Chiral Hamiltonians Research Articles

Transfer matrix analysis of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians: asymptotic spectra and topological eigenvalues

Transfer matrix techniques are used to provide a new proof of Widom’s results on the asymptotic spectral theory of finite block Toeplitz matrices. Furthermore, a rigorous treatment of the skin effect, spectral outliers, the generalized Brillouin zone and the bulk-boundary correspondence in such systems is given. This covers chiral Hamiltonians with topological eigenvalues close to zero, but no line-gap.

Mode-shell correspondence, a unifying phase space theory in topological physics - Part I: Chiral number of zero-modes

We propose a theory, that we call the , which relates the topological zero-modes localised in phase space to a invariant defined on the surface forming a shell enclosing these zero-modes. We show that the mode-shell formalism provides a general framework unifying important results of topological physics, such as the bulk-edge correspondence, higher-order topological insulators, but also the Atiyah-Singer and the Callias index theories. In this paper, we discuss the already rich phenomenology of chiral symmetric Hamiltonians where the topological quantity is the chiral number of zero-dimensional zero-energy modes. We explain how, in a lot of cases, the shell-invariant has a semi-classical limit expressed as a generalised winding number on the shell, which makes it accessible to analytical computations.

An invariant measure of chiral quantum transport

We study the invariant measure of the transport correlator for a chiral Hamiltonian and analyze its properties. The Jacobian of the invariant measure is a function of random phases. Then we distinguish the invariant measure before and after the phase integration. In the former case we found quantum diffusion of fermions and a uniform zero mode that is associated with particle conservation. After the phase integration the transport correlator reveals two types of evolution processes, namely classical diffusion and back-folded random walks. Which one dominates the other depends on the details of the underlying chiral Hamiltonian and may lead either to classical diffusion or to the suppression of diffusion.

Fledgling Quantum Spin Hall Effect in Pseudo Gap Phase of Bi2212

We studied the emergence of the quantum spin Hall (QSH) states for the pseudo-gap (PG) phase of Bi2212 bilayer system, assumed to be D-density wave (DDW) ordered, starting with a strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) armed, and the time reversal symmetry (TRS) complaint Bloch Hamiltonian. The presence of strong SOC gives rise to non-trivial, spin-momentum locked spin texture tunable by electric field. The emergence of quantum anomalous Hall effect with TRS broken Chiral DDW Hamiltonian of Das Sarma et al. is found to be possible.

Spin-Ruijsenaars, q-Deformed Haldane–Shastry and Macdonald Polynomials

We study the q-analogue of the Haldane–Shastry model, a partially isotropic (xxz-like) long-range spin chain that by construction enjoys quantum-affine (really: quantum-loop) symmetries at finite system size. We derive the pairwise form of the Hamiltonian, found by one of us building on work of D. Uglov, via ‘freezing’ from the affine Hecke algebra. To this end we first obtain explicit expressions for the spin-Macdonald operators of the (trigonometric) spin-Ruijsenaars model. Through freezing these give rise to the higher Hamiltonians of the spin chain, including another Hamiltonian of the opposite ‘chirality’. The sum of the two chiral Hamiltonians has a real spectrum also when |mathsf {q}|=1, so in particular when q is a root of unity. For generic mathsf {q} the eigenspaces are known to be labelled by ‘motifs’. We clarify the relation between these patterns and the corresponding degeneracies (multiplicities) in the crystal limit textsf {q}rightarrow infty . For each motif we obtain an explicit expression for the exact eigenvector, valid for generic q, that has (‘pseudo’ or ‘l-’) highest weight in the sense that, in terms of the operators from the monodromy matrix, it is an eigenvector of A and D and annihilated by C. It has a simple component featuring the ‘symmetric square’ of the q-Vandermonde polynomial times a Macdonald polynomial—or more precisely its quantum spherical zonal special case. All other components of the eigenvector are obtained from this through the action of the Hecke algebra, followed by ‘evaluation’ of the variables to roots of unity. We prove that our vectors have highest weight upon evaluation. Our description of the exact spectrum is complete. The entire model, including the quantum-loop action, can be reformulated in terms of polynomials. Our main tools are the Y-operators from the affine Hecke algebra. From a more mathematical perspective the key step in our diagonalisation is as follows. We show that on a subspace of suitable polynomials the first M ‘classical’ (i.e. no difference part) Y-operators in N variables reduce, upon evaluation as above, to Y-operators in M variables with parameters at the quantum zonal spherical point.

