Enhancement of critical temperatures in disordered bipartite lattices

We study the strong enhancement, induced by random hopping, of the critical temperatures characterizing the transitions to superconductivity, charge-density wave and antiferromagnetism, which can occur in bipartite lattice models at half-filling, like graphene, by means of an extended Finkel'stein non-linear $\sigma$-model renormalization group approach. We show that, if Cooper channel interaction dominates, superconducting critical temperature can be enhanced at will, since superconductivity cannot be broken by entering any Anderson insulating phase. If, instead, staggered interactions are relevant, antiferromagnetic order is generated by disorder at a temperature well above that expected for a clean system.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, final versio

Extended Kitaev chain with longer-range hopping and pairing

We consider the Kitaev chain model with finite and infinite range in the hopping and pairing parameters, looking in particular at the appearance of Majorana zero energy modes and massive edge modes. We study the system both in the presence and in the absence of time reversal symmetry, by means of topological invariants and exact diagonalization, disclosing very rich phase diagrams. In particular, for extended hopping and pairing terms, we can get as many Majorana modes at each end of the chain as the neighbors involved in the couplings. Finally we generalize the transfer matrix approach useful to calculate the zero-energy Majorana modes at the edges for a generic number of coupled neighbors.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure

Spreading of correlations and Loschmidt echo after quantum quenches of a Bose gas in the Aubry-Andr\'e potential

We study the spreading of density-density correlations and the Loschmidt echo, after different sudden quenches in an interacting one dimensional Bose gas on a lattice, also in the presence of a superimposed aperiodic potential. We use a time dependent Bogoliubov approach to calculate the evolution of the correlation functions and employ the linked cluster expansion to derive the Loschmidt echo.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, a section on momentum distribution function is include

Long-distance entanglement in Motzkin and Fredkin spin chains

We derive some entanglement properties of the ground states of two classes of quantum spin chains described by the Fredkin model, for half-integer spins, and the Motzkin model, for integer ones. Since the ground states of the two models are known analytically, we can calculate the entanglement entropy, the negativity and the quantum mutual information exactly. We show, in particular, that these systems exhibit long-distance entanglement, namely two disjoint regions of the chains remain entangled even when the separation is sent to infinity, i.e. these systems are not affected by decoherence. This strongly entangled behavior, occurring both for colorful versions of the models (with spin larger than 1/2 or 1, respectively) and for colorless cases (spin 1/2 and 1), is consistent with the violation of the cluster decomposition property. Moreover we show that this behavior involves disjoint segments located both at the edges and in the bulk of the chains.Comment: 36 pages, 13 figure

Quasiparticle conductivities in disordered d-wave superconductors

We study the quasiparticle transport coefficients in disordered d-wave superconductors. We find that spin and charge excitations are generally localized unless magnetic impurities are present. If the system is close to a nesting point in the impurity-scattering unitary limit, the tendency towards localization is reduced while the quasiparticle density of states gets enhanced by disorder. We also show that the residual repulsive interaction among quasiparticles has a delocalizing effect and increases the density of states.Comment: 13 pages, no figure

Using magnetic stripes to stabilize superfluidity in electron-hole double monolayer graphene

Experiments have confirmed that double monolayer graphene cannot generate finite temperature electron-hole superfluidity. This has been shown to be due to very strong screening of the electron-hole pairing attraction. The linear dispersing energy bands in monolayer graphene prevent attempts to reduce the strength of the screening. We propose a new hybrid device in which the two sheets of monolayer graphene are placed in a modulated periodic perpendicular magnetic field. Such a magnetic field preserves the isotropic Dirac cones of the original monolayers but it reduces the slope of the cones so that the monolayer Fermi velocity $v_F$ is smaller. We show that with current experimental techniques, this reduction in $v_F$ can sufficiently weaken the screening to permit electron-hole superfluidity at measurable temperatures.Comment: Revised version. MultiSuper collaboration: http://www.multisuper.or

Anomalous universal adiabatic dynamics: The case of the Fredkin model

When a system is driven across a second-order quantum phase transition, the number of defects which are produced scales with the speed of the variation of the tuning parameter according to a universal law described by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. We study a possible breakdown of this prediction proving that the number of defects can exhibit another universal scaling law which is still related only to the critical exponents $z$ and $\nu$, but differs from the Kibble-Zurek result. Finally we provide an example, the deformed Fredkin spin chain, where this violation of the standard adiabatic dynamics can occur.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Fluctuation theorems and expected utility hypothesis

The expected utility hypothesis is a popular concept in economics that is useful for making decisions when the payoff is uncertain. In this paper, we investigate the implications of a fluctuation theorem in the theory of expected utility. In particular, we wonder whether entropy could serve as a guideline for gambling. We prove the existence of a bound involving the certainty equivalent which depends on the entropy produced. Then, we examine the dependence of the certainty equivalent on the entropy by looking at specific situations, for instance, the work extraction from a non-equilibrium initial state.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, comments welcom

Quasiprobability distribution of work in the quantum Ising model

A complete understanding of the statistics of the work done by quenching a parameter of a quantum many-body system is still lacking in the presence of an initial quantum coherence in the energy basis. In this case, the work can be represented by a class of quasiprobability distributions. Here, we try to clarify the genuinely quantum features of the process by studying the work quasiprobability for an Ising model in a transverse field. We consider both a global and a local quench, by focusing mainly on the thermodynamic limit. We find that, while for a global quench there is a symmetric non-contextual representation with a Gaussian probability distribution of work, for a local quench we can get quantum contextuality as signaled by a negative fourth moment of the work. Furthermore, we examine the critical features related to a quantum phase transition and the role of the initial quantum coherence as useful resource.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Comments welcom