61 research outputs found
The phases of deuterium at extreme densities
We consider deuterium compressed to higher than atomic, but lower than
nuclear densities. At such densities deuterium is a superconducting quantum
liquid. Generically, two superconducting phases compete, a "ferromagnetic" and
a "nematic" one. We provide a power counting argument suggesting that the
dominant interactions in the deuteron liquid are perturbative (but screened)
Coulomb interactions. At very high densities the ground state is determined by
very small nuclear interaction effects that probably favor the ferromagnetic
phase. At lower densities the symmetry of the theory is effectively enhanced to
SU(3), and the quantum liquid enters a novel phase, neither ferromagnetic nor
nematic. Our results can serve as a starting point for investigations of the
phase dynamics of deuteron liquids, as well as exploration of the stability and
dynamics of the rich variety of topological objects that may occur in phases of
the deuteron quantum liquid, which range from Alice strings to spin skyrmions
to Z_2 vortices.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures; v2: fixed typo
Inverse magnetic catalysis in dense holographic matter
We study the chiral phase transition in a magnetic field at finite
temperature and chemical potential within the Sakai-Sugimoto model, a
holographic top-down approach to (large-N_c) QCD. We consider the limit of a
small separation of the flavor D8-branes, which corresponds to a dual field
theory comparable to a Nambu-Jona Lasinio (NJL) model. Mapping out the surface
of the chiral phase transition in the parameter space of magnetic field
strength, quark chemical potential, and temperature, we find that for small
temperatures the addition of a magnetic field decreases the critical chemical
potential for chiral symmetry restoration - in contrast to the case of
vanishing chemical potential where, in accordance with the familiar phenomenon
of magnetic catalysis, the magnetic field favors the chirally broken phase.
This "inverse magnetic catalysis" (IMC) appears to be associated with a
previously found magnetic phase transition within the chirally symmetric phase
that shows an intriguing similarity to a transition into the lowest Landau
level. We estimate IMC to persist up to 10^{19} G at low temperatures.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures, v3: extended discussion; new appendix D;
references added; version to appear in JHE
Counterterms in semiclassical Horava-Lifshitz gravity
We analyze the semiclassical Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity for quantum scalar
fields in 3+1 dimensions. The renormalizability of the theory requires that the
action of the scalar field contains terms with six spatial derivatives of the
field, i.e. in the UV, the classical action of the scalar field should preserve
the anisotropic scaling symmetry ( ,
with ) of the gravitational action. We discuss the renormalization
procedure based on adiabatic subtraction and dimensional regularization in the
weak field approximation. We verify that the divergent terms in the adiabatic
expansion of the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor of the scalar
field contain up to six spatial derivatives, but do not contain more than two
time derivatives. We compute explicitly the counterterms needed for the
renormalization of the theory up to second adiabatic order and evaluate the
associated functions in the minimal subtraction scheme.Comment: 8 page
Broken symmetry states and divergent resistance in suspended bilayer graphene
Graphene [1] and its bilayer have generated tremendous excitement in the
physics community due to their unique electronic properties [2]. The intrinsic
physics of these materials, however, is partially masked by disorder, which can
arise from various sources such as ripples [3] or charged impurities [4].
Recent improvements in quality have been achieved by suspending graphene flakes
[5,6], yielding samples with very high mobilities and little charge
inhomogeneity. Here we report the fabrication of suspended bilayer graphene
devices with very little disorder. We observe fully developed quantized Hall
states at magnetic fields of 0.2 T, as well as broken symmetry states at
intermediate filling factors , , and . The
devices exhibit extremely high resistance in the state that grows
with magnetic field and scales as magnetic field divided by temperature. This
resistance is predominantly affected by the perpendicular component of the
applied field, indicating that the broken symmetry states arise from many-body
interactions.Comment: 23 pages, including 4 figures and supplementary information; accepted
to Nature Physic
Transport Spectroscopy of Symmetry-Broken Insulating States in Bilayer Graphene
The flat bands in bilayer graphene(BLG) are sensitive to electric fields
E\bot directed between the layers, and magnify the electron-electron
interaction effects, thus making BLG an attractive platform for new
two-dimensional (2D) electron physics[1-5]. Theories[6-16] have suggested the
possibility of a variety of interesting broken symmetry states, some
characterized by spontaneous mass gaps, when the electron-density is at the
carrier neutrality point (CNP). The theoretically proposed gaps[6,7,10] in
bilayer graphene are analogous[17,18] to the masses generated by broken
symmetries in particle physics and give rise to large momentum-space Berry
curvatures[8,19] accompanied by spontaneous quantum Hall effects[7-9]. Though
recent experiments[20-23] have provided convincing evidence of strong
electronic correlations near the CNP in BLG, the presence of gaps is difficult
to establish because of the lack of direct spectroscopic measurements. Here we
