Papers

In physical experiments, interventions can alter hidden experimental states in ways that cannot be predicted in advance. Autonomous scientific agents must therefore interpret the consequences of their interventions while operating with incomplete knowledge of the experimental state. Here we investigate this problem using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip conditioning, traditionally a human-expert-intensive task governed by inaccessible tip apex conditions and uncertain action outcomes. We introduce quailbot, an agent harness that places the LLM inside the instrument feedback loop by linking physical interventions with experimental readbacks. After a brief apprenticeship with a human expert, frontier LLM agents autonomously completed end-to-end tip conditioning on an STM and passed an independent verification. The contingencies that arose during the experiments further exposed the limits of LLM agentic autonomy when relevant experimental states or dynamics were hidden or unmodeled. Our results show that future autonomous physical experimentation requires agents to infer hidden and unmodeled experimental states, track the outcomes of their actions, and operate within the observability and action limits of real instruments.

Large-scale simulations of correlated electron systems require repeated evaluations of the electronic forces and transition energies driving collective dynamics. Machine-learning surrogates alleviate this bottleneck, but incorporating symmetry often involves carefully designed descriptors or specialized network architectures. We show that ordinary multilayer perceptrons equipped with finite-group averaging provide exactly equivariant surrogates directly from microscopic configurations. The construction separates symmetry enforcement from the internal network architecture and applies to both discrete and continuous lattice degrees of freedom. In the Falicov–Kimball model, it predicts directional hopping free-energy differences; in the Holstein model, its invariant limit generates conservative lattice forces. Benchmarks against exact diagonalization establish microscopic accuracy and agreement of dynamical correlations, while large-scale simulations recover multiscale charge ordering and charge-density-wave coarsening. These results demonstrate an accessible, reusable route to symmetry-preserving many-body dynamics for systems with finite lattice point groups.

Exciton condensates are long-sought correlated quantum states arising from macroscopic coherence of bound electron-hole pairs. Although equilibrium and transient excitonic states have been reported in several material platforms, direct evidence for a light-induced exciton condensate state has been challenging to achieve as an intrinsic property of a bulk quantum material. Here, we use time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to investigate long-lived photoexcited carriers in the intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ with the chemical potential tuned to the topological surface state by Sb substitution. Following optical excitation, we observe the delayed emergence of a transient state whose formation coincides with depopulation of the bulk conduction band and whose lifetime extends to the microsecond timescale. The quasiparticle dispersion exhibits a pronounced flattening and develops a Mexican-hat-like profile. These spectral signatures are consistent with the formation of a metastable excitonic condensate state. Our results establish magnetic topological insulators as a promising platform for investigating long-lived photoinduced many-body states and their interplay with topology and magnetism.

We have examined the nature of elementary excitations in particular, their spin polarization, in recently discovered zero-field fractional Chern insulator in twisted bilayer MoTe$_2$. We have found that the finite-size bilayer system, in close proximity to a planar parabolic quantum dot containing a single electron (or a hole), forms an incompressible spin-unpolarized fractional Chern insulator at 1/3 filling factor. The corresponding energy gap is found to be large and weakly dependent on the separation between the quantum dot and the bilayer. We predict that in this fractional Chern insulator coupled to a quantum dot, spin-unpolarized quasiparticles and quasiholes are expected to appear as low-energy elementary excitations. The charge density results indicate that, for the spin-unpolarized quasiparticles, the positive charge is strongly localized near the negatively charged QD within the spin-flipped component, whereas for the spin-polarized quasiparticles, such localization is much less pronounced.

