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At least 451 records · Page 25

Photoionization branching ratios of spin-orbit doublets far above thresholds: Interchannel and relativistic effects in the noble gases

Photoionization branching ratios of all of the spin-orbit doublets in the noble gas atoms Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe have been investigated theoretically at energies well above the thresholds. The results confirm in all cases that the general behavior of the branching ratios is to decrease monotonically below their statistical value with increasing photon energy. Here, this effect gets more pronounced with increasing Z. In addition, the branching ratios can be strongly affected by interchannel coupling with inner shell photoionization channels. Although these effects are strongest in the neighborhood of the inner shell thresholds, they can persist over a broad range of energies,

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Cheaper and more noise-resilient quantum state preparation using eigenvector continuation

Subspace methods are powerful, noise-resilient methods that can effectively prepare ground states on quantum computers. The challenge is to get a subspace with a small condition number that spans the states of interest using minimal quantum resources. In this work, we will use eigenvector continuation to build a subspace from the low-lying states of a set of Hamiltonians. The basis vectors are prepared using truncated versions of standard state preparation methods such as imaginary-time evolution (ITE), adiabatic state preparation (ASP), and variational quantum eigensolver. By using these truncated methods combined with eigenvector continuation, we can directly improve upon them, obtaining more accurate ground-state energies at a reduced cost. We use several spin systems to demonstrate convergence even when methods like ITE and ASP fail, such as ASP in the presence of level crossings and ITE with vanishing energy gaps. We also showcase the noise resilience of this approach beyond the gains already made by having shallower quantum circuits. Furthermore, our findings suggest that eigenvector continuation can be used to improve existing state preparation methods in the near term.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Electron Tunneling and X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Studies of the Superconducting Properties of Nitrogen-Doped Niobium Resonator Cavities

Scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to investigate the differences between the surface electronic structures and chemical structure of typically prepared and N-doped Nb cutouts from superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities. The goal of this work is to get insights into the fundamental physics and materials mechanisms behind the striking decrease of the surface resistance with the radiofrequency magnetic field, which has been observed by many groups on N-doped Nb cavities. In particular, we address the effects of N-doping on the superconducting properties at the surface of SRF cavities. XPS measurements reveal a significantly more oxidized Nb 3d states on the N-doped Nb surfaces which is confirmed by tunneling spectroscopy measurements. Analysis of the tunneling spectra in the framework of a recent model (A. Gurevich and T. Kubo Phys. Rev. B 96, 184515 (2017)) shows that the N-doping greatly reduces local distribution of superconducting properties on the surface, causes a significant shrinkage of the metallic suboxide and changes the contact resistance between the metallic suboxide and the bulk niobium toward an optimum value, resulting in a lower surface resistance. Combination of these factors enables one to effectively tune the density of states at the surface and to reveal the decrease of the surface resistance with the radio frequency field which follows from the BCS theory. A slightly reduced average gap and a smaller coherence length, revealed by tunneling spectroscopy in the vortex cores, have been found in the N-doped Nb samples compared to typically prepared Nb samples, indicating a stronger impurity scattering caused by nitrogen doping in a moderately disordered material.

Lechner, Eric M.↗

Nonlinear dynamics and dissipation of a curvilinear vortex driven by a strong time-dependent Meissner current

Here, we report numerical simulations of large-amplitude oscillations of a trapped vortex line under a strong ac magnetic field $\textit{H(t) = H}$ sin$\textit{ωt}$ parallel to the surface. The power dissipated by an oscillating vortex segment driven by the surface ac Meissner currents was calculated by taking into account the nonlinear vortex line tension, vortex mass, and a nonlinear Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) viscous drag coefficient $\textit{η(v)}$. We show that the LO decrease of $\textit{η(v)}$ with the vortex velocity $\textit{v}$ can radically change the field dependence of the surface resistance R i ( H ) caused by trapped vortices. At low frequencies, $R_i(H)$ exhibits a conventional increase with $\textit{H}$, but as $\textit{ω}$ increases, the surface resistance becomes a nonmonotonic function of $\textit{H}$ which decreases with $\textit{H}$ at higher fields. The effects of frequency, pin spacing, and the mean-free path $l_i$ on the field dependence of $R_i(H)$ were calculated. It is shown that, as the surface gets dirtier and $l_i$ decreases, the anomalous drop of $R_i(H)$ with $\textit{H}$ shifts to lower fields which can be much smaller than the lower critical magnetic field. Our numerical simulations also show that the LO decrease of $\textit{η(v)}$ with $\textit{v}$ can cause a vortex bending instability at high field amplitudes and frequencies, giving rise to the formation of dynamic kinks along the vortex. Measurements of $R_i(H)$ caused by sparse vortices trapped perpendicular to the surface can offer opportunities to investigate an extreme nonlinear dynamics of vortices driven by strong current densities up to the depairing limit at low temperatures. The behavior of $R_i(H)$, which can be tuned by varying the rf frequency or concentration of nonmagnetic impurities, is not masked by strong heating effects characteristic of dc or pulse transport measurements.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Alloying vanadium in Mn Bi 2 Te 4 for robust ferromagnetic coupling and quantum anomalous Hall effect