Why the first magic-angle is different from others in twisted graphene bilayers: Interlayer currents, kinetic and confinement energy, and wave-function localization

The chiral Hamiltonian for twisted graphene bilayers is analyzed in terms of its squared Hamiltonian which removes the particle-hole symmetry and thus one bipartite lattice, allowing us to write the Hamiltonian in terms of a $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}2$ matrix. This brings to the front the three main physical actors of twisted systems: kinetic energy, confinement potential, and an interlayer interaction operator which is divided in two parts: a non-Abelian interlayer operator and an operator which contains an interaction energy between layers. Here, each of these components is analyzed as a function of the angle of rotation as well as in terms of the wave-function localization properties. It is proved that the non-Abelian operator represents interlayer currents between each layer of triangular sublattices, i.e., a second-neighbor interlayer current between bipartite sublattices. A crossover is seen between such contributions, and thus, the first magic-angle is different from other higher-order magic-angles. Such angles are determined by a balance between the negative energy contribution from interlayer currents and the positive contributions from the kinetic and confinement energies. A perturbative analysis performed around the first magic-angle allows us to explore analytically the details of such an energy balance.

Properties of Neutron Star Crust with Improved Nuclear Physics: Impact of Chiral EFT Interactions and Experimental Nuclear Masses

A compressible liquid-drop approach adjusted to uniform matter many-body calculations based on chiral EFT interactions and to the experimental nuclear masses is used to investigate the neutron star crust properties. Eight chiral EFT hamiltonians and a representative phenomenological force (SLy4) are confronted. We show that some properties of the crust, e.g. clusters mass, charge, and asymmetry, are mostly determined by symmetric matter properties close to saturation density and are therefore mainly constrained by experimental nuclear masses, while other properties, e.g., energy per particle, pressure, sound speed, are mostly influenced by low-density predictions in neutron matter, where chiral EFT and phenomenological forces substantially differ.

Reduction of the twisted bilayer graphene chiral Hamiltonian into a 2×2 matrix operator and physical origin of flat bands at magic angles

The chiral Hamiltonian for twisted graphene bilayers is written as a $2\times2$ matrix operator by a renormalization of the Hamiltonian that takes into account the particle-hole symmetry. This results in an effective Hamiltonian with an average field plus and effective non-Abelian gauge potential. The action of the proposed renormalization maps the zero-mode region into the ground state. Modes near zero energy have an antibonding nature in a triangular lattice. This leads to a phase-frustration effect associated with massive degeneration, and makes flat-bands modes similar to confined modes observed in other bipartite lattices. Suprisingly, the proposed Hamiltonian renormalization suggests that flat-bands at magic angles are akin to floppy-mode bands in flexible crystals or glasses, making an unexpected connection between rigidity topological theory and magic angle twisted two-dimensional heterostructures physics.

Implementation of Local Chiral Interactions in the Hyperspherical Harmonics Formalism

With the goal of using chiral interactions at various orders to explore the properties of the few-body nuclear systems, we write the recently developed local chiral interactions as spherical irreducible tensors and implement them in the hyperspherical harmonics expansion method. We devote particular attention to three-body forces at next-to-next-to leading order, which play an important role in reproducing experimental data. We check our implementation by benchmarking the ground-state properties of 3H, 3He, and 4He against the available Monte Carlo calculations. We then confirm their order-by-order truncation error estimates and further investigate uncertainties in the charge radii obtained by using the precise muonic atom data for single-nucleon radii. Having local chiral Hamiltonians at various orders implemented in our hyperspherical harmonics suites of codes opens up the possibility to test such interactions on other light-nuclei properties, such as electromagnetic reactions.

