous quantum quench is analytically solvable. It is found that the entanglement evolution shows a global quantum quench feature in the short time limit, and a local quantum quench feature in the long time limit. The same features are observed in single-point correlation functions of primary fields. We provide a clear physical picture for the underlying reason.

cond-mat.str-el↗