Using determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we compare charge transport in the two-dimensional attractive and repulsive Hubbard models at strong coupling, $|U|/t=6$. Although the interaction with opposite signs generates qualitatively different low-energy spin, charge, and pairing correlations, both exhibit approximately linear-in-temperature resistivity over a broad intermediate- and high-temperature regime. At asymptotically high temperature this common behavior follows from the moment expansion of the conductivity, whose leading contribution is even in $U$. More strikingly, the similarity persists to temperatures well below $|U|$, where strong interaction-dependent correlations have already developed, and also irrespective of whether resistivity crosses the MIR limit. Using the Nernst–Einstein relation, we find that the common linear-in-temperature resistivity is primarily associated with an approximately Curie-like charge compressibility and weakly temperature-dependent diffusivity. The two models separate only at lower temperatures, where the attractive model develops a pronounced feature in the charge diffusivity correlated with signatures of pair formation. These results show that linear-in-temperature incoherent transport in the Hubbard model can be remarkably insensitive to the microscopic nature of the low-energy correlations. Our results suggest that transport in the incoherent regime appears insensitive to what the system will ultimately become at low temperature; the distinction between competing low-energy states becomes visible only when their characteristic correlations acquire sufficiently long spatial or temporal coherence.

A conventional interaction-driven Weyl density wave is a complex scalar and supports vortex lines, but no topologically stable point defects. We show that two Weyl flavors do not merely duplicate this order. Starting from the matrix-valued internode coherence, a local flavor-symmetric repulsion selects a traceless adjoint condensate within the density-wave sector, while the fermionic ground-state energy locks its complex components into the collinear form $\mathbf{\Delta}=\Phi_0\mathbf{n} e^{i\theta}$. The resulting order-parameter manifold, $(S^2\times S^1)/\mathbb Z_2$, supports both unit hedgehogs and half-quantum Alice strings of the same electronic mass that gaps the Weyl fermions. An elementary hedgehog binds a single normalizable zero mode whose empty and occupied sectors carry charges $-e/2$ and $+e/2$ at neutrality. An elementary Alice string carries a single chiral electronic mode despite its $\pi$ phase winding, and transporting a hedgehog around it reverses the hedgehog winding, $N\rightarrow-N$. Flavor therefore converts spontaneous translation breaking into a route to point-defect fractionalization and intertwines the point- and line-defect sectors of an interaction-generated electronic mass.

We investigate the maximal total quantum dimension at a bounded categorical rank cutoff $R$ in three-dimensional Dijkgraaf–Witten theories. This optimization problem physically governs the maximal state-optimized torus topological entanglement entropy at a fixed torus ground-state degeneracy, while providing a quantitative constraint on the search space required to classify these topological order phases. We analyze how topological twists (3-cocycles) and gauge-group structures independently govern this trade-off. For elementary-Abelian gauge groups at a fixed prime $p$, we prove that introducing cocycle twists elevates the maximum total quantum dimension from square-root growth $\Theta_p(R^{1/2})$ to linear growth $\Theta_p(R)$ in the rank cutoff, driven by the geometric protection of cyclic holonomies. For untwisted theories, we establish sharp envelopes for symmetric and alternating gauge groups, and derive group-theoretic bounds across almost-simple, solvable, and radical-free families. In particular, almost-simple groups and their direct products obey a quadratic-logarithmic upper envelope: $\log\mathcal{D} = O((\log R)^2)$. Finally, we compare these scales against WZW models and discuss the status of the general quadratic-logarithmic envelope conjecture.

In $(2+1)$-dimensional topologically ordered many-body states, transparent (topologically deformable) domain walls are invisible to local topological probes, yet can modify the ground state degeneracy (GSD) and transmute anyons transported across them. Here, we develop an entanglement-bootstrap framework using information convex sets (ICSs) on local and noncontractible annuli to extract information about transparent domain walls directly from ground state wavefunctions at fixed points of Abelian topological phases on a torus, without taking categorical defect data as input. We derive fusion rules governing the action of anyons on extreme points of ICSs on noncontractible annuli and determine their quantum dimensions. Extreme points invariant under transport around the complementary cycle correspond one-to-one to minimum entropy states (MESs), and their number equals the GSD. The maximal topological entanglement entropy (TEE), $\gamma_{\rm LW}^{\max}=\log(\mathcal{D}/d_\alpha)$, probes the net effect of walls crossing the chosen annulus, where $\mathcal{D}$ is the total quantum dimension and $d_\alpha$ is the quantum dimension of an extreme point of its ICS. In contrast, the maximal entanglement asymmetry is $\Delta S_X^{\max}=\log\mathrm{GSD}$. This value is the same for both annulus orientations and reflects the combined effect of the transparent domain walls. We further show that transparent domain walls can give rise to symmetries supported jointly on the two chosen fundamental cycles that cannot be decomposed into a product of two $1$-form symmetry operators, one supported on each cycle. By relating their action on MESs to anyon tunneling and the fusion rules, we clarify how these symmetries connect distinct ground states. Additionally, we apply the framework to Wen's plaquette model, the anisotropic dipolar toric code, and the rank-2 toric code.

