Bosonic Theory Research Articles

Optimized correlations inspired by perturbation theory

We study the accuracy of analytical wave function based many-body methods derived by energy minimization of a Jastrow-Feenberg ansatz for electrons (`Fermi hypernetted chain / Euler Lagrange' approach). Approximations to avoid the complexity of the fermion problem are chosen to parallel successful boson theories and be computationally efficient. For the three-dimensional homogeneous electron gas, we calculate the correlation energy, the pair distribution function and the static structure function in comparison with simulation results. We also present a new variant of theory, which is interpreted as approximate, self-consistent sum of ladder and ring diagrams of perturbation theory. The theory performs particularly well in the highly dilute density regime.

Boson-fermion duality in four dimensions

Dualities provide deep insight into physics by relating two seemingly distinct theories. Here we propose and elaborate on a novel duality between bosonic and fermionic theories in four spacetime dimensions. Starting with a Euclidean lattice action consisting of bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom and integrating out one of them alternatively, we derive a UV duality between a Wilson fermion with self-interactions and an XY model coupled to a compact U(1) gauge field. We find a continuous phase transition between topological and trivial insulators on the fermion side corresponding to Higgs and confinement phases on the boson side. The continuum limit of each lattice theory then leads to an IR duality between a free Dirac fermion and a scalar QED with the vacuum angle $\pi$. The resulting bosonic theory proves to incorporate a scalar boson and dyons as low-energy degrees of freedom and it is their three-body composite that realizes the Dirac fermion of the fermionic theory.

Holographic complexity for defects distinguishes action from volume

We explore the two holographic complexity proposals for the case of a 2d boundary CFT with a conformal defect. We focus on a Randall-Sundrum type model of a thin AdS2 brane embedded in AdS3. We find that, using the “complexity=volume” proposal, the presence of the defect generates a logarithmic divergence in the complexity of the full boundary state with a coefficient which is related to the central charge and to the boundary entropy. For the “complexity=action” proposal we find that the logarithmically divergent term in the complexity is not influenced by the presence of the defect. This is the first case in which the results of the two holographic proposals differ so dramatically. We consider also the complexity of the reduced density matrix for subregions enclosing the defect. We explore two bosonic field theory models which include two defects on opposite sides of a periodic domain. We point out that for a compact boson, current free field theory definitions of the complexity would have to be generalized to account for the effect of zero-modes.

Subsystem Trace Distance in Quantum Field Theory.

We develop a systematic method to calculate the trace distance between two reduced density matrices in 1+1 dimensional quantum field theories. The approach exploits the path integral representation of the reduced density matrices and an adhoc replica trick. We then extensively apply this method to the calculation of the distance between reduced density matrices of one interval of length ℓ in eigenstates of conformal field theories. When the interval is short, using the operator product expansion of twist operators, we obtain a universal form for the leading order in ℓ of the trace distance. We compute the trace distances among the reduced density matrices of several low lying states in two-dimensional free massless boson and fermion theories. We compare our analytic conformal results with numerical calculations in XX and Ising spin chains finding perfect agreement.

Ground states of long-range interacting fermions in one spatial dimension

We systematically explore the ground state properties of one dimensional fermions with long-range interactions decaying in a power law ∼ through the density matrix renormalization group algorithm. By comparing values of Luttinger liquid parameters precisely measured in two different ways, we show convincing evidence that Luttinger liquid theory is valid if is larger than some threshold, otherwise the theory breaks down. Combining analysis on structure factor, charge gap and charge stiffness, we determine how the metal–insulator transition point develops as the interaction range is continuously tuned. A region in the range of has small interactions and finite charge gaps, but, interestingly, it shows metallic nature at the same time. We obtain approximate phase diagrams for the entire parameter space and for band fillings equal to 1/2 and 1/3. Finally, we compare certain bosonization and field theory formulas with our quasi-exact numerical results, from which disagreements are found.

Chiral Y junction of quantum spin chains

We study a Y junction of spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains with an interaction that breaks both time-reversal and chain exchange symmetries, but not their product nor SU(2) symmetry. The boundary phase diagram features a stable disconnected fixed point at weak coupling and a stable three-channel Kondo fixed point at strong coupling, separated by an unstable chiral fixed point at intermediate coupling. Using non-abelian bosonization and boundary conformal field theory, together with density matrix renormalization group and quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we characterize the signatures of these low-energy fixed points. In particular, we address the boundary entropy, the spin conductance, and the temperature dependence of the scalar spin chirality and the magnetic susceptibility at the boundary.

