Quantum Matter Seminar

Probing Majorana excitations in the Kitaev magnet α-RuCl3 through bulk heat capacity measurements

July 22 (Mon) at 10:30 - 11:45, 2024

Kumpei Imamura (Ph.D. Student / JSPS Research Fellow DC, Department of Advanced Materials Science, The University of Tokyo)

Recently, the layered honeycomb material α-RuCl3 exhibits several anomalous features that are consistent with expectations of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (KQSL) under in-plane magnetic field. Most remarkably, finite planar thermal Hall conductivity has been observed, whose magnitude is close to the half-integer quantization value expected for the chiral edge currents of Majorana fermions[1]. However, it has been reported that the thermal Hall conductivity shows strong sample dependence. Also, there are attempts to offer a different explanation by the bosonic edge excitations due to topological magnons or phonon. A key to distinguishing between fermionic and bosonic origins of unusual features in the high-field state of α-RuCl3 is the difference in the field angle dependence of the excitation gap. Therefore, we distinguish these origins from combined low-temperature measurements of high-resolution specific heat and thermal Hall conductivity with rotating magnetic fields within the honeycomb plane. A distinct closure of the low-energy bulk gap is observed for the fields in the Ru-Ru bond direction, and the gap opens rapidly when the field is tilted. Notably, this change occurs concomitantly with the sign reversal of the Hall effect. General discussions of topological bands show that this is the hallmark of an angle rotation–induced topological transition of fermions, providing conclusive evidence for the Majorana-fermion origin of the thermal Hall effect in α-RuCl3[2]. Furthermore, to understand the nature of the high-field state, it is crucial to elucidate the effects of disorder, which inevitably exists in real materials. We artificially introduce point defects by electron irradiation and compare the low-energy excitations in the pristine and irradiated sample by high-resolution specific heat measurements. We observed an additional in-gap T-linear term in C/T, whose coefficient shows distinct field-sensitive behaviors suggestive of Majorana physics in the KSL. This can be interpreted by the weak localization of Majorana fermions, which is induced by the disorder[3]. Moreover, recently, we succeed in synthesizing very high-quality crystals of α-RuCl3[4].

Venue: via Zoom / Hybrid Format (3F #359 and Zoom), Seminar Room #359

Event Official Language: English

A symmetry principle for gauge theories with fractons

December 22 (Fri) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Yuji Hirono (Program-Specific Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Division of Physics and Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)

Fractonic phases are emergent quantum phases of matter that host excitations with restricted mobility. Although these phases have been considered to be of “beyond Landau” order, we show that a certain class of gapless fractonic phases are realized as a result of spontaneous breaking of generalized symmetries. The corresponding symmetries are continuous higher-form symmetries whose conserved charges do not commute with spatial translations, and we refer to them as nonuniform higher-form symmetries. For a given set of nonuniform symmetries, the effective theory associated with the spontaneous breaking of them can be constructed. At low energies, the theories reduce to known higher-rank gauge theories such as scalar/vector charge gauge theories, and the gapless excitations in these theories are interpreted as Nambu–Goldstone modes for higher-form symmetries. Due to the nonuniformity of the symmetry, some of the modes acquire a gap, which is the higher-form analogue of the inverse Higgs mechanism of spacetime symmetries. In this formulation, the mobility restrictions are fully determined by the choice of the commutation relations of charges with translations. This approach allows us to view existing (gapless) fracton models such as the scalar/vector charge gauge theories and their variants from a unified perspective and enables us to engineer theories with desired mobility restrictions. Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: fractonic phases, higher-form symmetries, Nambu-Goldstone modes, Higgs mechanism, gauge theories

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Quantum skyrmion Hall effect

September 14 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Ashley Cook (Group Leader, Correlations and Topology, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems and Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Germany)

Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: topology, electron-based quantum skyrmions, spin, Berry curvature Abstract: Topological skyrmion phases of matter are recently-introduced topological phases of electronic systems in equilibrium, in which a system with more than one degree of freedom (e.g. spin and orbital degrees of freedom) realizes a topological state for a subset of the degrees of freedom (e.g. only spin). For topological skyrmion phases of spin, this topology is relevant even if spin is not conserved due to non-negligible atomic spin-orbit coupling, and is distinguished by a skyrmion forming in the spin texture over the Brillouin zone, distinct from a skyrmion forming in the texture of the projector onto occupied states over the Brillouin zone. We present results on three band Bloch Hamiltonians realizing this non-trivial spin topology, and outline some bulk-boundary correspondence features, such as gapless edge states corresponding to zero net charge—but finite spin angular momentum—pumped across the bulk gap. Tracing out the orbital degree of freedom, we can identify this spin pumping with pumping of spin point charges, and local curvature of the k-space spin skyrmion with a Berry curvature of these spin point charges. That is, the spin pumping is identified with pumping of spin magnetic skyrmions, which reduce to point magnetic charges after tracing out the orbital degree of freedom. We therefore identify topological skyrmion phases as lattice counterparts of quantized transport of quantum magnetic skyrmions, a quantum skyrmion Hall effect. This indicates that the theory of the quantum Hall effect must be generalized, by relaxing the assumption of point charges.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Electronic instabilities emerging from higher-order van Hove singularities

July 24 (Mon) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Xinloong Han (Postdoctoral Fellow, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)

Time: 5pm ~ 6:15pm (JST); 10am ~ 11:15am (CET); 4pm ~ 5:15pm (Taiwan) Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: topological superconductor, Van Hove singularity, Hubbard model, Kagome lattices Abstract: Competing correlated electronic states are a central topic in condensed matter physics. A typical example is the close competition between spin density wave and d-wave superconductivity in the Hubbard model on the square lattice near half filling where the band structures have saddle points at which the Fermi surface topology changes from hole type to electron type. The saddle points are called van Hove singularity (VHS) points, and host diverging density of states with power-law behavior in the two dimensions. Recently, another type of VHS, namely the higher-order VHS was investigated in ABC-stacked trilayer graphene and twisted bilayer graphene. In this talk, I will first introduce the higher-order VHS, and make comparisons to the conventional VHS. Then I will discuss the enhanced nematicity driven by large flavor number with higher-order VHSs on the square and Kagome lattices. Finally, I will show that robust topological superconductivity can emerge on the square lattice due to interplay of spin-orbital coupling and higher-order VHSs.

Venue: Hybrid Format (Common Room 246-248 and Zoom)

Event Official Language: English

Quantum skyrmion lattices in Heisenberg ferromagnets

June 8 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Andreas Haller (Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Physics and Materials Science, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)

Skyrmions are topological magnetic textures that can arise in noncentrosymmetric ferromagnetic materials. In most systems experimentally investigated to date, skyrmions emerge as classical objects. However, the discovery of skyrmions with nanometer length scales has sparked interest in their quantum properties. In this talk, I present our (numeric) results on the ground states of unfrustrated two-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg lattices with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, where we discovered a broad region in the zero-temperature phase diagram which hosts quantum skyrmion lattices. The simulations are based on an established variational optimization algorithm for matrix product states called density matrix renormalization group, which can faithfully approximate the ground states of small 2D clusters well beyond system sizes amenable for exact diagonalization. We argue that the quantum skyrmion lattice phase can be detected experimentally in the magnetization profile via local magnetic polarization measurements as well as in the spin structure factor via neutron scattering experiments. Deep in the skyrmion ordered phase, we find that the quantum skyrmion lattice state is only weakly entangled with ‘domain wall' entanglement between quasiparticles and environment localized near the boundary spins of the skyrmion. In this ordered regime of weakly entangled entities, large clusters of O(1000) sites can be simulated with great efficiency. Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: quantum spin systems, topology, density matrix renormalization group

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Ground-state phases of the one-dimensional SU(N)-symmetric Kondo lattice model

May 11 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Keisuke Totsuka (Associate Professor, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University)