The two-dimensional Majorana-Hubbard model on the $\pi$-flux lattice involves the most local interaction possible for a lattice with one relativistic Majorana fermion per site. It is predicted to host a Majorana semimetal, dimerized phases, and quantum-critical points with an emergent $U(1)$ symmetry. Nonperturbative lattice calculations for this model remain a major open challenge, thus far limited to zero hopping. We present quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the model at finite hopping using Hamiltonian fermion bags, which are based on a continuous-time expansion with Boltzmann weights that are Pfaffians of a matrix with dimension set by the expansion order, and which give the sign of the weight. Sign problem severity is related to the location of zero modes in the free hopping matrix, and for couplings $g\lesssim 0.7$ and $\beta=L/4$ it is fully removed for lattices up to at least $256$ sites. The interaction strength $g>0$ enhances the $U(1)$-charged dimerization doublet and suppresses the neutral channel, as the renormalization group predicts. Increasing the interactions also restores $U(1)$ symmetry in the component of the dimerization correlator that is even under bond orientation exchange, but not its odd component. There is a persistent anisotropy in the odd component with the symmetry of a lattice nematic. The data is consistent with a gapless semimetal throughout the sign-problem-minimal window.

The large directional anisotropy of superconducting UTe2 along the lattice a, b, c directions in magnetic susceptibility, upper critical fields, and Knight shift suggests spin-triplet Cooper pairing. If spin fluctuations bind the Cooper pair, one needs to determine their anisotropy in spin space to characterize the superconducting state. Here we use polarised and unpolarised inelastic neutron scattering (INS) experiments to show that antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin fluctuations at the Y point are highly isotropic within the ac-plane but have no observable magnitude along the b-axis. Our results rule out the assumed Ising anisotropy and constrain the possible pairing channels. AFM exchange is no longer pair forming in the triplet channel and the d vector along b is strongly favoured. We capture the experimental observations within a microscopic framework that encompasses the dual nature of 5f electrons. We include itinerant and localized 5f-moments in a tight-binding model fitted to quantum oscillations data. In congruence with INS, the exchange between localized moments generically consists of a strong FM intra-dimer interaction, maxima close to the Y and T points, mediated by 5p_y and 6d_{3z^2-r^2} orbitals respectively, and magnetically decoupled ab-planes. We find that anisotropy and dimerization of the moments can lead to gapped excitations that, in combination with Landau damping, can produce the observed overdamped response at the Y point. We suggest that enhancement of the response and its observed near-O(2)-symmetry could both be driven by proximity to a quantum critical point where the dimer excitation gap closes and gives place to incommensurate helical order. Analysis of the linearized gap equation for a nearest-neighbour pairing interaction favours the B1u triplet with a dominant d-vector component along b, although the possibility of spin singlet pairing cannot be ruled out.

Finite-temperature many-body theories are typically formulated in imaginary time, where they are amenable to efficient numerical treatment. However, the extraction of spectral properties from the imaginary axis is difficult and requires numerical analytic continuation, while a direct formulation on the real axis requires prohibitively expensive numerical quadrature. In this paper, we represent the objects of many-body perturbation theory using systematically improvable pole and moment expansions and develop the corresponding framework for evaluating diagrammatic contributions directly on the real axis. We introduce a controlled recompression procedure that prevents the proliferation of poles under algebraic and diagrammatic operations. We benchmark the approach on paradigmatic quantum impurity problems and apply it to self-consistent calculations of the uniform electron gas. The resulting spectral quantities converge systematically towards numerical accuracy. This work provides a practical framework for controlled and systematically improvable calculations of spectral quantities within diagrammatic many-body theories, including self-consistent conserving approaches.