present transport measurements in ultra-clean double-gated BLG, using
source-drain bias as a spectroscopic tool to resolve a gap of ~2 meV at the
CNP. The gap can be closed by an electric field E\bot \sim13 mV/nm but
increases monotonically with a magnetic field B, with an apparent particle-hole
asymmetry above the gap, thus providing the first mapping of the ground states
in BLG.Comment: 4 figure
Dirac cones reshaped by interaction effects in suspended graphene
We report measurements of the cyclotron mass in graphene for carrier
concentrations n varying over three orders of magnitude. In contrast to the
single-particle picture, the real spectrum of graphene is profoundly nonlinear
so that the Fermi velocity describing the spectral slope reaches ~3x10^6 m/s at
n <10^10 cm^-2, three times the value commonly used for graphene. The observed
changes are attributed to electron-electron interaction that renormalizes the
Dirac spectrum because of weak screening. Our experiments also put an upper
limit of ~0.1 meV on the possible gap in graphene
Magnetic Catalysis and Quantum Hall Ferromagnetism in Weakly Coupled Graphene
We study the realization in a model of graphene of the phenomenon whereby the
tendency of gauge-field mediated interactions to break chiral symmetry
spontaneously is greatly enhanced in an external magnetic field. We prove that,
in the weak coupling limit, and where the electron-electron interaction
satisfies certain mild conditions, the ground state of charge neutral graphene
in an external magnetic field is a quantum Hall ferromagnet which spontaneously
breaks the emergent U(4) symmetry to U(2)XU(2).
We argue that, due to a residual CP symmetry, the quantum Hall ferromagnet
order parameter is given exactly by the leading order in perturbation theory.
On the other hand, the chiral condensate which is the order parameter for
chiral symmetry breaking generically obtains contributions at all orders. We
compute the leading correction to the chiral condensate. We argue that the
ensuing fermion spectrum resembles that of massive fermions with a vanishing
U(4)-valued chemical potential. We discuss the realization of parity and charge
conjugation symmetries and argue that, in the context of our model, the charge
neutral quantum Hall state in graphene is a bulk insulator, with vanishing
longitudinal conductivity due to a charge gap and Hall conductivity vanishing
due to a residual discrete particle-hole symmetry.Comment: 35 page
Low-Energy Theorems from Holography
In the context of gauge/gravity duality, we verify two types of gauge theory
low-energy theorems, the dilation Ward identities and the decoupling of heavy
flavor. First, we provide an analytic proof of non-trivial dilation Ward
identities for a theory holographically dual to a background with gluon
condensate (the self-dual Liu--Tseytlin background). In this way an important
class of low-energy theorems for correlators of different operators with the
trace of the energy-momentum tensor is established, which so far has been
studied in field theory only. Another low-energy relationship, the so-called
decoupling theorem, is numerically shown to hold universally in three
holographic models involving both the quark and the gluon condensate. We show
this by comparing the ratio of the quark and gluon condensates in three
different examples of gravity backgrounds with non-trivial dilaton flow. As a
by-product of our study, we also obtain gauge field condensate contributions to
meson transport coefficients.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures, two references added, typos remove
Chiral Heat Wave and mixing of Magnetic, Vortical and Heat waves in chiral media
We show that a hot rotating fluid of relativistic chiral fermions possesses a
new gapless collective mode associated with coherent propagation of energy
density and chiral density waves along the axis of rotation. This mode, which
we call the Chiral Heat Wave, emerges due to a mixed gauge-gravitational
anomaly. At finite density the Chiral Heat Wave couples to the Chiral Vortical
Wave while in the presence of an external magnetic field it mixes with the
Chiral Magnetic Wave. The coupling of the Chiral Magnetic and Chiral Vortical
Waves is also demonstrated. We find that the coupled waves - which are coherent
fluctuations of the vector, axial and energy currents - have generally
different velocities compared to the velocities of the individual waves.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figures; v2: minor changes, published versio
Holographic Fermionic Fixed Points in d=3
We present a top-down string theory holographic model of strongly interacting
relativistic 2+1-dimensional fermions, paying careful attention to the discrete
symmetries of parity and time reversal invariance. Our construction is based on
probe -branes in , stabilized by internal fluxes. We find
three solutions, a parity and time reversal invariant conformal field theory
which can be viewed as a particular deformation of Coulomb interacting
graphene, a parity and time reversal violating but gapless field theory and a
system with a parity and time reversal violating charge gap. We show that the
Chern-Simons-like electric response function, which is generated perturbatively
at one-loop order by parity violating fermions and which is protected by a
no-renormalization theorem at orders beyond one loop, indeed appears with the
correctly quantized coefficient in the charge gapped theory. In the gapless
parity violating solution, the Chern-Simons response function obtains quantum
corrections which we compute in the holographic theory.Comment: 25 pages, six figure
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