The Kondo-lattice model and its variants (e.g., the Kondo-Heisenberg model), in which itinerant fermions interact with immobile magnetic moments via spin-exchange coupling (Kondo coupling), have been playing an important role in understanding the physics of heavy-fermion systems. In this talk, I begin by quickly explaining how the SU(N) Kondo-lattice model, in which the spin SU(2) symmetry is generalized to SU(N), is realized in actual physical systems (e.g., cold fermions and twisted bilayer graphene), and then I focus on the ground-state properties of its one-dimensional version. Specifically, when the Kondo coupling is sufficiently large, we find ferromagnetic metallic phases that can be established rigorously as well as several insulating ones. I also show that the SU(N) Kondo-lattice model provides a natural condensed-matter realization of supersymmetric [i.e., SU(N|1)] models. Various (insulating) phases at small Kondo coupling are then explored using the machinery of bosonization and various conformal field theory (CFT) techniques, and the results are compared with the predictions of the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis-type (or anomaly-matching) argument. Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: Kondo lattice model, SU(N) symmetry, supersymmetry, heavy-fermion systems, bosonization, conformal field theory

Venue: via Webex

Event Official Language: English

Topological Kondo superconductors

March 2 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Yung-Yeh Chang (Postdoctoral Researcher, National Center for Theoretical Sciences & National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)

Spin-triplet p-wave superconductors are promising candidates for topological superconductors. They have been proposed in various heterostructures where a material with strong spin-orbit interaction is coupled to a conventional s-wave superconductor by proximity effect. However, topological superconductors existing in nature and driven purely by strong electron correlations are yet to be studied. Here we propose a realization of such a system in a class of Kondo lattice materials in the absence of proximity effect. Therein, the odd-parity Kondo hybridization mediates ferromagnetic spin-spin coupling and leads to spin-triplet resonant-valence-bond (t-RVB) pairing between local moments. Spin-triplet p±p’ wave topological superconductivity is reached when Kondo effect co-exists with t-RVB [1]. We identify the topological nature by the non-trivial topological invariant and the Majorana zero modes at edges. Our results on the superconducting transition temperature, Kondo coherent scale, and onset temperature of Kondo hybridization not only qualitatively but also quantitatively agree with the observations for UTe2, a U-based ferromagnetic heavy-electron superconductor. *This work is supported by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan. Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: strongly correlated systems, topological superconductor, Kondo effect, resonant valence bond, heavy-fermion compounds

Venue: via Webex

Event Official Language: English

Entanglement in non-Hermitian quantum systems and non-unitary conformal field theories

February 9 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2023

Chang Po-Yao (Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan)

Time: 5pm ~ 6:15pm (JST); 9am ~ 10:15am (CET); 4pm ~ 5:15pm (Taiwan) Entanglement is a powerful tool to diagnose many-body quantum systems. One example is the critical system where the low energy property can be described by conformal field theories (CFTs), and the central charge which uniquely characterizes the CFT can be perfectly extracted from the entanglement entropy. However, the entanglement properties for non-unitary CFTs are not well understood. Moreover, the entanglement properties in many-body microscopic models which can be described by non-unitary CFTs have not been explored. In this talk, I would like to demonstrate several non-Hermitian systems which can be described by non-unitary CFTs, and show their entanglement properties can be correctly obtained by the proposed generic entanglement entropy. Field: Condensed Matter Physics Keywords: non-Hermitian systems, conformal field theory, many-body systems, entanglement entropy

Venue: via Webex

Event Official Language: English

Phantom Bethe excitations and spin helices in integrable spin chains

September 15 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2022

Vladislav Popkov (University Wuppertal, Germany)

We demonstrate the existence of a special chiral “phantom” mode with some analogy to a Goldstone mode in the anisotropic quantum XXZ Heisenberg spin chain. The phantom excitations contribute zero energy to the eigenstate, but a finite fixed quantum of momentum. The mode exists not due to symmetry principles, but results from nontrivial scattering properties of magnons with momentum k given by the anisotropy via cos (k) = Jz/Jx. The mode originates from special string-type solutions of the Bethe ansatz equations with unbounded rapidities, the phantom Bethe roots. All such Bethe states are chiral (the simplest representative being factorized state with helicoidal magnetization profile) and exist in both periodic and open XXZ spin chain under fine-tuning. I show how phantom Bethe states can be generated dissipatively, by setting a polarization gradient via coupling the ends of the open spin chain to suitable dissipative baths. Spin helix eigenstates were observed and used in recent cold atom experiments, and led to further surprising findings.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Adiabatic pumps in quantum spin systems