We study the anisotropic charge response of a three-dimensional tilted nodal-line semimetal in which the tilt enters the spectrum through an identity term and acts as the model control parameter. Using the Kubo formula with line-integral vertices, we show that the tilt-induced deformation of the low-energy phase space produces parametrically different longitudinal and transverse Drude responses: the longitudinal weight grows logarithmically as $D_{zz}=B\ln(1/\delta)$ with the analytically determined coefficient $B=g/(2\pi)^2$—within the window in which the Fermi-surface tail lies inside the ultraviolet cutoff, while at a fixed physical cutoff the weight saturates instead at a cutoff-set plateau—whereas the transverse weight follows a stronger algebraic scaling $D_\perp\sim\delta^{-1}$; the leading $\sqrt\delta$ corrections to both asymptotic forms are obtained analytically. The interband polarization retains the $q^2$ long-wavelength structure, with a coefficient that is infrared-integrable through Pauli blocking at finite doping yet carries a slow ultraviolet logarithm; it renormalizes the collective mode multiplicatively and sets the interband absorption threshold $\omega_c=2\mu/(1+|\eta_z|)$. A self-consistent solution of the plasmon dispersion identifies a tilt-dependent damping-free window bounded by the interband continuum. We predict that the type-II extension of this window, within the stated bandwidth (Brillouin-zone-like) cutoff regularization, contains a candidate low-frequency acoustic-like branch outside the particle–hole continua for $\eta_z\gtrsim1.2$ over a finite window in momentum transfer.

Landau Fermi-liquid theory characterizes interacting metals through quasiparticles and their residual interactions. It is a challenge to incorporate non-trivial quantum geometry – as encoded by Berry phases and the quantum metric – as a fundamental ingredient. We formulate a Berry-Landau Fermi-liquid theory for spinless fermions within an isolated band crossing the Fermi surface and derive the Landau functional through the Nozières–Luttinger construction. The instantaneous response to a perturbation of the Bloch waves generates both an anomalous Berry-connection potential in the action and an interaction-induced quantum-geometric contribution to the quasiparticle current. The conserved physical charge current is then obtained via the electromagnetic Ward identity as a combinati of this quantum-geometric current and the bare drift current. Therefore, the intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity is fixed by the Berry-curvature integral of the dressed quasiparticle band while the Drude weight contains both conventional and quantum-geometric contributions. In the presence of Galilean symmetry, the Drude weight is protected against interaction renormalization. In the flat/narrow-band limit, transport is dominantly quantum-geometric and can be thermally enhanced. These results establish quasiparticle occupations, Landau interactions, and the quantum geometry carried by quasiparticles as the fundamental low-energy ingredients of a Berry-Landau Fermi liquid.

The dynamics of gauge theories is of fundamental interest, with low-dimensional systems displaying a rich phenomenology beyond the rapid thermalization typical of QCD and non-Abelian theories. In particular, recent quantum simulation experiments have reported robust and unexpected signatures of slow relaxation in generic regimes and at large volumes in one-dimensional U(1) lattice gauge theories (LGTs), whose origin remains poorly understood. Here, we present a framework that provides a unified perspective on such slow dynamics and establishes a new route for exploring subdiffusive fractonic hydrodynamics in Rydberg experiments. The backbone of our theory is an exact analytical mapping from U(1) LGTs with a topological $\theta$ angle to non-local kinetically constrained fermionic models with an emergent linear Stark potential. In the absence of the $\theta$ term, this framework interprets the non-thermal dynamics reported in recent experiments as prethermal behavior arising from proximity to an integrable free-fermion model. For non-zero $\theta$, the emergent Stark potential instead explains the freezing dynamics observed in other recent experiments. We argue that this correspondence could also lead to subdiffusive transport due to emergent conservation laws. We predict that these phenomena arise in a much broader class of models, and support this prediction with numerical simulations and proposals for future experiments.

