Theory of competing excitonic orders in insulating WTe$_2$ monolayers
Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics American Physical Society
Abstract:
We develop a theory of the excitonic phase recently proposed as the zero-field insulating state observed near charge neutrality in monolayer WTe$_2$. Using a Hartree-Fock approximation, we numerically identify two distinct gapped excitonic phases: a spin density wave state for weak but non-zero interaction strength $U_0$, and spin spiral order at larger $U_0$, separated by a narrow window of trivial insulator. We introduce a simplified model capturing essential features of the WTe$_2$ band structure, in which the two phases may be viewed as distinct valley ferromagnetic orders. We link the competition between the two phases to the orbital structure of the electronic wavefunctions at the Fermi surface and hence its proximity to the underlying gapped Dirac point in WTe$_2$. We briefly discuss collective modes of the two excitonic states, and comment on implications for experiments.
Time Evolution of Multi-Party Entanglement Signals
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16729
Abstract:
We study the real-time dynamics of multi-party entanglement signals in chaotic quantum many-body systems including but not necessarily restricted to holographic conformal field theories. We find that scrambling dynamics generates multiparty entanglement with rich structure including: (a) qualitatively different dynamical behaviours for different signals, likely reflecting different dynamics for different kinds of entanglement patterns, (b) discontinuities indicating dynamical phase transitions in the entanglement structure, (c) transient and non-monotonic multiparty entanglement, and (d) periods during which the extensive entanglement of some regions is entirely multipartite. Our main technical tool is the membrane theory of entanglement dynamics.
Two-dimensional, blue phase tactoids
Molecular Physics Taylor and Francis
Universal Prethermal Dynamics in Heisenberg Ferromagnets
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 230601
Abstract:
We study the far from equilibrium prethermal dynamics of magnons in Heisenberg ferromagnets. We show that such systems exhibit universal self-similar scaling in momentum and time of the quasiparticle distribution function, with the scaling exponents independent of microscopic details or initial conditions. We argue that the SU(2) symmetry of the Hamiltonian, which leads to a strong momentum-dependent magnon-magnon scattering amplitude, gives rise to qualitatively distinct prethermal dynamics from that recently observed in Bose gases. We compute the scaling exponents using the Boltzmann kinetic equation and incoherent initial conditions that can be realized with microwave pumping of magnons. We also compare our numerical results with analytic estimates of the scaling exponents and demonstrate the robustness of the scaling to variations in the initial conditions. Our predictions can be tested in quench experiments of spin systems in optical lattices and pump-probe experiments in ferromagnetic insulators such as yttrium iron garnet.