The intrinsic antiferromagnetic (AFM) interlayer coupling in the two-dimensional magnetic topological insulator MnBi 2 Te 4 places a restriction on realizing a stable quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) [Y. Deng et al., Science 367, 895 (2020)]. Through density functional theory calculations, we demonstrate the possibility of tuning the AFM coupling to the ferromagnetic coupling in Mn Bi 2 Te 4 films by alloying about 50% V with Mn. As a result, the QAHE can be achieved without alternation with the even or odd septuple layers. This provides a practical strategy to get a robust QAHE in ultrathin Mn Bi 2 Te 4 films, rendering them attractive for technological innovations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Iterated projected position algorithm for constructing exponentially localized generalized Wannier functions for periodic and nonperiodic insulators in two dimensions and higher

Localized bases play an important role in understanding electronic structure. In periodic insulators, a natural choice of localized basis is given by the Wannier functions which depend on a choice of unitary transform known as a gauge transformation. Over the past few decades, there have been many works that have focused on optimizing the choice of the gauge so that the corresponding Wannier functions are maximally localized or reflect some symmetry of the underlying system. In this work, we consider fully nonperiodic materials where the usual Wannier functions are not well defined and gauge optimization is impractical. To tackle the problem of calculating exponentially localized generalized Wannier functions in both periodic and nonperiodic systems, we discuss the ‘iterated projected position (IPP)” algorithm. Here, the IPP algorithm is based on matrix diagonalization and therefore unlike optimization-based approaches, it does not require initialization and cannot get stuck at a local minimum. Furthermore, the IPP algorithm is guaranteed by a rigorous analysis to produce exponentially localized functions under certain mild assumptions. We numerically demonstrate that the IPP algorithm can be used to calculate exponentially localized bases for the Haldane model, the Kane-Mele model (in both Z 2 invariant even and Z 2 invariant odd phases), and the p x + ip y model on a quasicrystal lattice.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Quantum system dynamics with a weakly nonlinear Josephson junction bath

Here, we investigate the influence of a weakly nonlinear Josephson bath consisting of a chain of Josephson junctions on the dynamics of a small quantum system (LC oscillator). Focusing on the regime where the charging energy is the largest energy scale, we perturbatively calculate the correlation function of the Josephson bath to the leading order in the Josephson energy divided by the charging energy while keeping the cosine potential exactly. When the variation of the charging energy along the chain ensures fast decay of the bath correlation function, the dynamics of the LC oscillator that is weakly and capacitively coupled to the Josephson bath can be solved through the Markovian master equation. We establish a duality relation for the Josephson bath between the regimes of large charging and Josephson energies, respectively. The results can be applied to cases where the charging energy either is nonuniformly engineered or disordered in the chain. Furthermore, we find that the Josephson bath may become non-Markovian when the temperature is increased beyond the zero-temperature limit in that the bath correlation function gets shifted by a constant and does not decay with time.

1-dimensional systems↗

Dimerization and spin decoupling in a two-leg Heisenberg ladder with frustrated trimer rungs

We study the antiferromagnetic spin-half Heisenberg ladder in the presence of an additional frustrating rung spin which is motivated and relevant also for the description of real two-dimensional materials such as the two-dimensional trimer magnet Ba 4 Ir 3 O 10 . We study the zero-temperature phase diagram, where we combine numerical and analytical methods into an overall consistent description. All numerical simulations are also accompanied by studies of the dynamical spin structure factor obtained via the density matrix renormalization group. Overall, we find in the regime of strong rung coupling a gapped dimerized phase related to competing symmetry sectors in Hilbert space that ultimately results in frustration-driven spin-Peierls transition. In the weak rung-coupling regime, the system is uniform, yet shows a gapped spinon continuum together with a sharp coherent low-energy branch which renders the system critical overall. In either case, the additional rung spin quickly get sidelined and nearly decouple in the regime when their bare coupling to the ladder is weakened

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Witnessing entanglement in quantum magnets using neutron scattering

We demonstrate how quantum entanglement can be directly witnessed in the quasi-1D Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuF 3 . We apply three entanglement witnesses—one tangle, two tangle, and quantum Fisher information—to its inelastic neutron spectrum and compare with spectra simulated by finite-temperature density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) and classical Monte Carlo methods. We find that each witness provides direct access to entanglement. Of these, quantum Fisher information is the most robust experimentally and indicates the presence of at least bipartite entanglement up to at least 50 K, corresponding to around 10% of the spinon zone-boundary energy. We apply quantum Fisher information to higher spin-S Heisenberg chains and show theoretically that the witnessable entanglement gets suppressed to lower temperatures as the quantum number increases. Finally, we outline how these results can be applied to higher dimensional quantum materials to witness and quantify entanglement.