We report a detailed anisotropic studies on the magnetic and transport properties of a CeRu$_2$Ge$_2$ single crystal. A clear ferromagnetic transition is observed at $T_{\rm C} = 7.5$~K in the magnetic susceptibility, electrical resistivity and heat capacity measurements. The magnetoresistance (MR) is positive at low temperature within the magnetically ordered state. We confirmed the presence of a magnon excitation gap in the resistivity, MR and the low temperature heat capacity data. The pronounced anisotropy observed in the magnetic susceptibility and magnetization along the [100] and [001] directions is quantitatively explained within the crystal electric field (CEF) framework using the point-charge model. The analysis reveals a CEF level scheme comprising three doublets, with a ground state and two excited states at 491 and 671~K, that was further confirmed from the Schottky effect in the magnetic part of the heat capacity data. Unlike most Kondo lattice ferromagnets of Ce compounds, where the magnetic easy axis deviates from the expected CEF ground state, CeRu$_2$Ge$_2$ exhibits magnetization, which is fully consistent with the CEF derived ground state wave function, with the easy axis of magnetization aligned along the [001] direction.

Simulating strongly correlated fermions remains a long-standing challenge due to the exponential complexity of the Hilbert space and the intricate sign structure of many-body wavefunctions. We introduce a variational framework centered on a neural network backflow transformation that combines deep learning with variational Monte Carlo. The proposed ansatz employs a multi-determinant expansion with low-rank shifts to capture non-local correlations and complex sign structures. Applied to the two-dimensional Hubbard model at both half-filling and $1/8$ doping, the method achieves energies within $0.45\%$ of auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo at half-filling and captures intertwined charge- and spin-density stripe patterns at $1/8$ doping. These results demonstrate the potential of this framework as a scalable and interpretable approach to variational simulations of strongly correlated fermionic systems.

The excitonic insulator (EI) is an electronic phase of condensed excitons. However, in many prototypical materials the presence of a concurrent structural transition complicates the identification of a purely electronic origin of the ordered state. Here, we investigate Ta2Pd3Te5, in which an EI phase develops below TC ~ 100 K in the absence of a detectable structural transition. We characterize the excitonic condensate via its coherent phonon-amplitude response. Most strikingly, an extraordinarily strong lifetime enhancement of these modes sets in below TC which we establish as a new and robust fingerprint linked to exciton condensation. We discuss possibilities to capture the enhancement when taking into account a coupling of excitonic and lattice effects in line with the coupled phonon-amplitude response. Within an order-parameter polaron picture coupling to the excitonic state may dress the phonon mode and thereby suppress its relaxation and a phenomenological model combines the anharmonic phonon response and a reduced electronic scattering due to the gap opening in the EI phase.

Strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB) can occur in a maximally mixed charge sector even when ordinary charged correlations vanish. We study this order when a charge sector splits into dynamically disconnected fragments. In a one-dimensional $t$-$J_z$ chain with species-resolved dephasing, each fragment is labeled by a conserved spin word. A charged transfer between separated finite intervals preserves that word only if the intervening spins satisfy a periodicity constraint. In the full-state two-point sense, we use this constraint to prove the absence of long-range fidelity and Rényi-1 order in typical fixed-composition fragments, uniformly over all norm-bounded charged operators in any prescribed finite interval. A fragment with primitive spin-word period $k$ supports a $k$-particle channel with exact long-distance value $\nu^k(1-\nu)^k/k^2$, and no charged operator on fewer than $k$ sites can carry this order. A transverse exchange connects the fragments while preserving the global charges and restores the full-sector steady state at finite size. The conserved spin word therefore selects the local channels that can support mixed-state order.

