SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Zhaochen Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Zhaochen Liu.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

GeoAlign: Geometric Feature Realignment for MLLM Spatial Reasoning

Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have exhibited remarkable performance in various visual tasks, yet still struggle with spatial reasoning. Recent efforts mitigate this by injecting geometric features from 3D foundation models, but rely on static single-layer extractions. We identify that such an approach induces a task misalignment bias: the geometric features naturally evolve towards 3D pretraining objectives, which may contradict the heterogeneous spatial demands of MLLMs, rendering any single layer fundamentally insufficient. To resolve this, we propose GeoAlign, a novel framework that dynamically aggregates multi-layer geometric features to realign with the actual demands. GeoAlign constructs a hierarchical geometric feature bank and leverages the MLLM's original visual tokens as content-aware queries to perform layer-wise sparse routing, adaptively fetching the suitable geometric features for each patch. Extensive experiments on VSI-Bench, ScanQA, and SQA3D demonstrate that our compact 4B model effectively achieves state-of-the-art performance, even outperforming larger existing MLLMs.

cs.CV

Revisiting quadratic band crossing: from interaction-driven instability to intrinsic topology

The realization of robust quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) phases at elevated temperatures remains a central challenge in condensed matter physics. While quadratic band crossing points (QBCP) provide a promising route towards QAH states, existing proposals are largely confined to idealized models or hindered by interaction-driven competing orders. Here, we demonstrate that these limitations are not intrinsic to QBCP but arise from their specific implementation. We propose a general mechanism where band inversion between a symmetry-protected orbital doublet (e.g. $d_{xz},d_{yz}$) and an isolated orbital (e.g. $d_{z^2}$)-generically generates a QBCP with opposite curvature. This crossing is directly gapped at the single-particle level by intrinsic atomic spin-orbit coupling, while the underlying band inversion naturally shields the resulting topological gap against other interaction-driven instabilities. We further suggest monolayer compounds $MNX_2$ ($M$= Ni, Pd, Pt; $N$= Nb, Ta; $X$= S, Se, Te) as a realistic material class that intrinsically realizes this mechanism. These findings provide a concrete pathway toward robust QAH phases in correlated materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Unveiling the impact of anti-site defects in magnetic transitions of few-layer MnBi2Te4 by operando heating

As the first experimentally discovered intrinsic magnetic topological insulator, MnBi2Te4 has attracted widespread attentions, providing a unique platform for the exploration of topological quantum phases, such as quantum anomalous Hall effect and axion insulator state. Despite the increasing number of potential factors affecting samples being identified, obtaining the high-quality device performance with desired topological quantum phases remains a challenge. In this work, by comparing the reflective magnetic circular dichroism (RMCD) of crystals with different defect densities that are characterized by atomically resolved scanning tunneling microscopy, we demonstrate that anti-site defects play an essential role in achieving ideal magnetic states. By measuring RMCD hysteresis loops with operando heating, we find that MnBi2Te4 few-layer samples are highly susceptible to thermal impact, even at temperature as low as 45{\deg}C. The magnetic behavior of heating-treated samples is akin to that of samples fabricated into devices, revealing the thermal impact on devices as well. Starting from few-layers with ideal layer-dependent magnetic order, thermal heating leads to the convergence of magnetization and transition fields between odd- and even-layers. The observed heating-induced magnetic evolution can serve as a valuable reference for assessing the sample quality or the density of anti-site defects. Our findings not only point out the long-standing hidden factor that arose controversies in MnBi2Te4, but also pave the way for controllably engineering the topological quantum phenomena.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Beyond the Visible: Benchmarking Occlusion Perception in Multimodal Large Language Models

Occlusion perception, a critical foundation for human-level spatial understanding, embodies the challenge of integrating visual recognition and reasoning. Though multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities, their performance on occlusion perception remains under-explored. To address this gap, we introduce O-Bench, the first visual question answering (VQA) benchmark specifically designed for occlusion perception. Based on SA-1B, we construct 1,365 images featuring semantically coherent occlusion scenarios through a novel layered synthesis approach. Upon this foundation, we annotate 4,588 question-answer pairs in total across five tailored tasks, employing a reliable, semi-automatic workflow. Our extensive evaluation of 22 representative MLLMs against the human baseline reveals a significant performance gap between current MLLMs and humans, which, we find, cannot be sufficiently bridged by model scaling or thinking process. We further identify three typical failure patterns, including an overly conservative bias, a fragile gestalt prediction, and a struggle with quantitative tasks. We believe O-Bench can not only provide a vital evaluation tool for occlusion perception, but also inspire the development of MLLMs for better visual intelligence. Our benchmark will be made publicly available upon paper publication.

cs.CV

Quantized Topological States and Parity Anomaly in Intrinsic Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulator MnBi2Te4