July 12 (Tue) at 16:00 - 17:15, 2022

Ken Shiozaki (Assistant Professor, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University)

The Thouless pump is a one-parameter cycle of 1-dimensional gapped quantum systems with U(1) symmetry, which is classified by integers. In this talk, I introduce a generalization of the Thouless pump to quantum spin systems in any dimension with any finite group onsite symmetry. I show a simple model with Z_2 onsite symmetry, and how it is nontrivial via boundary degrees of freedom. Using the framework of the injective matrix product state, one can construct the topological invariant in a way similar to the Berry phase. If time allows, I will briefly introduce a group cohomology model by Roy and Harper for generic space dimensions and discuss its properties.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Topological quantum effects in low-dimensional spin systems - The power of the boundary

June 30 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2022

Thore Posske (Group Leader, I. Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Hamburg, Germany)

Manipulating the boundary of low-dimensional magnetic structures could grant control about topological magnetic quantum sates. I will discuss the creation of one- and two-dimensional topological quantum magnets by manipulating the boundary magnetization, address their stability against external perturbations, and discuss their possible application to quantum information processing.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Topological aspects of non-Hermitian physics

June 21 (Tue) at 16:00 - 17:15, 2022

Nobuyuki Okuma (Assistant Professor, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University)

The past decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in topological materials, and a lot of mathematical concepts have been introduced in condensed matter physics. Among them, the bulk-boundary correspondence is the central topic in topological physics, which has inspired researchers to focus on boundary physics. Recently, the concepts of topological phases have been extended to non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, whose eigenvalues can be complex. Besides the topology, non-Hermiticity can also cause a boundary phenomenon called the non-Hermitian skin effect, which is an extreme sensitivity of the spectrum to the boundary condition. In this talk, I will explain recent developments in non-Hermitian topological physics by focusing mainly on the boundary problem. As well as the competition between non-Hermitian and topological boundary phenomena, I will discuss the topological nature inherent in non-Hermiticity itself. Field: condensed matter physics Keywords: topological materials, non-Hermitian systems, skin effect, bulk-boundary correspondence

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Introduction to Topological Insulators: The Ten-fold Classification of Topological Insulators and Superconductors Part.2

June 13 (Mon) at 14:00 - 15:30, 2022

Ching-Kai Chiu (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS)

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Introduction to Topological Insulators: The Ten-fold Classification of Topological Insulators and Superconductors Part.1

May 24 (Tue) at 14:00 - 15:30, 2022

Ching-Kai Chiu (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS)

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Introduction to Topological Insulators: Topological Superconductors and Quantum Computing

May 9 (Mon) at 14:00 - 15:30, 2022

Ching-Kai Chiu (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS)

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Local and global topology for Dirac points with multi-helicoid surface states

March 24 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2022

Tiantian Zhang (Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, School of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology)

Though topological invariants defined for topological semimetals are usually local ones, they also have a global nature. For example, the Z type local monopole charge C for Weyl points, has a global nature, telling us its influence to the rest of the Brillouin zone, giving rise to bulk-surface correspondence associated with helical surface states. In Dirac systems, helical surface states are not guaranteed due to C=0. However, a new bulk-surface correspondence associated with double/quad-helicoid surface states (DHSSs/QHSSs) can be obtained for Dirac points with the protection of a Z2 type monopole charge Q, which is defined in terms of the time-reversal (T)-glide (G) symmetry (TG)2= -1. Here we study the topology of Q for Z2 Dirac points and establish its bulk-surface correspondence with strict proofs. We find that Q is equivalent to the G-protected Z2 invariant v mathematically and physically in Z2 Dirac systems. This result is counterintuitive, since v is always trivial in T-preserving gapped systems, and was thought to be ill-defined in gapless systems. We offer a gauge-invariant formula for Q, which is associated with DHSSs in both the spinless and spinful systems with single G. Q is formulated in a simpler form in spinless systems with two vertical G, associated with QHSSs, which is also entangled with filling-enforced topological band insulators in three space groups when a T-breaking perturbation is introduced. Since Q is ill-defined in spinful systems with two vertical G, QHSSs will not be held. Material candidate Li2B4O7 together with a list of possible space groups preserving QHSSs are also proposed for demonstration on our theory and further studies. *Detailed information about the seminar refer to the email.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