Topological spin textures have attracted considerable attention through their emergent electromagnetic properties, including the topological Hall effect and the topological Nernst effect. Among them, magnetic hedgehog lattices (HLs) are three-dimensional topological spin textures that host emergent magnetic monopoles and antimonopoles. HLs have been identified in metallic compounds, such as $\mathrm{MnSi}_{1-x}\mathrm{Ge}_x$ and $\mathrm{SrFeO_3}$. Various theoretical models have been proposed, with either short-range or long-range interactions, which are typically regarded as effective descriptions of insulating and metallic systems, respectively. However, the role of the interaction range in stabilizing the HLs remains only partially understood. To address this gap, we investigate the stability of HLs by systematically varying the range and spatial decay of the exchange interactions, thereby interpolating between interaction profiles commonly associated with localized-spin insulating models and itinerant-electron metallic models. Based on extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we find that HLs are stabilized over a broad interaction range. Intriguingly, among the interaction profiles examined, intermediate-range interactions are particularly favorable for stabilizing HLs. They give rise to two distinct types of $3Q$-HLs that differ in the number of monopole-antimonopole pairs per magnetic unit cell, and their relative stability depends sensitively on the interaction range. Our results provide a unified framework for tuning phase diagrams from microscopic interaction models, serving as a guideline for interpreting experiments in candidate materials.

We study the equilibrium statistical mechanics of one-dimensional classical Machian fractons: particles whose dynamics conserves a global dipole moment and whose Hamiltonian couples momentum differences through a position-dependent pair-inertia kernel. Compactly supported interaction kernels have a divergence in the Gibbs partition function, and have been shown to break ergodicity and symmetry by forming non-equilibrium steady states with particle clusters, evading the Hohenberg-Mermin-Wagner-Coleman theorem. In this paper, we consider kernels with non-compact support and study their ergodic properties. For exponentially decaying kernels, graph-Laplacian and matrix-tree bounds provide an extensive free energy suggesting that a putative statistical mechanical description is valid. Similarly, uniform non-local kernels have a super-extensive free energy and require a Kac rescaling. A generalized Hohenberg–Mermin–Wagner–Coleman argument, supported by finite-size scaling, implies symmetry-breaking density order parameter vanishes at all wave vectors melting the long-range translation-breaking density order of compact kernels. To study the resulting equilibrium ensemble, we construct a nonreversible event-chain Monte Carlo (ECMC) algorithm that samples the coupled position-momentum phase space while preserving the dipole moment and total momentum. The ECMC sampling is shown to quantitatively match long time-averaged quantites in Hamiltonian dynamics. The equilibrium liquid exhibits preferred short-range clustering and strongly non-Gaussian single-particle momentum tails associated with the correlated nature of positions and momenta. This paper provides a detailed investigation into the equilibrium liquid properties of the non-compact regime, whilst the companion paper investigates the mechanisms that relax the liquid.

Inspired by recent interests in quantum geometry in electronic bands, we consider a two-dimensional topological Mott insulator, i.e. chiral spin liquid, whose spinon bands develop nontrivial band topological and quantum geometry. The virtual polarization of the gapped charge sector transfers the electromagnetic drive to the charge-neutral spinons through the emergent U(1) gauge field, producing a tensor Ioffe-Larkin response and enabling two complementary optical protocols for measurements. In the off-shell (low-frequency) regime, a self-calibrated ratio of the physical longitudinal and Hall conductivities yields the spinon Chern number without the microscopic knowledge of the charge response. In the on-shell (resonant) regime, combining the inverse Ioffe-Larkin response with the Kramers-Kronig relation enables reconstruction of the quantum-metric and Berry-curvature spectral densities. Our approach directly applies to the triangular lattice Hofstadter-Hubbard model in Moiré systems, can be well adapted to other triangular lattice antiferromagnets such as Nb$_3$Br$_8$ with appropriate modifications. We establish a unified framework for quantitatively probing the quantum geometry of fractionalized quasiparticles in topological Mott regime.