1-dimensional systems↗

Crystalline solutions of the Kohn-Sham equations in the fractional quantum Hall regime

A Kohn-Sham density functional approach has recently been developed for the fractional quantum Hall effect, which maps the strongly interacting electrons into a system of weakly interacting composite fermions subject to an exchange correlation potential as well as a density dependent gauge field that mimics the "flux quanta" bound to composite fermions. To get a feel for the role of various terms, we study the behavior of the self-consistent solution as a function of the strength of the exchange correlation potential, which is varied through an ad hoc multiplicative factor. Here, we find that a crystal phase is stabilized when the exchange correlation interaction is sufficiently strong relative to the composite-fermion cyclotron energy. Various properties of this crystal are examined.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Bound state dynamics in the long-range spin- 1 2 XXZ model

Experimental platforms based on trapped ions, cold molecules, and Rydberg atoms have made possible the investigation of highly nonlocal spin-1 / 2 Hamiltonians with long-range couplings. Here, we study the effects of such nonlocal couplings in the long-range spin-1 / 2 XXZ Heisenberg Hamiltonian. Here, we calculate explicitly the two-spin energy spectrum, which describes all possible energetic configurations of two spins pointing in a specific direction embedded in a background of spins with opposite orientation. For fast decay of the spin-spin couplings, we find that the two-spin energy spectrum is characterized by well-defined discrete values, corresponding to bound states, separated by a set of continuum states describing the scattering region. In the deep long-range regime instead, the bound states disappear as they get incorporated by the scattering region. The presence of two-spin bound states results to be crucial to determine both two- and many-spin dynamics. On one hand, radically different two-spin spreadings can be observed by tuning the decay of the spin couplings. On the other hand, two-spin bound states enable the dynamical stabilization of effective antiferromagnetic states in the presence of ferromagnetic couplings. Finally, we propose a novel scheme based on a trapped-ion quantum simulator to experimentally realize the long-range XXZ model and to study its out-of-equilibrium properties.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Discretized evolution of solitons in the achiral stripe phase of a Fe/Gd thin film

Understanding magnetic phase transitions from stripe to skyrmion textures provide fundamental scientific insights into the details of the intermediate topologies through which the system evolves. The solitonic nature of spin texture in both stripe and skyrmion phases has been observed in materials with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. In this study we show that the field evolution in a dipolar interaction mediated Fe/Gd multilayer that exhibits achiral stripe textures behaves similar to a finite-sized chiral soliton lattice. As a function of magnetic field, the stripes exhibit discrete jumps in periodicity indicative of intermediate topologies as the stripes get wound into skyrmions.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Absence of mixed valency for Pr in pristine and hole-doped PrNiO 2

Infinite-layer nickelates (𝑅⁢NiO 2 ) exhibit some distinct differences as compared to cuprate superconductors, leading to a debate concerning the role of rare-earth ions (𝑅=La,Pr,Nd) in the low-energy many-body physics. Although rare-earth 4⁢𝑓 orbitals are typically treated as inert “core” electrons in studies, this approximation has been questioned. An active participation of 4⁢𝑓 states is most likely for PrNiO 2 based on an analogy to cuprates where Pr cuprates differ significantly from other cuprates. Here, we adopt density functional plus dynamical mean-field theory to investigate the role of Pr 4⁢𝑓 orbitals and more generally the correlated electronic structure of PrNiO 2 and its hole-doped variant. We find that the Pr 4⁢𝑓 states are insulating and show no evidence for either a Kondo resonance or Zhang-Rice singlet formation as they do not have any hybridization channels near the Fermi energy. The biggest effects of hole doping are to shift the Pr 5⁢𝑑 and 4⁢𝑓 states further away from the Fermi energy whereas enhancing the Ni 3⁢𝑑−O 2⁢𝑝 hybridization, thus, reducing correlation effects as the O 2⁢𝑝 states get closer to the Fermi energy. We again find no evidence for either Kondo or Zhang-Rice physics for the 4⁢𝑓 states upon hole doping. Finally, we conclude by commenting on implications for other reduced valence nickelates.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Electronic density of states of a U ( 1 ) quantum spin liquid with spinon Fermi surface. II. Zeeman magnetic field effects

