Misc

Quantum Monte Carlo is one of the most powerful numerical tools for studying nonpeturbative properties of quantum many-body systems. However, its application to real-time problems is limited since the complex and highly-oscillating path-integral weight of the real-time evolution harms the important sampling. % , which is the notorious sign problem. In this Letter, we show that some real-time problems in open fermion systems can be simulated using the quantum Monte Carlo. To this end, we prescribe a mapping between a real-time problem in open quantum systems and a statistical problem in non-Hermitian quantum systems; for some cases, the latter can be solved without suffering from the complex measure problem. To explain our idea and demonstrate how it works, we compute the real-time evolution of fidelities in open fermion systems under dissipation.

Complex quantum many-body dynamics spread initially localized quantum information across the entire system. Information scrambling refers to such a process, whose simulation is one of the promising applications of quantum computing. We demonstrate the Hayden-Preskill recovery protocol and the interferometric protocol for calculating out-of-time-ordered correlators to study the scrambling property of a one-dimensional kicked-Ising model on 20-qubit trapped-ion quantum processors. The simulated quantum circuits have a geometrically local structure that exhibits the ballistic growth of entanglement, resulting in the circuit depth being linear in the number of qubits for the entire state to be scrambled. We experimentally confirm the growth of signals in the Hayden-Preskill recovery protocol and the decay of out-of-time-ordered correlators at late times. As an application of the created scrambling circuits, we also experimentally demonstrate the calculation of the microcanonical expectation values of local operators adopting the idea of thermal pure quantum states.

The Berry curvature involving time and momentum derivatives, which we term emergent electric field, induces a nondisspative current known as the adiabatic charge pumping or Thouless pumping in periodically driven systems. We study dissipative currents originated from the interplay between emergent electric fields and electric/magnetic fields in two and three dimensions on the basis of the Boltzmann transport theory. As an example of two-dimensional models, we study the Rashba Hamiltonian with time-dependent and anisotropic spin-orbit coupling. We show that the interplay between emergent electric fields and electric fields leads to a current transverse to electric fields, which is symmetric and contributes to the entropy production. As an example of three-dimensional models, we study the Weyl Hamiltonian under AC electric fields. We show that the interplay between emergent electric fields and magnetic fields leads to a Hall-type current at zero DC electric fields, which is now transverse to DC magnetic fields: $j_{x}=\sigma_{xy}B_y$ ($\sigma_{xy}=-\sigma_{yx}$). The Hall photocurrent is relevant in the inversion symmetry breaking Weyl semimetals such as TaAs or SrSi$_2$.

We study the dynamical generation of the chiral chemical potential in a Weyl metal constructed from a three-dimensional optical lattice and subject to synthetic gauge fields. By numerically solving the Boltzmann equation with the Berry curvature in the presence of parallel synthetic electric and magnetic fields, we find that the spectral flow and the ensuing chiral magnetic current emerge. We show that the spectral flow and the chiral chemical potential can be probed by time-of-flight imaging.

Many of the biological phenomena involve collective dynamics driven by self-propelled motion and nonequilibrium force (i.e., activity) that result in features unexpected from equilibrium physics. On the other hand, biological experiments utilizing molecular motors, bacteria, and mammalian cells have served as ideal setups to probe the effect of activity in materials and compare with theory. As has been established, however, biomolecules are chiral in nature, which can lead to the chiral patterning of cells and even to the left-right symmetry breaking in our body. The general mechanism of how the dynamics of bio-matters can couple with its own inherent chirality to produce macroscopic patterns is yet to be elucidated. Here we report that cultured neural progenitor cells (NPCs), which undergo self-propelled motion with nematic cell-to-cell interactions, exhibit large scale chiral patterns when flowing out from containers made by gel. Moreover, a robust chiral cell flow is produced along the boundary when the NPCs are cultured on substrates with edges. Perturbation by actomyosin inhibitors allowed control over the chirality, resulting in the switching of the direction of the chiral patterning and boundary flow. As predicted by a hydrodynamic theory analogous to the non-Hermitian Schrodinger equation, we find an edge-localized unidirectional mode in the Fourier spectrum of the cell density, which corresponds to the topological Kelvin wave. These results establish a novel mechanism of flow that emerges from a pool of bipolar cells, and demonstrate how topological concepts from condensed matter physics can naturally arise in chiral active systems and multi-cellular phenomena.

We study the Nambu-Goldstone (NG) modes associated with spontaneous breaking of the continuous time-translation symmetry. To discuss a quantum time-crystal with the spontaneously-broken continuous time-translation symmetry, we introduce the van der Pol type nonlinear-friction to open quantum systems. By considering small fluctuations around a time-periodic mean-field solution, we show that a gapless collective mode necessarily appears; this is nothing but the NG mode associated with a time crystal. We show that its dispersion relation becomes $\omega=-iC\bm p^2$. We also show that noncommutative breaking of the time-translation and U(1) symmetries results in mixing of the NG modes, and the (typically) propagating NG mode appears, whose dispersion relation becomes $\omega=(\pm C_1-iC_2)\bm p^2$.