Latest Papers in Condensed Matter Physics

Statistical Mechanics

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Lack of thermalization for integrability-breaking impurities (1807.00625v2)

Alvise Bastianello

2018-07-02

We investigate the effects of localized integrability-breaking perturbations on the large times dynamics of thermodynamic quantum and classical systems. In particular, we suddenly activate an impurity which breaks the integrability of an otherwise homogeneous system. We focus on the large times dynamics and on the thermalization properties of the impurity, which is shown to have mere perturbative effects even at infinite times, thus preventing thermalization. This is in clear contrast with homogeneous integrability-breaking terms, which display the prethermalization paradigm and are expected to eventually cause thermalization, no matter the weakness of the integrability-breaking term. Analytic quantitative results are obtained in the case where the bulk Hamiltonian is free and the impurity interacting.

An out-of-equilibrium non-Markovian Quantum Heat Engine (1806.10075v3)

Marco Pezzutto, Mauro Paternostro, Yasser Omar

2018-06-26

We study the performance of a quantum Otto cycle using a harmonic work medium and undergoing collisional dynamics with finite-size reservoirs. We span the dynamical regimes of the work strokes from strongly non-adiabatic to quasi-static conditions, and address the effects that non-Markovianity of the open-system dynamics of the work medium can have on the efficiency of the thermal machine. While such efficiency never surpasses the classical upper bound valid for finite-time stochastic engines, the behaviour of the engine shows clear-cut effects induced by both the finiteness of the evolution time, and the memory-bearing character of the system-environment evolution.

Phase transition in complex-time Loschmidt echo of short and long range spin chain (1902.06649v1)

Leonardo Santilli, Miguel Tierz

2019-02-18

We explain and exploit the random matrix formulation of the Loschmidt echo for the XX spin chain, valid for multiple domain wall initial states and also for a XX spin chain generalized with additional interactions to more neighbours. For models with interactions decaying as , with integer or natural number and , we show that there are third order phase transitions in a double scaling limit of the complex-time Loschmidt echo amplitudes. For the long-range version of the chain, we use an exact result for Toeplitz determinants with a pure Fisher-Hartwig singularity, to obtain exactly the Loschmidt echo for complex times and discuss the associated Stokes phenomena. We also study the case of a finite chain for one of the generalized XX models.

Solving Statistical Mechanics Using Variational Autoregressive Networks (1809.10606v2)

Dian Wu, Lei Wang, Pan Zhang

2018-09-27

We propose a general framework for solving statistical mechanics of systems with finite size. The approach extends the celebrated variational mean-field approaches using autoregressive neural networks, which support direct sampling and exact calculation of normalized probability of configurations. It computes variational free energy, estimates physical quantities such as entropy, magnetizations and correlations, and generates uncorrelated samples all at once. Training of the network employs the policy gradient approach in reinforcement learning, which unbiasedly estimates the gradient of variational parameters. We apply our approach to several classic systems, including 2D Ising models, the Hopfield model, the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, and the inverse Ising model, for demonstrating its advantages over existing variational mean-field methods. Our approach sheds light on solving statistical physics problems using modern deep generative neural networks.

The "glass transition'' as a topological defect driven transition in a distribution of crystals and a prediction of a universal viscosity collapse (1902.06593v1)

Z. Nussinov, N. B. Weingartner, F. S. Nogueira

2019-02-18

Topological defects are typically quantified relative to ordered backgrounds. The importance of these defects to the understanding of physical phenomena including diverse equilibrium melting transitions from low temperature ordered to higher temperatures disordered systems (and vice versa) can hardly be overstated. Amorphous materials such as glasses seem to constitute a fundamental challenge to this paradigm. A long held dogma is that transitions into and out of an amorphous glassy state are distinctly different from typical equilibrium phase transitions and must call for radically different concepts. In this work, we critique this belief. We examine systems that may be viewed as simultaneous distribution of different ordinary equilibrium structures. In particular, we focus on the analogs of melting (or freezing) transitions in such distributed systems. The theory that we arrive at yields dynamical, structural, and thermodynamic behaviors of glasses and supercooled fluids that, for the properties tested thus far, are in qualitative and quantitative agreement with experiment. We arrive at a prediction for the viscosity and dielectric relaxations that is universally satisfied for all experimentally measured supercooled liquids and glasses over 15 decades.

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