Unconventional Hysteretic Transition in a Charge Density Wave

Hysteresis underlies a large number of phase transitions in solids, giving rise to exotic metastable states that are otherwise inaccessible. Here, we report an unconventional hysteretic transition in a quasi-2D material, EuTe_{4}. By combining transport, photoemission, diffraction, and x-ray absorption measurements, we observe that the hysteresis loop has a temperature width of more than 400 K, setting a record among crystalline solids. The transition has an origin distinct from known mechanisms, lying entirely within the incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) phase of EuTe_{4} with no change in the CDW modulation periodicity. We interpret the hysteresis as an unusual switching of the relative CDW phases in different layers, a phenomenon unique to quasi-2D compounds that is not present in either purely 2D or strongly coupled 3D systems. Our findings challenge the established theories on metastable states in density wave systems, pushing the boundary of understanding hysteretic transitions in a broken-symmetry state.

Combining time-resolved optical (TOS), electronic (trARPES) and structural (UED) probes on the class of rare earth tritellurides RTe3

The combination of EUV based time-resolved Angle-Resolved-Photo-Electron-Spectroscopy (trARPES), Ultrafast-Electron-Diffraction (UED) and Transient-Optical-Spectroscopy (TOS) facilitates a comprehensive study and all-embracing analysis of correlated dynamics, exemplified on the system of Charge-Density-Waves (CDW’s) in rare earth tritellurides (RTe3).

Spin excitation spectrum of high-temperature cuprate superconductors from finite cluster simulations

A cluster of spins 1/2 of a finite size can be regarded as a basic building block of a spin texture in high-temperature cuprate superconductors. If this texture has the character of a network of weakly coupled spin clusters, then spin excitation spectra of finite clusters are expected to capture the principal features of the experimental spin response. We calculate spin excitation spectra of several clusters of spins 1/2 coupled by Heisenberg interaction. We find that the calculated spectra exhibit a high degree of variability representative of the actual phenomenology of cuprates, while, at the same time, reproducing a number of important features of the experimentally measured spin response. Among such features are the spin gap, the broad peak around [Formula: see text] ≃ (40-70) meV and the sharp peak at zero frequency. The latter feature emerges due to transitions inside the ground-state multiplet of the so-called 'uncompensated' clusters with an odd number of spins.

Suppression of Heating in Quantum Spin Clusters under Periodic Driving as a Dynamic Localization Effect

We investigate numerically and analytically the heating process in ergodic clusters of interacting spins 1/2 subjected to periodic pulses of an external magnetic field. Our findings indicate that there is a threshold for the pulse strength below which the heating is suppressed. This threshold decreases with the increase of the cluster size, approaching zero in the thermodynamic limit, yet it should be observable in clusters with fairly large Hilbert spaces. We obtain the above threshold quantitatively as a condition for the breakdown of the golden rule in the second-order perturbation theory. It is caused by the phenomenon of dynamic localization.

Stability of quantum statistical ensembles with respect to local measurements

We introduce a stability criterion for quantum statistical ensembles describing macroscopic systems. An ensemble is called "stable" when a small number of local measurements cannot significantly modify the probability distribution of the total energy of the system. We apply this criterion to lattices of spins-1/2, thereby showing that the canonical ensemble is nearly stable, whereas statistical ensembles with much broader energy distributions are not stable. In the context of the foundations of quantum statistical physics, this result justifies the use of statistical ensembles with narrow energy distributions such as canonical or microcanonical ensembles.

Comment on "Broken translational and rotational symmetry via charge stripe order in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+y"

Comin et al. (Reports, 20 March 2015, p. 1335) have interpreted their resonant x-ray scattering experiment as indicating that charge inhomogeneities in the family of high-temperature superconductors YBa2Cu3O6+y (YBCO) have the character of one-dimensional stripes rather than two-dimensional checkerboards. The present Comment shows that one cannot distinguish between stripes and checkerboards on the basis of the above experiment.

Chaotic properties of spin lattices near second-order phase transitions

We perform a numerical investigation of the Lyapunov spectra of chaotic dynamics in lattices of classical spins in the vicinity of second-order ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phase transitions. On the basis of this investigation, we identify a characteristic of the shape of the Lyapunov spectra, the "G-index," which exhibits a sharp peak as a function of temperature at the phase transition, provided the order parameter is capable of sufficiently strong dynamic fluctuations. As part of this work, we also propose a general numerical algorithm for determining the temperature in many-particle systems, where kinetic energy is not defined.

Signatures of chaos in time series generated by many-spin systems at high temperatures

Extracting reliable indicators of chaos from a single experimental time series is a challenging task, in particular, for systems with many degrees of freedom. The techniques available for this purpose often require unachievably long time series. In this paper, we explore a method of discriminating chaotic from multi-periodic integrable motion in many-particle systems. The applicability of this method is supported by our numerical simulations of the dynamics of classical spin lattices at high temperatures. We compared chaotic and nonchaotic regimes of these lattices and investigated the transition between the two. The method is based on analyzing higher-order time derivatives of the time series of a macroscopic observable-the total magnetization of the spin lattice. We exploit the fact that power spectra of the magnetization time series generated by chaotic spin lattices exhibit exponential high-frequency tails, while, for the integrable spin lattices, the power spectra are terminated in a non-exponential way. We have also demonstrated the applicability limits of the above method by investigating the high-frequency tails of the power spectra generated by quantum spin lattices and by the classical Toda lattice.