Bessel function descriptions of magneto-chiral interactions (DMI)-magnetic and spin flexoelectric skyrmions

In this work we present an exact Bessel function solution to the variation equations for a ground state of the chiral Hamiltonians in the continuum limit for cylindrical symmetry. The solution imposes no constraints on the magnetic spin moment magnitude. The formulation is consistent with the generalized view of U. K. Roessler et al. Nature 442, 797–801 (2006) that both the magnetic moment amplitude and magnetic stiffness ratio are micromagnetic properties and variations in amplitude may be allowed. With the exact solutions, we reveal that the added stabilization energy of the 2D skyrmion relative to the 1D solution is the result of the cylindrical symmetry rather than specifics of the chiral interactions. The methods can be employed to understand Bloch type magnetic spin textures observed in MnSi and FeGe and Néel type magnetization textures in antiferromagnetic dielectrics and ferrimagnetic thin sheets with the application of an electric field.

Operator evolution from the similarity renormalization group and the Magnus expansion

The Magnus expansion is an efficient alternative to solving similarity renormalization group (SRG) flow equations with high-order, memory-intensive ordinary differential equation solvers. The numerical simplifications it offers for operator evolution are particularly valuable for in-medium SRG calculations, though challenges remain for difficult problems involving intruder states. Here we test the Magnus approach in an analogous but more accessible situation, which is the free-space SRG treatment of the spurious bound-states arising from a leading-order chiral effective field theory (EFT) potential with very high cutoffs. We show that the Magnus expansion passes these tests and then use the investigations as a springboard to address various aspects of operator evolution that have renewed relevance in the context of the scale and scheme dependence of nuclear processes. These aspects include SRG operator flow with band- versus block-diagonal generators, universality for chiral EFT Hamiltonians and associated operators with different regularization schemes, and the impact of factorization arising from scale separation. Implications for short-range correlations physics and the possibilities for reconciling high- and low-resolution treatments of nuclear structure and reactions are discussed.

Dissecting the Delta I=1/2 rule at large N_c

We study the scaling of kaon decay amplitudes with the number of colours, N_c, in a theory with four degenerate flavours, N_f=4. In this scenario, two current-current operators, Q^pm , mediate Delta S=1 transitions, such as the two isospin amplitudes of non-leptonic kaon decays for Krightarrow (pi pi )_{I=0,2}, A_0 and A_2. In particular, we concentrate on the simpler Krightarrow pi amplitudes, A^pm , mediated by these two operators. A diagrammatic analysis of the large-N_c scaling of these observables is presented, which demonstrates the anticorrelation of the leading {{mathcal {O}}}(1/N_c) and {{mathcal {O}}}(N_f/N_c^2) corrections in both amplitudes. Using our new N_f=4 and previous quenched data, we confirm this expectation and show that these corrections are naturally large and may be at the origin of the Delta I=1/2 rule. The evidence for the latter is indirect, based on the matching of the amplitudes to their prediction in Chiral Perturbation Theory, from which the LO low-energy couplings of the chiral weak Hamiltonian, g^pm , can be determined. A NLO estimate of the K rightarrow (pi pi )_{I=0,2} isospin amplitudes can then be derived, which is in good agreement with the experimental value.