Shear sound of two-dimensional Fermi liquids

We study the appearance of a sharp collective mode which features transverse current fluctuations within the bosonization approach to interacting two-dimensional Fermi liquids. This mode is analogous to the shear sound modes in elastic media, and, unlike the conventional zero sound mode, it is damped in weakly interacting Fermi liquids and only separates away from the particle-hole continuum when the quasiparticle mass becomes twice the transport mass $m^* \gtrsim 2 m$. The shear sound should be present in a large class of interacting charged and neutral Fermi liquids especially those proximate to critical points where the quasiparticle mass diverges. In metals this mode remains linearly dispersing in the presence of the long-ranged Coulomb force, unlike the conventional zero sound mode which becomes the plasma mode. We also detail a quick path between bosonization and classical Landau's Fermi liquid theory by constructing a mapping between the solutions of the classical kinetic equation and the quantized bosonic eigenmodes. By further mapping the kinetic equation into a 1D tight-binding model we solve for the entire spectrum of collective and incoherent particle-hole excitations of Fermi liquids with non-zero $F_0$ and $F_1$ Landau parameters.

Symmetry-Broken Many-Body Excited States of the Gaseous Atomic Double-Well Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Macroscopic, many-body self-trapped and quantum superposition states of the gaseous double-well Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) are investigated within the context of a multiconfigurational bosonic self-consistent field theory based upon underlying spatially symmetry-broken one-body wave functions. To aid in the interpretation of our results, an approximate model is constructed in the extreme Fock state limit, in which self-trapped and superposition states emerge in the many-body spectrum, striking a delicate balance between the degree of symmetry breaking, the effects of the condensate's mean field, and that of atomic correlation. It is found, in both the model and full theory, that the superposition state lies energetically below its related self-trapped counterpart even when many configurations are involved. Noticeably different spatial density profiles are associated with each type of excited state, thus providing a rigorous justification for approximate descriptions of high-lying excited states of the BEC.

Extraction of topological information in Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids

We discuss expectation values of the twist operator $U$ appearing in the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem (or the polarization operator for periodic systems) in excited states of the one-dimensional correlated systems $z_L^{(q,\pm)}\equiv\braket{\Psi_{q/2}^{\pm}|U^q|\Psi_{q/2}^{\pm}}$, where $\ket{\Psi_{p}^{\pm}}$ denotes the excited states given by linear combinations of momentum $2pk_{\rm F}$ with parity $\pm 1$. We found that $z_L^{(q,\pm)}$ gives universal values $\pm 1/2$ on the Tomonaga-Luttinger (TL) fixed point, and its signs identify the topology of the dominant phases. Therefore, this expectation value changes between $\pm 1/2$ discontinuously at a phase transition point with the U(1) or SU(2) symmetric Gaussian universality class. This means that $z_L^{(q,\pm)}$ extracts the topological information of TL liquids. We explain these results based on the free-fermion picture and the bosonization theory, and also demonstrate them in several physical systems.

The analytic functional bootstrap. Part II. Natural bases for the crossing equation

We clarify the relationships between different approaches to the conformal bootstrap. A central role is played by the so-called extremal functionals. They are linear functionals acting on the crossing equation which are directly responsible for the optimal bounds of the numerical bootstrap. We explain in detail that the extremal functionals probe the Regge limit. We construct two complete sets of extremal functionals for the crossing equation specialized to z=overline{z} , associated to the generalized free boson and fermion theories. These functionals lead to non-perturbative sum rules on the CFT data which automatically incorporate Regge boundedness of physical correlators. The sum rules imply universal properties of the OPE at large Δ in every unitary solution of SL(2) crossing. In particular, we prove an upper and lower bound on a weighted sum of OPE coefficients present between consecutive generalized free field dimensions. The lower bound implies the ϕ × ϕ OPE must contain at least one primary in the interval [2Δϕ + 2n, 2Δϕ + 2n + 4] for all sufficiently large integer n. The functionals directly compute the OPE decomposition of crossing-symmetrized Witten exchange diagrams in AdS2. Therefore, they provide a derivation of the Polyakov bootstrap for SL(2), in particular fixing the so-called contact-term ambiguity. We also use the resulting sum rules to bootstrap several Witten diagrams in AdS2 up to two loops.

The mathrm{T}overline{mathrm{T}} perturbation and its geometric interpretation

Starting from the recently-discovered mathrm{T}overline{mathrm{T}} -perturbed Lagrangians, we prove that the deformed solutions to the classical EoMs for bosonic field theories are equivalent to the unperturbed ones but for a specific field-dependent local change of coordinates. This surprising geometric outcome is fully consistent with the identification of mathrm{T}overline{mathrm{T}} -deformed 2D quantum field theories as topological JT gravity coupled to generic matter fields. Although our conclusion is valid for generic interacting potentials, it first emerged from a detailed study of the sine-Gordon model and in particular from the fact that solitonic pseudo-spherical surfaces embedded in ℝ3 are left invariant by the deformation. Analytic and numerical results concerning the perturbation of specific sine-Gordon soliton solutions are presented.