We introduce a nullspace-guided adaptive (NGA) bootstrap method that improves the energy lower bounds of quantum many-body ground states by refining the bootstrap basis in a dynamic and incremental way. At each iteration, the optimized moment matrix reveals a nullspace of saturated positivity directions, which is intuitively interpreted as annihilators of the approximate ground-state subspace. The NGA bootstrap then prunes operators with small nullspace leverage and grows the basis along descendants of these null directions. By applying the NGA bootstrap to the transverse-field Ising chain, we obtain nearly exact energy lower bounds because the algorithm automatically discovers the eigenoperator structure in terms of Jordan-Wigner fermions from a minimal local bootstrap basis. For the Hubbard chain, it improves upon state-of-the-art energy lower bounds by up to two orders of magnitude, reaching errors ranging from $10^{-3}$ down to $10^{-5}$ in the strongly correlated regimes. We further show that the NGA framework can be used to improve the certified two-sided bounds on general observables. In addition, the bootstrap error decreases approximately as a power law with increasing computational resources. These results suggest that our method provides a practical and scalable route toward accurate bootstrap of general quantum many-body systems.

Cavity-induced electron mass renormalization is an important ingredient of many proposals to control material properties through vacuum field modification. What is its ultimate limit? Here this question is answered by (i) noting that this mass renormalization is essentially due to the field-mediated interaction between the electron and the polarizable degrees of freedom in the cavity mirrors, and (ii) directly evaluating the corresponding Feynman path integral for a 2D electron by numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo. The sought upper limit is provided by the Landau-Pekar polaron in the planar geometry. The presented calculation bridges the gap between cavity control and dielectric engineering of material properties.

We develop a Poincaré duality theory for defects of nondegenerate sesquilinear pairings over Laurent polynomial rings. A key ingredient is a novel flat resolution of the character module, constructed from a triangulation of the sphere at infinity associated with a fan. The cup product on this resolution turns Poincaré duality on the sphere into canonical pairings between the resulting defect modules. In middle degrees, we construct distinguished quadratic refinements using equivariant cohomology of the sphere with the antipodal action. The effective replacement of the sphere with a projective space provides a geometric substitute for division by two. Applied to translation-invariant Pauli stabilizer codes, our results establish the nondegeneracy of higher-dimensional braiding pairings. They extend the two-dimensional T-junction formula for topological spin to higher dimensions, while giving it a geometric interpretation.

Recent advances in engineered quantum platforms have enabled the realization of bosonic Laughlin states at $\nu=1/2$ and brought non-Abelian topological phases within experimental reach. A central theoretical challenge is to develop a unified framework connecting lattice fractional quantum Hall (FQH) model states, exact parent Hamiltonians, and experimentally accessible interactions. We systematically construct Hermitian parent Hamiltonians for which continuum lowest Landau level (LLL) model states sampled on lattice sites are exact zero modes. Using these model manifolds as quantitative references, we find that, within the projected lattice LLL at the flux densities studied, short-range density interactions stabilize Laughlin ground-state manifolds at $\nu=1/3$ and $1/4$, while two-body onsite repulsion supports a Moore–Read triplet at $\nu=1$. Full multiband calculations reveal a sharp contrast: the Laughlin manifolds remain robust against interband mixing on the studied tori, whereas the Moore–Read triplet becomes less spectrally isolated and eventually undergoes a level crossing with competing states near the interband scale. Our framework provides a theoretical foundation for using lattice model states to guide the search for experimentally accessible Abelian and non-Abelian FQH states.

We investigate the sampling efficiency in a segment-based continuous-time hybridization-expansion quantum Monte Carlo solver within dynamical mean-field theory for the doped SU(3) Fermi-Hubbard model. Focusing on the low-temperature and strong-coupling regime, where a ferromagnetic state appears upon hole doping away from one-third filling, we compare several update schemes. Adding the double-flip update to the basic local update yields the smallest integrated autocorrelation time of the majority-flavor occupation in the ferromagnetic regime, whereas adding the flavor-permutation update is the most effective in the paramagnetic regime. We further clarify the origin of this difference by analyzing the characteristic occupation changes caused by accepted updates.