Many-Body Perturbation Theories for Finite Nuclei

In recent years many-body perturbation theory encountered a renaissance in the field of ab initio nuclear structure theory. In various applications it was shown that perturbation theory, including novel flavors of it, constitutes a useful tool to describe atomic nuclei, either as a full-fledged many-body approach or as an auxiliary method to support more sophisticated non-perturbative many-body schemes. In this work the current status of many-body perturbation theory in the field of nuclear structure is discussed and novel results are provided that highlight its power as a efficient and yet accurate (pre-processing) approach to systematically investigate medium-mass nuclei. Eventually a new generation of chiral nuclear Hamiltonians is benchmarked using several state-of-the-art flavours of many-body perturbation theory.

Novel chiral Hamiltonian and observables in light and medium-mass nuclei

A novel parameterisation of a Hamiltonian based on chiral effective field theory is introduced. Specifically, three-nucleon operators at next-to-next-to-leading order are combined with an existing (and successful) two-body interaction containing terms up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order. The resulting potential is labelled $N\!N\!$+$3N\text{(lnl)}$. The objective of the present work is to investigate the performance of this new Hamiltonian across light and medium-mass nuclei. Binding energies, nuclear radii and excitation spectra are computed using no-core shell model and self-consistent Green's function approaches. Calculations with $N\!N\!$+$3N\text{(lnl)}$ are compared to two other representative Hamiltonians currently in use, namely NNLO$_{\text{sat}}$ and the older $N\!N\!$+$3N(400)$. Overall, the performance of the novel interaction is very encouraging. In light nuclei, total energies are generally in good agreement with experimental data. Known spectra are also well reproduced with a few notable exceptions. The good description of ground-state energies carries on to heavier nuclei, all the way from oxygen to nickel isotopes. Except for those involving excitation processes across the $N=20$ gap, which is overestimated by the new interaction, spectra are of very good quality, in general superior to those obtained with NNLO$_{\text{sat}}$. Although largely improving on $N\!N\!$+$3N(400)$ results, charge radii calculated with $N\!N\!$+$3N\text{(lnl)}$ still underestimate experimental values, as opposed to the ones computed with NNLO$_{\text{sat}}$ that successfully reproduce available data on nickel. On the whole, the new two- plus three-nucleon Hamiltonian introduced in the present work represents a promising alternative to existing nuclear interactions.

Global Sensitivity Analysis of Bulk Properties of an Atomic Nucleus.

We perform a global sensitivity analysis of the binding energy and the charge radius of the nucleus ^{16}O to identify the most influential low-energy constants in the next-to-next-to-leading order chiral Hamiltonian with two- and three-nucleon forces. For this purpose, we develop a subspace-projected coupled-cluster method using eigenvector continuation [Frame D. etal., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 032501 (2018)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.121.032501]. With this method, we compute the binding energy and charge radius of ^{16}O at more than 10^{6} different values of the 16 low-energy constants in one hour on a standard laptop computer. For relatively small subspace projections, the root-mean-square error is about 1% compared to full-space coupled-cluster results. We find that 58(1)% of the variance in energy can be apportioned to a single contact term in the ^{3}S_{1} wave, whereas the radius depends sensitively on several low-energy constants and their higher-order correlations. The results identify the most important parameters for describing nuclear saturation and help prioritize efforts for uncertainty reduction of theoretical predictions. The achieved acceleration opens up an array of computational statistics analyses of the underlying description of the strong nuclear interaction in nuclei across the Segrè chart.

Onsager symmetries in -invariant clock models

We show how the Onsager algebra, used in the original solution of the two-dimensional Ising model, arises as an infinite-dimensional symmetry of certain self-dual models that also have a symmetry. We describe in detail the example of nearest-neighbour n-state clock chains whose symmetry is enhanced to . As a consequence of the Onsager-algebra symmetry, the spectrum of these models possesses degeneracies with multiplicities 2N for positive integer N. We construct the elements of the algebra explicitly from transfer matrices built from non-fundamental representations of the quantum-group algebra . We analyse the spectra further by using both the coordinate Bethe ansatz and a functional approach, and show that the degeneracies result from special exact n-string solutions of the Bethe equations. We also find a family of commuting chiral Hamiltonians that break the degeneracies and allow an integrable interpolation between ferro- and antiferromagnets.