On effective field theory of F-theory beyond leading order

We construct a proposal for effective bosonic field theory at order in twelve dimensions, whose compactification on a circle and on a torus respectively yields eleven-dimensional and type IIB supergravity theories at eight-derivative level. The couplings , , , and in twelve-dimensional supergravity are determined with this requirement that an ansatz of these couplings should admits a consistent truncation to the eleven-dimensional and type IIB supergravity theories. The self-duality condition of the five-form field strength in twelve dimensions is also understood by considering the RR five-form field strength of type IIB theory at linear order.

Momentum-space entanglement after smooth quenches

We compute the total amount of entanglement produced between momentum modes at late times after a smooth mass quench in free bosonic and fermionic quantum field theories. The entanglement and Rényi entropies are obtained in closed form as a function of the parameters characterizing the quench protocol. For bosons, we show that the entanglement production is more significant for light modes and for fast quenches. In particular, infinitely slow or adiabatic quenches do not produce any entanglement. Depending on the quench profile, the decrease as a function of the quench rate delta t can be either monotonic or oscillating. In the fermionic case the situation is more subtle and there is a critical value for the quench amplitude above which this behavior is changed and the entropies become peaked at intermediate values of momentum and of the quench rate. We also show that the results agree with the predictions of a Generalized Gibbs Ensemble and obtain explicitly its parameters in terms of the quench data.

Effect of Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction on quantum entanglement in superconductors models of high Tc

The modified spin-wave (MSW) theory and SU(N) Schwinger boson theory (SBW) are employed to study the quantum entanglement in one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) Heisenberg antiferromagnets with Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya (DM) interaction which are models to superconducting materials of high critical temperature T c such as La2 CuO4 . For the 1D case, we consider integer spin and for 2D case, since the behavior is independent on the spin value, we consider the one-half-spin and square lattice. We get the entanglement entropy in function of the temperature T where we have not gotten large variation of the quantum entanglement with the changing of the anisotropy Δ and DM interaction constant D .

Local action for fermionic unconstrained higher spin gauge fields in AdS and dS spacetimes

The local free action principle for bosonic unconstrained higher spin gauge fields in $d$-dimensional (A)dS$_d$ spacetime has been already established by Segal. However, later on, Schuster and Toro, in 4-dimensional flat spacetime, extracted such an action from their bosonic continuous spin gauge theory, when the continuous spin parameter vanishes. On the other hand, similar to the Schuster-Toro's action, we found the fermionic continuous spin gauge theory in 4-dimensional flat spacetime. Thus it is noteworthy to take out its fermionic higher spin formulation in a limit, and generalize it to $d$-dimensional (A)dS$_d$ spacetime. Therefore, in this paper, we will present a similar action principle \`a la Segal for fermions in $d$-dimensional (A)dS$_d$ spacetime. Moreover, at the level of equations of motion, we will demonstrate how the Fronsdal and the Fang-Fronsdal equations in $d$-dimensional (A)dS$_d$ spacetime are related, respectively, to the Euler-Lagrange equations of the bosonic and fermionic higher spin actions mentioned above.

Low-energy effective theory at a quantum critical point of the two-dimensional Hubbard model: Mean-field analysis

We complement previous functional renormalization group (fRG) studies of the two-dimensional Hubbard model by mean-field calculations. The focus falls on Van Hove filling and the the hopping amplitude t'/t=0.341. The fRG data suggest a quantum critical point (QCP) in this region and in its vicinity a singular fermionic self-energy, Im $\Sigma(\omega)/\omega \sim |\omega|^{-\gamma}$ with $\gamma\approx 0.26$. Here we start a more detailed investigation of this QCP using a bosonic formulation for the effective action, where the bosons couple to the order parameter fields. To this end, we use the channel decomposition of the fermionic effective action developed in [Phys. Rev. B 79, 195125 (2009)], which allows to perform Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations for all relevant order parameter fields at any given energy scale. We stop the flow at a scale where the correlations of the order parameter field are already pronounced, but the flow is still regular, and derive the effective boson theory. It contains d-wave superconducting, magnetic, and density-density interactions. We analyze the resulting phase diagram in the mean-field approximation. We show that the singular fermionic self-energy suppresses gap formation both in the superconducting and magnetic channel already at the mean-field level, thus rounding a first-order transition (without self-energy) to a quantum phase transition (with self-energy). We give a simple effective model that shows the generality of this effect. In the two-dimensional Hubbard model, the effective density-density interaction is peaked at a nonzero frequency, so that solving the mean-field equations already involves a functional equation instead of simply a matrix equation (on a technical level, similar to incommensurate phases). Within a certain approximation, we show that such an interaction leads to a short quasiparticle lifetime.