How is turbulence born: Spatiotemporal complexity and phase transition of transitional fluids

February 24 (Thu) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2022

Hong-Yan Shih (Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)

How a laminar flow becomes turbulence has been an unsolved problem for more than a century and is important in various industrial applications. Recently precise measurements in pipe flow experiments showed non-trivial spatiotemporal complexity at the onset of turbulence. Based on numerical evidence from the hydrodynamics equations, we discovered the surprising fact that the fluid behavior at the transition is governed by the emergent predator-prey dynamics of the important long-wavelength mode, leading to the mathematical prediction that the laminar-turbulent transition is analogous to an ecosystem on the edge of extinction. This prediction demonstrates that the laminar-turbulent transition is a non-equilibrium phase transition in the directed percolation universality class, and provides a unified picture of transition to turbulence emerging in systems ranging from turbulent convection to magnetohydrodynamics. *Detailed information about the seminar refer to the email.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Bethe ansatz and quantum computing

January 26 (Wed) at 22:00 - 23:15, 2022

Rafael I. Nepomechie (Professor, Physics Department, University of Miami, Florida, USA)

We begin with a brief review of the Heisenberg quantum spin chain and its remarkable solution found by Bethe. We then review a probabilistic algorithm for preparing exact eigenstates of this model on a quantum computer. An exact formula for the success probability is presented, and the computation of correlation functions is discussed. A generalization of the algorithm to open chains with boundaries is also noted.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Topological exchange statistics in one dimension

November 17 (Wed) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2021

Harshman Nathan (Department of Physics, American University, USA)

In two dimensions, the topological approach to exchange statistics predicts the existence of anyons obeying statistics given by the braid group. However, in one dimension the topological approach is ambiguous because particles cannot exchange without coincidence and scattering. I will review the topological approach and show how old controversies can be resolved using orbifolds (roughly, manifolds with symmetry) to describe configuration space for one-dimensional systems. Using orbifolds also predicts new topological physics, including possibilities for “traid group” statistics when there are three-body interactions in one dimension and non-abelian statistics for indistinguishable particles on a ring. *Detailed information about the seminar refer to the email.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English

Nonlinear response in strongly correlated systems

October 20 (Wed) at 17:00 - 18:15, 2021

Robert Peters (Lecturer, Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)

Nonlinear responses in condensed matter are intensively studied because they provide rich information about materials and hold the possibility of being applied in diodes or high-frequency optical devices [1-4]. While nonlinear responses in noninteracting models have been explored widely, the effect of strong correlations on the nonlinear response is still poorly understood. This talk will introduce a Green's function method to calculate nonlinear conductivities in strongly correlated materials [5-6]. Correlation effects are thereby included by the self-energy of the material. I will then use this method to study the nonlinear conductivities in noncentrosymmetric f-electron systems. The first system is a heavy Fermion system, where a nonreciprocal conductivity appears in the ferromagnetic phase. The nonreciprocal conductivity thereby always occurs perpendicular to the magnetization of the system and has a strong spin dependence, which might be advantageous for spintronic applications. The second system is a model corresponding to the Weyl-Kondo semimetal Ce3Bi4Pd3, in which a giant spontaneous Hall effect without time-reversal symmetry breaking has been observed [7]. This Hall effect can be explained as a nonlinear Hall effect in an inversion-symmetry broken Weyl-semimetal. It has been shown that the nonlinear Hall effect is related to the Berry curvature dipole [4]. Our study shows that the magnitude of the experimentally observed nonlinear Hall effect can be explained by the strong correlations inherent in this f-electron material [8]. *Detailed information about the seminar refer to the email.

Venue: via Zoom

Event Official Language: English