When thinned down to just a few atomic layers, the layered magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 offers an exceptional platform for exploring a wide range of topological phenomena. In this work, we overcome longstanding challenges in synthesizing high-purity MnBi2Te4 crystals and report the observation of a myriad of quantized topological states in high-quality five-septuple-layer (5-SL) samples under magnetic fields up to 45 Tesla. We show that the nontrivial topology of 5-SL MnBi2Te4, in the presence of Landau quantization, is governed by a generalized topological index rooted in the parity anomaly of Dirac fermions in (2+1) dimensions. The anomaly manifests as an anomalous Landau level, giving rise to gate-tunable helical edge transport. Our results establish high-quality MnBi2Te4 as a robust platform for exploring emergent topological states and for advancing novel quantum device applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Anisotropic moir\'e band flattening in twisted bilayers of M-valley MXenes

Experimental studies on moir\'e materials have predominantly focused on twisted hexagonal lattice with low-energy states near the $\Gamma$- or K-points, where the electronic dispersion is typically isotropic. In contrast, we introduce a class of semiconducting transition metal carbides (MXenes) $M_2$C$T_2$ ($M$ = Ti, Zr, Hf, Sc, Y; $T$ = O, F, Cl) as a new platform for M-valley moir\'e materials, which exhibit pronounced anisotropic properties. Using Ti$_2$CO$_2$ and Zr$_2$CO$_2$ as representative examples, we perform large-scale \emph{ab initio} calculations and demonstrate that their AB-stacked twisted homobilayer hosts three threefold rotational-symmetry-related M-valleys with time-reversal symmetry. These systems show striking anisotropic band flattening in the conduction band minimum. To elucidate the underlying physics, we construct a simplified moir\'e Hamiltonian that captures the essential features of the band structure, revealing the origins of anisotropic flattening through the mechanisms of band folding and interlayer tunneling. Our findings expand the current landscape of moir\'e materials, establishing valley- and spin-degenerate, two-dimensional arrays of quasi-one-dimensional systems as promising platforms for exploring many interesting correlated electronic phases.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Orbital Description of Landau Levels

The pursuit of a lattice analogue for Landau levels has been a central theme in condensed matter physics. Although the correspondence between Chern bands and the lowest Landau level has been widely studied, a lattice realization of the first Landau level remains elusive. Here we construct a minimal lattice model that provides a concrete orbital description of both the lowest and first Landau levels. Using maximally localized Wannier functions with $s$, $p_-$, and $p_+$ orbital character, we develop a three-orbital model in which the two lowest Chern bands are flat and each carries a Chern number $\mathcal{C}=1$. The band topology arises from a sequence of ideal band inversions between Wannier states at the $\Gamma$ and $K$ points in momentum space, establishing an adiabatic connection between the atomic insulator limit and Landau level physics. Notably, many-body exact diagonalization reveals that the non-Abelian state can appear in the half-filled first Chern band. This construction can be further generalized to realize flat Chern bands analogous to higher Landau levels. Our results provide a new perspective on lattice analogues of Landau levels and may enable the exploration of fascinating topological phenomena at elevated temperatures.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Amodal Segmentation for Laparoscopic Surgery Video Instruments

Segmentation of surgical instruments is crucial for enhancing surgeon performance and ensuring patient safety. Conventional techniques such as binary, semantic, and instance segmentation share a common drawback: they do not accommodate the parts of instruments obscured by tissues or other instruments. Precisely predicting the full extent of these occluded instruments can significantly improve laparoscopic surgeries by providing critical guidance during operations and assisting in the analysis of potential surgical errors, as well as serving educational purposes. In this paper, we introduce Amodal Segmentation to the realm of surgical instruments in the medical field. This technique identifies both the visible and occluded parts of an object. To achieve this, we introduce a new Amoal Instruments Segmentation (AIS) dataset, which was developed by reannotating each instrument with its complete mask, utilizing the 2017 MICCAI EndoVis Robotic Instrument Segmentation Challenge dataset. Additionally, we evaluate several leading amodal segmentation methods to establish a benchmark for this new dataset.

cs.CV

PLUG: Revisiting Amodal Segmentation with Foundation Model and Hierarchical Focus

Aiming to predict the complete shapes of partially occluded objects, amodal segmentation is an important step towards visual intelligence. With crucial significance, practical prior knowledge derives from sufficient training, while limited amodal annotations pose challenges to achieve better performance. To tackle this problem, utilizing the mighty priors accumulated in the foundation model, we propose the first SAM-based amodal segmentation approach, PLUG. Methodologically, a novel framework with hierarchical focus is presented to better adapt the task characteristics and unleash the potential capabilities of SAM. In the region level, due to the association and division in visible and occluded areas, inmodal and amodal regions are assigned as the focuses of distinct branches to avoid mutual disturbance. In the point level, we introduce the concept of uncertainty to explicitly assist the model in identifying and focusing on ambiguous points. Guided by the uncertainty map, a computation-economic point loss is applied to improve the accuracy of predicted boundaries. Experiments are conducted on several prominent datasets, and the results show that our proposed method outperforms existing methods with large margins. Even with fewer total parameters, our method still exhibits remarkable advantages.