Strong entanglement limits the reach of tensor-network descriptions of quantum many-body systems. We study Gaussian-augmented matrix product states (GAMPS), formed by applying a free-fermionic (Gaussian) unitary to a matrix product state. To explore the capabilities of this family, we consider random GAMPS}, a minimally structured ensemble obtained by independently sampling random matrix product states and Gaussian unitaries. Exploiting the algebraic structure of Gaussian unitaries, we develop a replica tensor-network method that computes averages over the random GAMPS ensemble for hundreds of qubits. Random GAMPS exhibit nearly maximal volume-law entanglement already at modest bond dimension, while other quantum resource quantifiers rapidly approach Haar-random state values as the bond dimension increases. The entanglement scaling suggests an exponential reduction in the bond dimension needed to approach the volume-law entropy compared with unaugmented matrix product states. We find a state two-design behavior of random GAMPS at fixed accuracy with a bond dimension independent of system size. Our results reveal how Gaussian augmentation expands the expressive power of tensor networks.

Ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy provides a powerful means to investigate electron-phonon (e-ph) interactions in strongly correlated systems. Nevertheless, the question of how different microscopic e-ph coupling mechanisms influence the lattice's nonequilibrium response has not been widely addressed. We perform time-dependent density matrix renormalization group simulations on a pumped one-dimensional Mott insulator coupled to phonons through either Holstein or Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) interactions. The electronic responses of the two models are qualitatively similar in the Mott-insulating regime and are governed by the same excitations and resonance conditions of the Hubbard model. In contrast, the lattice dynamics of the two models differ substantially. While the Hubbard-Holstein model exhibits long-lived coherent phonon oscillations when the pump resonates with the bare phonon frequency, no such oscillations are observed for the Hubbard-SSH model. These contrasting responses remain robust against changes in phonon frequency and pump parameters, suggesting that coherent lattice dynamics can provide a direct nonequilibrium probe of the microscopic form of e-ph coupling.

The density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a one-dimensional tensor-network technique, but it is not limited to one-dimensional systems: it can be applied to periodic 2D and 3D clusters and molecules, provided their sites are first enumerated along a line; a step one may call "lattice compilation". This paper discusses three proxy loss functions for finding this optimal enumeration: the graph bandwidth $B$ (maximum interaction range), the cutwidth $C$ (maximum number of bonds crossing a cut), and the average interaction range $R$. Constructing the Hamiltonian MPO (matrix-product operator) for a large set of clusters that are of interest in frustrated magnetism, I find that $C$ determines the peak SU(2) Heisenberg MPO bond dimension and $R$ the average one. Targeting $(C,R)$ lexicographically yields the best energies. Targeting $B$ indirectly reduces $C$, but not as efficiently as targeting $C$ directly. Otherwise, the value of $B$ itself is largely irrelevant in the sense that good DMRG energies can have large $B$. To perform the optimization, classic heuristics (e.g. reverse Cuthill–McKee) prove unreliable even for small clusters, and I find that a QUBO formulation improves them only marginally. Instead I propose a staged optimization built on Boolean satisfiability (SAT) and constraint-programming (CP) solvers, chiefly CP-SAT of Google's OR-Tools, a hybrid of CP propagation and SAT clause learning. This approach yields significantly better orderings together with rigorous bounds. The corresponding Lattice in Line code is available at https://github.com/spinflip/lattice_in_line and was designed with extensive use of the Fable 5 large language model.

Zhang et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 016701 (2026)] report momentum-dependent spin polarization in the altermagnet CrSb from point-contact Andreev reflection along the (0001), (-1-120), and (10-10) directions. We show that the Andreev spin polarization they claim to measure is forbidden by symmetry: it vanishes identically in the diffusive regime for all directions in CrSb, and in the ballistic regime for two of the three orientations measured. It is allowed only along one direction, where the calculated band structure gives ~50%. The large, nearly isotropic values reported follow from an incorrect definition of ballistic Andreev spin polarization that evaluates the spin asymmetry at fixed three-dimensional momentum; the Andreev selection rule is local only in the momentum component parallel to the interface. Moreover, the ballistic regime is not demonstrated, and the fitting procedure is flawed.