Order, disorder and phase transitions in quantum many body systems

In this paper, I give an overview of some selected results in quantum many body theory, lying at the interface between mathematical quantum statistical mechanics and condensed matter theory. In particular, I discuss some recent results on the universality of transport coefficients in lattice models of interacting electrons, with specific focus on the independence of the quantum Hall conductivity from the electron-electron interaction. In this context, the exchange of ideas between mathematical and theoretical physics proved particularly fruitful, and helped in clarifying the role played by quantum conservation laws (Ward Identities), together with the decay properties of the Euclidean current-current correlation functions, on the interaction-independence of the conductivity.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures. These notes are based on a presentation given at the Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, in Milano (Italy) on May 5, 2016, as well as on the notes of a course given at the EMS-IAMP summer school in mathematical physics `Universality, Scaling Limits and Effective Theories', held in Roma (Italy) on July 11-15, 2016. Final version, accepted for publicatio

The nematic phase of a system of long hard rods

We consider a two-dimensional lattice model for liquid crystals consisting of long rods interacting via purely hard core interactions, with two allowed orientations defined by the underlying lattice. We rigorously prove the existence of a nematic phase, i.e., we show that at intermediate densities the system exhibits orientational order, either horizontal or vertical, but no positional order. The proof is based on a two-scales cluster expansion: we first coarse grain the system on a scale comparable with the rods' length; then we express the resulting effective theory as a contour's model, which can be treated by Pirogov-Sinai methods.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figures; abstract changed, references added, comparison with literature improved, figures adde

The 2D Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice

We consider the 2D Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice, as a model for a single layer graphene sheet in the presence of screened Coulomb interactions. At half filling and weak enough coupling, we compute the free energy, the ground state energy and we construct the correlation functions up to zero temperature in terms of convergent series; analiticity is proved by making use of constructive fermionic renormalization group methods. We show that the interaction produces a modification of the Fermi velocity and of the wave function renormalization without changing the asymptotic infrared properties of the model with respect to the unperturbed non-interacting case; this rules out the possibility of superconducting or magnetic instabilities in the ground state. We also prove that the correlations verify a Ward Identity similar to the one for massless Dirac fermions, up to asymptotically negligible corrections and a renormalization of the charge velocity.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figure

Exact RG computation of the optical conductivity of graphene

The optical conductivity of a system of electrons on the honeycomb lattice interacting through an electromagnetic field is computed by truncated exact Renormalization Group (RG) methods. We find that the conductivity has the universal value pi/2 times the conductivity quantum up to negligible corrections vanishing as a power law in the limit of low frequencies.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure; one reference updated, a few typos correcte

The ground state construction of bilayer graphene

We consider a model of half-filled bilayer graphene, in which the three dominant Slonczewski-Weiss-McClure hopping parameters are retained, in the presence of short range interactions. Under a smallness assumption on the interaction strength $U$ as well as on the inter-layer hopping $\epsilon$, we construct the ground state in the thermodynamic limit, and prove its analyticity in $U$, uniformly in $\epsilon$. The interacting Fermi surface is degenerate, and consists of eight Fermi points, two of which are protected by symmetries, while the locations of the other six are renormalized by the interaction, and the effective dispersion relation at the Fermi points is conical. The construction reveals the presence of different energy regimes, where the effective behavior of correlation functions changes qualitatively. The analysis of the crossover between regimes plays an important role in the proof of analyticity and in the uniform control of the radius of convergence. The proof is based on a rigorous implementation of fermionic renormalization group methods, including determinant estimates for the renormalized expansion

Ground state energy of the low density Hubbard model. An upper bound

We derive an upper bound on the ground state energy of the three-dimensional (3D) repulsive Hubbard model on the cubic lattice agreeing in the low density limit with the known asymptotic expression of the ground state energy of the dilute Fermi gas in the continuum. As a corollary, we prove an old conjecture on the low density behavior of the 3D Hubbard model, i.e., that the total spin of the ground state vanishes as the density goes to zero.Comment: 13 pages; Version accepted for publication on the Journal of Mathematical Physics; minor change

Columnar Phase in Quantum Dimer Models

The quantum dimer model, relevant for short-range resonant valence bond physics, is rigorously shown to have long range order in a crystalline phase in the attractive case at low temperature and not too large flipping term. This term flips horizontal dimer pairs to vertical pairs (and vice versa) and is responsible for the word `quantum' in the title. In addition to the dimers, monomers are also allowed. The mathematical method used is `reflection positivity'. The model and proof can easily be generalized to dimers or plaquettes in 3-dimensions.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure. v3: typos correcte

Toward a multilevel representation of protein molecules: comparative approaches to the aggregation/folding propensity problem

This paper builds upon the fundamental work of Niwa et al. [34], which provides the unique possibility to analyze the relative aggregation/folding propensity of the elements of the entire Escherichia coli (E. coli) proteome in a cell-free standardized microenvironment. The hardness of the problem comes from the superposition between the driving forces of intra- and inter-molecule interactions and it is mirrored by the evidences of shift from folding to aggregation phenotypes by single-point mutations [10]. Here we apply several state-of-the-art classification methods coming from the field of structural pattern recognition, with the aim to compare different representations of the same proteins gathered from the Niwa et al. data base; such representations include sequences and labeled (contact) graphs enriched with chemico-physical attributes. By this comparison, we are able to identify also some interesting general properties of proteins. Notably, (i) we suggest a threshold around 250 residues discriminating "easily foldable" from "hardly foldable" molecules consistent with other independent experiments, and (ii) we highlight the relevance of contact graph spectra for folding behavior discrimination and characterization of the E. coli solubility data. The soundness of the experimental results presented in this paper is proved by the statistically relevant relationships discovered among the chemico-physical description of proteins and the developed cost matrix of substitution used in the various discrimination systems.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 46 reference