cs.CV

Layer-Dependent Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Rhombohedral Graphene

The quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, first proposed in the Haldane model, is a paradigmatic example of the application of band topology in condensed matter physics. The recent experimental discoveries of high Chern number QAH effect in pentalayer and tetralayer rhombohedral graphene highlight the intriguing interplay between strong interactions and spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here we propose a minimal interacting model for spin-orbit-coupled rhombohedral graphene and use the Hartree-Fock analysis to explore the phase diagram at charge neutrality. We find that with Ising SOC on one outmost graphene layer, the in-plane layer-antiferromagnetic order is the insulating ground state without displacement field. Upon increasing the gate displacement field, we find that the QAH state with Chern number being equal to the layer number emerges between layer-antiferromagnetic state and layer-polarized state, which is consistent with experimental observations. Remarkably, we study the phase diagram for different thicknesses and find pentalayer is optimal for the QAH effect. Finally, we propose that the QAH state is enlarged by engineering opposite Ising SOC on the opposite outmost layers of rhombohedral graphene. These results will facilitate the realization of QAH states in rhombohedral graphene with different thicknesses. Our work serves as a foundation for further exploration of correlated physics of insulating state in rhombohedral graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall

BLADE: Box-Level Supervised Amodal Segmentation through Directed Expansion

Perceiving the complete shape of occluded objects is essential for human and machine intelligence. While the amodal segmentation task is to predict the complete mask of partially occluded objects, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive to annotate the pixel-level ground truth amodal masks. Box-level supervised amodal segmentation addresses this challenge by relying solely on ground truth bounding boxes and instance classes as supervision, thereby alleviating the need for exhaustive pixel-level annotations. Nevertheless, current box-level methodologies encounter limitations in generating low-resolution masks and imprecise boundaries, failing to meet the demands of practical real-world applications. We present a novel solution to tackle this problem by introducing a directed expansion approach from visible masks to corresponding amodal masks. Our approach involves a hybrid end-to-end network based on the overlapping region - the area where different instances intersect. Diverse segmentation strategies are applied for overlapping regions and non-overlapping regions according to distinct characteristics. To guide the expansion of visible masks, we introduce an elaborately-designed connectivity loss for overlapping regions, which leverages correlations with visible masks and facilitates accurate amodal segmentation. Experiments are conducted on several challenging datasets and the results show that our proposed method can outperform existing state-of-the-art methods with large margins.

cs.CV

Josephson Diode Effect in Topological Superconductor

We investigate the Josephson diode effect (JDE) in topological Josephson junctions. By both analytic and numerical calculations, we find that while a Josephson junction in the topological phase may exhibit higher diode efficiency compared to that in the trivial phase, this behavior is not universal. The presence of Majorana bound states is not a sufficient condition for a large diode effect. Furthermore, the diode efficiency undergoes substantial changes only in specific regions along the topological phase transition boundary, and a significant diode effect does coincide with the topological phases. Thereby our paper suggests the utilization of topological superconductivity for enhanced JDE, and also the Josephson diode effect may serve as an indicator for topological superconductor phase. These results suggest a nuanced relationship between the topological aspects of Josephson junctions and Josephson diode effect.

cond-mat.supr-con

Giant anisotropic band flattening in twisted $\Gamma$ valley semiconductor bilayers

We propose a general theory of anisotropic band flattening in moir\'e systems at the $\Gamma$ valley. For a two-dimensional semiconductor with a rectangular unit cell of $C_{2z}$ or mirror symmetries, we find that a larger effective mass anisotropy $\eta=m_y/m_x$ of the valence or conduction bands in the monolayer will have a stronger tendency to be further enhanced in its twisted bilayer. This gives rise to strong anisotropic band flattening and correlated physics in one dimension effectively. We predict twisted bilayer black phosphorus (tBBP) has giant anisotropic flattened moir\'e bands ($\eta\sim10^4$) from ab initio calculations and continuum model, where the low energy physics is described by the weakly coupled array of one-dimensional wires. We further calculate the phase diagram based on the sliding Luttinger liquid by including the screened Coulomb interactions in tBBP, and find a large parameter space may host the non-Fermi liquid phase. We thus establish tBBP as a promising and experimentally accessible platform for exploring correlated physics in low dimensions.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Monolayer V2MX4: A new family of quantum anomalous Hall insulators

