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and a diffusive behavior of excitations. For the special case of a dichotomous noise, there can also be coherent modes, which give a ballistic contribution beside the diffusive one and result ultimately in a superdiffusive behavior. We extended these investigations in several directions. We considered a dichotomous noise which changes in discrete times steps with a frequency that decays algebraically in time as p(t)~t-κ. We found that the excitations spread ballistically for κ>1, while the spreading is anomalous with a κ-dependent dynamical exponent for κ<1. We also considered different aperiodic modulations such as the Fibonacci sequence, where the spreading of excitations is found again to be anomalous with a universal dynamical exponent z. In the high frequency limit, for sequences with a non-positive wandering exponent, z is found to be close to 1, while, for a non-positive wandering exponent, it is considerably less than 1. We studied the effect of a point-like source of dichotomous noise on the dynamics of an excitation initially localized near the source. Here, the distributions of the position at different times still follow the ballistic scaling, which is characteristic of the noiseless quantum walk. However, a depletion zone with nearly zero probability develops around the origin, the width of which increases linearly in time.
Critical quench dynamics of random quantum spin chains. - By means of free-fermion techniques combined with multiple-precision arithmetic, we studied the time evolution of the average magnetization, m(t), of the random transverse-field Ising chain after global quenches. We observed different relaxation behaviors for quenches starting from different initial states to the critical point. Starting from a fully ordered initial state, the relaxation is logarithmically slow described by m(t) ∼ lnat, and in a finite sample of length L, the average magnetization saturates at a size-dependent plateau mp(L) ∼ L-b; here, the two exponents satisfy the relation b/a = ψ = 1/2. Starting from a fully disordered initial state, the magnetization stays at zero for a period of time until t = td with ln td∼ LΨ and then starts to increase until it saturates to an asymptotic value mp(L) ∼ L-b’, with b’ ≈ 1.5. For both quenching protocols, finite-size scaling is satisfied in terms of the scaled variable ln t/LΨ . Furthermore, the distribution of long-time limiting values of the magnetization shows that the typical and the average values scale differently and the average is governed by rare events. The non-equilibrium dynamical behavior of the magnetization is explained through a semi-classical theory.
Entanglement entropy of the Q ≥ 4 quantum Potts chain. -- The entanglement entropy, S, is an indicator of quantum correlations in the ground state of a many-body quantum system.
At a second-order quantum phase-transition point in one dimension, S generally has a logarithmic singularity. We considered quantum spin chains with a first-order quantum phase transition, the prototype being the Q-state quantum Potts chain for Q > 4 and calculated S across the transition point. According to numerical density matrix renormalization group results, at the first-order quantum phase transition point S shows a jump, which is expected to vanish for Q → 4+. This jump was calculated in leading order as
∆S = lnQ[1−4/Q−2/(QlnQ)+ O(1/Q2)].
Long-range random transverse-field Ising model in three dimensions. — We considered quantum magnets with long-range interactions in the presence of quenched disorder. Such a system is realized by the compound LiHo1-xYxF4, in which a fraction x of the magnetic Ho atoms are replaced by non-magnetic Y atoms. A related but somewhat simplified model, which describes the low-energy properties is the three-dimensional random transverse-field Ising model with long-range ferromagnetic interactions, which decay as a power α of the
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distance. Using a variant of the strong-disorder renormalization group method we studied numerically the phase-transition point and the paramagnetic phase. The schematic flow diagram in terms of the dynamical exponent z and the ratio r of the frequency of coupling and field decimations can be seen in Fig. 1. We found that the fixed point controlling the transition is of the strong-disorder type, and based on experience with other similar systems, we expect the results to be qualitatively correct, but possibly not asymptotically exact. The distribution of the (sample dependent) pseudocritical points is found to scale with 1/lnL, L being the linear size of the sample. Similarly, the critical magnetization scales with (lnL)χ/Ld and the excitation energy behaves as L−α. Using extreme-value statistics, we argued that, extrapolating from the ferromagnetic side, the magnetization approaches a finite limiting value and thus the transition is of mixed order.
Figure 1. RG flow diagram of the long-range random transverse-field Ising model. At r=0, the line of stable (/z>1) and unstable (/z<1) fixed points is separated by the critical fixed point indicated by the red dot.