Absence of exponential sensitivity to small perturbations in nonintegrable systems of spins 1/2

We show that macroscopic nonintegrable lattices of spins 1/2, which are often considered to be chaotic, do not exhibit the basic property of classical chaotic systems, namely, exponential sensitivity to small perturbations. We compare chaotic lattices of classical spins and nonintegrable lattices of spins 1/2 in terms of their magnetization responses to an imperfect reversal of spin dynamics known as Loschmidt echo. In the classical case, magnetization is exponentially sensitive to small perturbations with a characteristic exponent equal to twice the value of the largest Lyapunov exponent of the system. In the case of spins 1/2, magnetization is only power-law sensitive to small perturbations.

Regression relation for pure quantum states and its implications for efficient computing

We obtain a modified version of the Onsager regression relation for the expectation values of quantum-mechanical operators in pure quantum states of isolated many-body quantum systems. We use the insights gained from this relation to show that high-temperature time correlation functions in many-body quantum systems can be controllably computed without complete diagonalization of the Hamiltonians, using instead the direct integration of the Schrödinger equation for randomly sampled pure states. This method is also applicable to quantum quenches and other situations describable by time-dependent many-body Hamiltonians. The method implies exponential reduction of the computer memory requirement in comparison with the complete diagonalization. We illustrate the method by numerically computing infinite-temperature correlation functions for translationally invariant Heisenberg chains of up to 29 spins 1/2. Thereby, we also test the spin diffusion hypothesis and find it in a satisfactory agreement with the numerical results. Both the derivation of the modified regression relation and the justification of the computational method are based on the notion of quantum typicality.

Largest Lyapunov exponents for lattices of interacting classical spins

We investigate how generic the onset of chaos in interacting many-body classical systems is in the context of lattices of classical spins with nearest-neighbor anisotropic couplings. Seven large lattices in different spatial dimensions were considered. For each lattice, more than 2000 largest Lyapunov exponents for randomly sampled Hamiltonians were numerically computed. Our results strongly suggest the absence of integrable nearest-neighbor Hamiltonians for the infinite lattices except for the trivial Ising case. In the vicinity of the Ising case, the largest Lyapunov exponents exhibit a power-law growth, while further away they become rather weakly sensitive to the Hamiltonian anisotropy. We also provide an analytical derivation of these results.

Nonthermal statistics in isolated quantum spin clusters after a series of perturbations

We show numerically that a finite isolated cluster of interacting spins 1/2 exhibits a surprising nonthermal statistics when subjected to a series of small nonadiabatic perturbations by an external magnetic field. The resulting occupations of energy eigenstates are significantly higher than the thermal ones on both the low and the high ends of the energy spectra. This behavior semiquantitatively agrees with the statistics predicted for the so-called "quantum microcanonical" ensemble, which includes all possible quantum superpositions with a given energy expectation value. Our findings also indicate that the eigenstates of the perturbation operators are generically localized in the energy basis of the unperturbed Hamiltonian. This kind of localization possibly protects the thermal behavior in the macroscopic limit.

Typical state of an isolated quantum system with fixed energy and unrestricted participation of eigenstates

This work describes the statistics for the occupation numbers of quantum levels in a large isolated quantum system, where all possible superpositions of eigenstates are allowed provided all these superpositions have the same fixed energy. Such a condition is not equivalent to the conventional microcanonical condition because the latter limits the participating eigenstates to a very narrow energy window. The statistics is obtained analytically for both the entire system and its small subsystem. In a significant departure from the Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics, the average occupation numbers of quantum states exhibit in the present case weak algebraic dependence on energy. In the macroscopic limit, this dependence is routinely accompanied by the condensation into the lowest-energy quantum state. This work contains initial numerical tests of the above statistics for finite systems and also reports the following numerical finding: when the basis states of large but finite random matrix Hamiltonians are expanded in terms of eigenstates, the participation of eigenstates in such an expansion obeys the newly obtained statistics. The above statistics might be observable in small quantum systems, but for the macroscopic systems, it rather re-enforces doubts about self-sufficiency of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics for justifying the Boltzmann-Gibbs equilibrium.

Universal long-time behavior of nuclear spin decays in a solid

Magnetic resonance studies of nuclear spins in solids are exceptionally well suited to probe the limits of statistical physics. We report experimental results indicating that isolated macroscopic systems of interacting nuclear spins possess the following fundamental property: spin decays that start from different initial configurations quickly evolve towards the same long-time behavior. This long-time behavior is characterized by the shortest ballistic microscopic time scale of the system and therefore falls outside of the validity range for conventional approximations of statistical physics. We find that the nuclear free-induction decay and different solid echoes in hyperpolarized solid xenon all exhibit sinusoidally modulated exponential long-time behavior characterized by identical time constants. This universality was previously predicted on the basis of analogy with resonances in classical chaotic systems.

Temperature dependence of the superconducting gap in high-Tc cuprates

It is proposed that the temperature dependence of the superconducting gap Delta(T) in high-T(c) cuprates can be predicted just from the knowledge of Delta(0) and the critical temperature T(c), and, in particular, Delta(0)/T(c)>4 implies that Delta(T(c)) not equal 0, while Delta(0)/T(c)</=4 corresponds to Delta(T(c))=0. A number of tunneling experiments appear to support the above proposition, and, furthermore, show reasonable quantitative agreement with a model based on the two-dimensional stripe hypothesis.