We theoretically propose that the van der Waals layered ternary transition metal chalcogenide V$_2 MX_4$ ($M=$ W, Mo; $X=$ S, Se) is a new family of quantum anomalous Hall insulators with sizable bulk gap and Chern number $\mathcal{C}=-1$. The large topological gap originates from the \emph{deep} band inversion between spin up bands contributed by $d_{xz},d_{yz}$ orbitals of V and spin down band from $d_{z^2}$ orbital of $M$ at Fermi level. Remarkably, the Curie temperature of monolayer V$_2 MX_4$ is predicted to be much higher than that of monolayer MnBi$_2$Te$_4$. Furthermore, the thickness dependence of the Chern number for few multilayers shows interesting oscillating behavior. The general physics from the $d$-orbitals here applies to a large class of ternary transition metal chalcogenide such as Ti$_2$W$X_4$ with the space group $P$-$42m$. These interesting predictions, if realized experimentally, could greatly promote the research and application of topological quantum physics.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Moir\'e Engineering and Topological Flat Bands in Twisted Orbital-Active Bilayers

Topological flat bands at the Fermi level offer a promising platform to study a variety of intriguing correlated phase of matter. Here we present band engineering in the twisted orbital-active bilayers with spin-orbit coupling. The symmetry constraints on the interlayer coupling that determines the effective potential for low-energy physics of moir\'e electrons are exhaustively derived for two-dimensional point groups. We find the line graph or biparticle sublattice of moir\'e pattern emerge with a minimal $C_3$ symmetry, which exhibit isolated electronic flat bands with nontrivial topology. The band flatness is insensitive to the twist angle since they come from the interference effect. Armed with this guiding principle, we predict that twisted bilayers of 2H-PbS$_2$ and CdS realize the salient physics to engineer two-dimensional topological quantum phases. At small twist angles, PbS$_2$ heterostructures give rise to an emergent moir\'e Kagom\'e lattice, while CdS heterostructures lead to an emergent moir\'e honeycomb lattice, and both of them host moir\'e quantum spin Hall insulators with almost flat topological bands. We further study superconductivity of these two systems with local attractive interactions. The superfluid weight and Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless temperature are determined by multiband processes and quantum geometry of the band in the flat-band limit when the pairing potential exceeds the band width. Our results demonstrate twisted bilayers with multi-orbitals as a promising tunable platform to realize correlated topological phases.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Planar magnetic texture on the surface of a topological insulator

We study the planar magnetic textures in an insulating magnetic film coupled to the Dirac surface state of a topological insulator. It is shown that the radial vortex with winding number $w=\pm1$ leads to the confinement of Dirac states, where an exact mapping to the Schr\"{o}dinger equation of a two-dimensional hydrogen atom is found. The fully spin polarized zero energy bound state resembles the zeroth Landau level of Dirac electrons in a uniform out-of-plane magnetic field. Interestingly, when the hybrid system is proximity coupled to an $s$-wave superconductor, the existence of Majorana zero modes at Abrikosov vortex depends only on the relative value of the magnetic exchange coupling and the pairing strength. We conclude with a brief discussion on the physical realization with such magnetic textures.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Dissipative Edge Transport in Disordered Axion Insulator Films

We investigate the role of disorder in the edge transport of axion insulator films. We predict by first-principles calculations that even-number-layer MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ have gapped helical edge states. The random potential will dramatically modify the edge spectral function to become gapless. However, such gapless helical state here is fundamentally different from that in quantum spin Hall insulator or topological Anderson insulator. We further study the edge transport in this system by Landauer-B\"{u}ttiker formalism, and find such gapless edge state is dissipative and not immune to backscattering, which would explain the dissipative nonlocal transport in the axion insulator state observed in six septuple layer MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ experimentally. Several transport experiments are proposed to verify our theory on the dissipative helical edge channels. In particular, the longitudinal resistance can be greatly reduced by adding an extra floating probe even if it is not used. These results will facilitate the observsation of long-sought topological magnetoelectric effect in axion insulators.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Unoccupied Topological Surface State in MnBi$_2$Te$_4$

The unoccupied part of the band structure in the magnetic topological insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ is studied by first-principles calculations. We find a second, unoccupied topological surface state with similar electronic structure to the celebrated occupied topological surface state. This state is energetically located approximate $1.6$ eV above the occupied Dirac surface state around $\Gamma$ point, which permit it to be directly observed by the two-photon angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We propose a unified effective model for the occupied and unoccupied surface states. Due to the direct optical coupling between these two surface states, we further propose two optical effects to detect the unoccupied surface state. One is the polar Kerr effect in odd layer from nonvanishing ac Hall conductance $\sigma_{xy}(\omega)$, and the other is higher-order terahertz-sideband generation in even layer, where the non-vanishining Berry curvature of the unoccupied surface state is directly observed from the giant Faraday rotation of optical emission.

cond-mat.mes-hall