Random-bond Potts chain with long-range interactions. — We studied phase transitions of the ferromagnetic q-state Potts chain with random nearest-neighbor couplings having a variance ∆2 and with homogeneous long-range interactions, which decay with the distance as a power r−(1+σ), σ > 0. In the large-q limit, the free energy of random samples of length L ≤ 2048 was calculated exactly by a combinatorial optimization algorithm. The phase transition remains of first order for σ < σc(∆) ≤ 0.5, while the correlation length becomes divergent at the transition point for σc(∆) < σ < 1. In the latter regime, the average magnetization is continuous for small enough ∆, but, for larger ∆, it is discontinuous at the transition point, thus the phase transition is of mixed order. A schematic phase diagram showing the short-range (SR), long-range (LR), first-order (FO), second-order (SO), and mixed-order (MO) phases can be seen in Fig. 2.
Figure 2. Schematic phase diagram of the long-range random Potts model.
Critical behavior of the contact process near multiple junctions. — The contact process is a basic stochastic lattice model of epidemic spreading or population dynamics. It displays a nonequilibrium phase transition between a fluctuating active phase and an absorbing phase,
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which is continuous in any dimensions and falls into the robust universality class of directed percolation. Discontinuous transitions are rare in low dimensional fluctuating systems; for the particular case of one-dimensional systems with short-range interactions, they are conjectured to be impossible since fluctuations destabilize the ordered phase. We demonstrated by numerical simulations that a suitable topology of the underlying lattice is able to induce a discontinuous local transition even with a simple dynamics such as the contact process. We have considered, namely, a multiple junction of M semi-infinite chains.
As opposed to the continuous transitions of the translationally invariant (M=2) and the semi-infinite (M=1) system, the local order parameter is found to be discontinuous for M>2.
The temporal correlation length diverges algebraically at the critical point, thus the transition is of mixed order. Interestingly, the corresponding exponents on the two sides of the transition are different. We proposed a scaling theory, which is compatible with the numerical results and explains the exponent asymmetry by the presence of an irrelevant local variable, which is harmless in the active phase, but becomes dangerous in the inactive phase. Quenched spatial disorder is found to make the transition continuous, in agreement with earlier renormalization group results.
Phase problem of crystallography. – In the framework of our study of the problem of crystallographic phase retrieval, we introduced a new method called “volumic omit map”, to accelerate slowly converging dual space iterative procedures. Alternating-projection-type dual-space algorithms have a clear construction, but are susceptible to stagnation and, thus, inefficient for solving the phase problem ab initio. To improve this behavior, new omit maps were introduced, which are real-space perturbations applied periodically during the iteration process. The omit maps are called volumic because they delete some predetermined subvolume of the unit cell without searching for atomic regions or analyzing the electron density in any other way. The basic algorithms of positivity, histogram matching and low-density elimination were tested by their solution statistics. It is concluded that, while all these algorithms based on weak constraints are practically useless in their pure forms, appropriate volumic omit maps can transform them to practically useful methods. In addition, the efficiency of the already useful reflector-type charge-flipping algorithm can be further improved. It is important that these results are obtained by using non-sharpened structure factors and without any weighting scheme of reciprocal-space perturbation.
Grants
OTKA K109577: Ordering and dynamics in many-body systems (F. Iglói, 2014-2017)
International cooperation
Saarland University (Saarbrücken, Germany), Nonequilibrium quench dynamics of quantum systems (F. Iglói, G. Roósz)
Institute Néel (Grenoble, France), Phase transitions of systems with long-range interactions (F. Iglói)
National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan), Critical quench dynamics of random spin chains (F. Iglói, G. Roósz)
Kuwait University (Safat, Kuwait), Entanglement entropy at first-order transitions (F. Iglói)
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Publications
Articles
1. Anglès D'Auriac J-C, Iglói F: Phase transitions of the random-bond Potts chain with long-range interactions. PHYS REV E 94:(6) 062126-1-9 (2016)
2. Kovács IA, Juhász R, Iglói F: Long-range random transverse-field Ising model in three dimensions. PHYS REV B 93:(18) 184203/1-8 (2016)
3. Roósz G, Juhász R, Iglói F: Nonequilibrium dynamics of the Ising chain in a fluctuating transverse field. PHYS REV B 93:(13) 134305/1-11 (2016)
Others
4. Szépfalusy P, Csordás A: A Einstein-kondenzációtól az atomlézerig (From Bose-Einstein condensation to atomic lasers, in Hungarian) FIZIKAI SZEMLE 66:(1) 17-24 (2016)
See also S-F.6., S-T.(Asbóth)
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