Microscopic multiphonon approach to nuclei with a valence hole in the oxygen region

An equation of motion phonon method, developed for even nuclei and recently extended to odd systems with a valence particle, is formulated in the hole-phonon coupling scheme and applied to $A=15$ and $A=21$ isobars with a valence hole. The method derives a set of equations which yield an orthonormal basis of states composed of a hole coupled to an orthonormal basis of correlated $n$-phonon states ($n=0,1,2,\ensuremath{\cdots}$), built of constituent Tamm-Dancoff phonons, describing the excitations of a doubly magic core. The basis is then adopted to solve the full eigenvalue problem. The method is formally exact but lends itself naturally to simplifying approximations. Self-consistent calculations using a chiral Hamiltonian in a space encompassing up to two-phonon and three-phonon basis states in $A=21$ and $A=15$ nuclei, respectively, yield full spectra, moments, electromagnetic and $\ensuremath{\beta}$-decay transition strengths, and electric dipole cross sections. The analysis of the hole-phonon composition of the eigenfunctions contributes to clarify the mechanism of excitation of levels and resonances and to understand the reasons of the deviations of the theory from the experiments. Prescriptions for reducing these discrepancies are suggested.

Nonlinear optical conductivity of Weyl semimetals in the terahertz regime

We analyze the nonlinear optical properties in Weyl semimetals which result from the intraband and the interband contributions around the Weyl points respectively. Based on the Boltzmann equation and the Floquet method to the Schrödinger equation under the tight-binding model we can calculate any order of nonlinear optical conductivity in the Terahertz regime with the effective chiral Hamiltonian used. We find that the influences of the interband transition and intraband term on the optical properties of the system are opposite each other when increasing frequency and interband transitions dominates the optical responses. The part of the linear conductivity of the system which is contributed from the intraband electric motion increases when the relaxation time reduces and the part of the linear conductivity from the interband transitions increases with the decrease of the temperature. The part of the third harmonic generation which is contributed to the interband transitions is proportional to ω−3 and will be considerable when the frequency become small enough. The nonlinear terms enhance the optical reponses of Weyl semimetals and provide more information about the critical properties.

Microscopic predictions of the nuclear matter liquid-gas phase transition

We present first-principle predictions for the liquid-gas phase transition in symmetric nuclear matter employing both two- and three-nucleon chiral interactions. Our discussion focuses on the sources of systematic errors in microscopic quantum many body predictions. On the one hand, we test uncertainties of our results arising from changes in the construction of chiral Hamiltonians. We use five different chiral forces with consistently derived three-nucleon interactions. On the other hand, we compare the ladder resummation in the self-consistent Green's functions approach to finite temperature Brueckner--Hartree--Fock calculations. We find that systematics due to Hamiltonians dominate over many-body uncertainties. Based on this wide pool of calculations, we estimate that the critical temperature is $T_c=16 \pm 2$ MeV, in reasonable agreement with experimental results. We also find that there is a strong correlation between the critical temperature and the saturation energy in microscopic many-body simulations.

Large-cutoff behavior of local chiral effective field theory interactions

Interactions from chiral effective field theory have been successfully employed in a broad range of \textit{ab initio} calculations of nuclei and nuclear matter, but it has been observed that most results of few- and many-body calculations experience a substantial residual regulator and cutoff dependence. In this work, we investigate the behavior of local chiral potentials at leading order under variation of the cutoff scale for different local regulators. When varying the cutoff, we require that the resulting interaction produces no spurious bound states in the deuteron channel. We find that, for a particular choice of leading-order operators, nucleon-nucleon phase shifts and the deuteron ground-state energy converge to cutoff-independent plateaus, for all regulator functions we investigate. This observation may enable improved calculations with chiral Hamiltonians that also include three-nucleon interactions.