Melonic theories over diverse number systems

Melonic field theories are defined over the $p$-adic numbers with the help of a sign character. Our construction works over the reals as well as the $p$-adics, and it includes the fermionic and bosonic Klebanov-Tarnopolsky models as special cases; depending on the sign character, the symmetry group of the field theory can be either orthogonal or symplectic. Analysis of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the two-point function in the leading melonic limit shows that power law scaling behavior in the infrared arises for fermionic theories when the sign character is non-trivial, and for bosonic theories when the sign character is trivial. In certain cases, the Schwinger-Dyson equation can be solved exactly using a quartic polynomial equation, and the solution interpolates between the ultraviolet scaling controlled by the spectral parameter and the universal infrared scaling. As a by-product of our analysis, we see that melonic field theories defined over the real numbers can be modified by replacing the time derivative by a bilocal kinetic term with a continuously variable spectral parameter. The infrared scaling of the resulting two-point function is universal, independent of the spectral parameter of the ultraviolet theory.

Closed string symmetries in open string field theory: tachyon vacuum as sine-square deformation

We revisit the identity-based solutions for tachyon condensation in open bosonic string field theory (SFT) from the viewpoint of the sine-square deformation (SSD). The string Hamiltonian derived from the simplest solution includes the sine-square factor, which is the same as that of an open system with SSD in the context of condensed matter physics. We show that the open string system with SSD or its generalization exhibits decoupling of the left and right moving modes and so it behaves like a system with a periodic boundary condition. With a method developed by Ishibashi and Tada, we construct pairs of Virasoro generators in this system, which represent symmetries for a closed string system. Moreover, we find that the modified BRST operator in the open SFT at the identity-based tachyon vacuum decomposes to holomorphic and antiholomorphic parts, and these reflect closed string symmetries in the open SFT. On the basis of SSD and these decomposed operators, we construct holomorphic and antiholomorphic continuous Virasoro algebras at the tachyon vacuum. These results imply that it is possible to formulate a pure closed string theory in terms of the open SFT at the identity-based tachyon vacuum.

Flows, fixed points and duality in Chern-Simons-matter theories

It has been conjectured that 3d fermions minimally coupled to Chern-Simons gauge fields are dual to 3d critical scalars, also minimally coupled to Chern-Simons gauge fields. The large N arguments for this duality can formally be used to show that Chern-Simons-gauged critical (Gross-Neveu) fermions are also dual to gauged ‘regular ’ scalars at every order in a 1/N expansion, provided both theories are well-defined (when one fine-tunes the two relevant parameters of each of these theories to zero). In the strict large N limit these ‘quasi-bosonic’ theories appear as fixed lines parameterized by x6, the coefficient of a sextic term in the potential. While x6 is an exactly marginal deformation at leading order in large N, it develops a non-trivial β function at first subleading order in 1/N. We demonstrate that the beta function is a cubic polynomial in x6 at this order in 1/N, and compute the coefficients of the cubic and quadratic terms as a function of the ’t Hooft coupling. We conjecture that flows governed by this leading large N beta function have three fixed points for x6 at every non-zero value of the ’t Hooft coupling, implying the existence of three distinct regular bosonic and three distinct dual critical fermionic conformal fixed points, at every value of the ’t Hooft coupling. We analyze the phase structure of these fixed point theories at zero temperature. We also construct dual pairs of large N fine-tuned renormalization group flows from supersymmetric mathcal{N}=2 Chern-Simons-matter theories, such that one of the flows ends up in the IR at a regular boson theory while its dual partner flows to a critical fermion theory. This construction suggests that the duality between these theories persists at finite N, at least when N is large.

Theory of metal-insulator transitions in graphite under high magnetic field

Graphite under high magnetic field exhibits consecutive metal-insulator (MI) transitions as well as re-entrant insulator-metal (IM) transition in the quasi-quantum limit at low temperature. In this paper, we identify the low-$T$ insulating phases as excitonic insulators with spin nematic orderings. We first point out that graphite under the relevant field regime is in the charge neutrality region, where electron and hole densities compensate each other. Based on this observation, we introduce interacting electron models with electron pocket(s) and hole pocket(s) and enumerate possible umklapp scattering processes allowed under the charge neutrality. Employing effective boson theories for the electron models and renormalization group (RG) analyses for the boson theories, we show that there exist critical interaction strengths above which the umklapp processes become relevant and the system enter excitonic insulator phases with long-range order of spin superconducting phase fields ("spin nematic excitonic insulator"). We argue that, when a pair of electron and hole pockets get smaller in size, a quantum fluctuation of the spin superconducting phase becomes larger and destabilizes the excitonic insulator phases, resulting in the re-entrant IM transitions. We also show that an odd-parity excitonic pairing between the electron and hole pockets reconstruct surface chiral Fermi arc states of electron and hole into a 2-dimensional helical surface state with a gapless Dirac cone. We discuss field- and temperature-dependences of in-plane resistance by surface transports via these surface states.