The Zeeman effect lowers the energy of electrons with spin states which are antiparallel to the applied magnetic field but lifts that of spin parallel states. In quantum spin liquids where the spin and charge degrees of freedom are fractionalized, an anomalous Zeeman response may be expected. In the case of spin liquids with a spinon Fermi surface, the threshold energy to excite an electronic state is found to exhibit no Zeeman shift. This is specific to the spinon Fermi surface case. In contrast, other gapped spin liquids are expected to exhibit the standard Zeeman shift at the band edge even though they also exhibit spin-charge fractionalization. Further, when gauge-field fluctuations are included, we find that the Zeeman shift of the electronic states gets affected by the gauge field induced binding. In the electronic density of states spectra, weak gauge binding induces band-edge resonance peaks which exhibit the Zeeman shift in the same direction as that in the standard Zeeman effect, but the shift is reduced as the binding potential increases. With further increase in the binding potential, the resonance becomes true in-gap bound states and eventually the Zeeman shift direction reverses so it is opposite to the standard Zeeman effect. We propose that one can perform spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscope measurements as a test of the spinon Fermi sea ground state in quantum spin liquid candidate materials.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Enhancement of charge density wave correlations in a Holstein model with an anharmonic phonon potential

The Holstein Hamiltonian describes itinerant electrons whose site density couples to local phonon degrees of freedom. In the single-site limit, at half filling, the electron-phonon coupling results in a double-well structure for the lattice displacement, favoring empty or doubly occupied sites. In two dimensions and on a bipartite lattice in d ≥ 2, intersite hopping causes these doubly occupied and empty sites to alternate in a charge density wave (CDW) pattern when the temperature is lowered. Because a discrete symmetry is broken, this occurs in a conventional second-order transition at finite T cdw . In this paper, we investigate the effect of changing the phonon potential energy to one with an intrinsic double-well structure even in the absence of electron-phonon coupling. While this aids in the initial process of pair formation, the implications for subsequent CDW order are nontrivial. One expects that, when the electron-phonon coupling is too strong, the double wells become deep and the polaron mass gets large, an effect which reduces T cdw . Here, we show here the existence of regions of parameter space where the double-well potential, while aiding local pair formation, does so in a way which also substantially enhances long-range CDW order.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Engineering a non-Hermitian second-order topological insulator state in quasicrystals

Non-Hermitian topological phases have gained immense attention due to their potential to unlock novel features beyond Hermitian bounds. PT -symmetric (parity time-reversal symmetric) non-Hermitian models have been studied extensively over the past decade. In recent years, the topological properties of general non-Hermitian models, regardless of the balance between gains and losses, have also attracted vast attention. Here, we propose a non-Hermitian second-order topological (SOT) insulator that hosts gapless corner states on a two-dimensional quasicrystalline lattice (QL). We first construct a non-Hermitian extension of the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang model on a QL generated by the Amman-Beenker tiling. This model has real spectra and supports helical edge states. Corner states emerge by adding a proper Wilson-mass term that gaps out the edge states. We propose two variations of the mass term that result in fascinating characteristics. In the first variation, we obtain a purely real spectra for the second-order topological phase. In the latter, we get a complex spectra with corner states localized at only two corners due to the higher-order non-Hermitian skin effect of the edge modes. Furthermore, our findings pave a path to engineering exotic SOT phases where corner states can be localized at designated corners.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Disorder-induced topological phase transition in a driven Majorana chain

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

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Superconducting dome and structural changes in LaRu 3 ⁢Si 2 under pressure

LaRu 3 ⁢Si 2 is of current research interest as a kagome metal with a superconducting transition temperature, 𝑇 𝑐 ∼7 K, and higher-temperature charge density wave orders. Here we report on electrical transport and x-ray diffraction measurements on LaRu 3 ⁢Si 2 under pressure up to 65 GPa and 35 GPa, respectively. The superconducting transition temperature 𝑇 𝑐 first gets slightly enhanced and reaches a maximum ∼8.7 K at ∼8.5 GPa. With further applied pressure, 𝑇 𝑐 is initially gradually suppressed, then more rapidly suppressed, followed by gradual suppression, revealing a superconducting dome. Two possible pressure-induced structural phase transitions are also observed at room temperature, from the original hexagonal phase to another hexagonal structure above ∼11.5 GPa, and further to a structure with lower symmetry above ∼23.5 GPa. These transition pressures roughly correlate with features found in our pressure-dependent transport data.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