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We discuss how to reveal the massive Goldstone mode, often referred to as the Higgs amplitude mode, near the superfluid-to-insulator quantum critical point (QCP) in a system of two-dimensional ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices. The spectral function of the amplitude response is obtained by analytic continuation of the kinetic energy correlation function calculated by Monte Carlo methods. Our results enable a direct comparison with the recent experiment [M. Endres, T. Fukuhara, D. Pekker, M. Cheneau, P. Schauß, C. Gross, E. Demler, S. Kuhr, and I. Bloch, Nature (London) 487, 454 (2012)] and demonstrate a good agreement for temperature shifts induced by lattice modulation. Based on our numerical analysis, we formulate the necessary conditions in terms of homogeneity, detuning from the QCP and temperature in order to reveal the massive Goldstone resonance peak in spectral functions experimentally. We also propose to apply a local modulation at the trap center to overcome the inhomogeneous broadening caused by the parabolic trap confinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum transition points in the J-Q model--the test bed of the deconfined critical point theory--and the SU(2)-symmetric discrete noncompact CP1 representation of the deconfined critical action are directly compared by the flowgram method. We find that the flows of two systems coincide in a broad region of linear system sizes (10 < L < 50 for the J-Q model), implying that the deconfined critical point theory correctly captures the mesoscopic physics of competition between the antiferromagnetic and valence-bond orders in quantum spin systems. At larger sizes, however, we observe significant deviations between the two flows which both demonstrate strong violations of scale invariance. This reliably rules out the second-order transition scenario in at least one of the two models and suggests the most likely explanation for the nature of the transition in the J-Q model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present spectral functions for the magnitude squared of the order parameter in the scaling limit of the two-dimensional superfluid to Mott insulator quantum phase transition at constant density, which has emergent particle-hole symmetry and Lorentz invariance. The universal functions for the superfluid, Mott insulator, and normal liquid phases reveal a low-frequency resonance which is relatively sharp and is followed by a damped oscillation (in the first two phases only) before saturating to the quantum critical plateau. The counterintuitive resonance feature in the insulating and normal phases calls for deeper understanding of collective modes in the strongly coupled (2+1)-dimensional relativistic field theory. Our results are derived from analytically continued correlation functions obtained from path-integral Monte Carlo simulations of the Bose-Hubbard model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exhibit infinite families of two-dimensional lattices (some of which are triangulations or quadrangulations of the plane) on which the q-state Potts antiferromagnet has a finite-temperature phase transition at arbitrarily large values of q. This unexpected result is proven rigorously by using a Peierls argument to measure the entropic advantage of sublattice long-range order. Additional numerical data are obtained using transfer matrices, Monte Carlo simulation, and a high-precision graph-theoretic method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamical evolution of light in asymmetric microcavities is of primary interest for broadband optical coupling and enhanced light-matter interaction. Here, we propose and demonstrate that the chaos-assisted photon transport can be engineered by regular periodic orbits in the momentum-position phase space of an asymmetric microcavity. Remarkably, light at different initial states experiences different evolution pathways, following either regular-chaotic channels or pure chaotic channels. Experimentally, we develop a nanofiber technique to accurately control the excitation position of light in the phase space. We find that the coupling to high-Q whispering gallery modes depends strongly on excitation in islands or chaotic sea, showing a good agreement with the theoretical prediction. The engineered chaotic photon transport has potential in light manipulation, broadband photonic devices, and phase-space reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the conditions of superfluid-Mott-insulator criticality in two dimensions, the trapping centers--i.e., local potential wells and bumps--are generically characterized by an integer charge corresponding to the number of trapped particles (if positive) or holes (if negative). Varying the strength of the center leads to a transition between two competing ground states with charges differing by ±1. The hallmark of the transition scenario is a splitting of the number density distortion δn(r) into a half-integer core and a large halo carrying a complementary charge of ±1/2. The sign of the halo changes across the transition and the radius of the halo r0 diverges on the approach to the critical strength of the center, V=Vc, by the law r0 ∝ |V−Vc|−˜ν, with ˜ν ≈ 2.33(5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the low-temperature physics of the SU(2)-symmetric spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a pyrochlore lattice and find "fingerprint" evidence for the thermal spin-ice state in this frustrated quantum magnet. Our conclusions are based on the results of bold diagrammatic Monte Carlo simulations, with good convergence of the skeleton series down to the temperature T/J = 1/6. The identification of the spin-ice state is done through a remarkably accurate microscopic correspondence for the static structure factor between the quantum Heisenberg, classical Heisenberg, and Ising models at all accessible temperatures, and the characteristic bowtie pattern with pinch points observed at T/J = 1/6. The dynamic structure factor at real frequencies (obtained by the analytic continuation of numerical data) is consistent with diffusive spinon dynamics at the pinch points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compute the universal conductivity of the (2+1)-dimensional XY universality class, which is realized for a superfluid-to-Mott insulator quantum phase transition at constant density. Based on large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of the classical (2+1)-dimensional J-current model and the two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, we can precisely determine the conductivity on the quantum critical plateau, σ(∞)=0.359(4)σQ with σQ the conductivity quantum. The universal conductivity curve is the standard example with the lowest number of components where the bottoms-up AdS/CFT correspondence from string theory can be tested and made to use [R. C. Myers, S. Sachdev, and A. Singh, Phys. Rev. D 83, 066017 (2011)]. For the first time, the shape of the σ(iωn)-σ(∞) function in the Matsubara representation is accurate enough for a conclusive comparison and establishes the particlelike nature of charge transport. We find that the holographic gauge-gravity duality theory for transport properties can be made compatible with the data if temperature of the horizon of the black brane is different from the temperature of the conformal field theory. The requirements for measuring the universal conductivity in a cold gas experiment are also determined by our calculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]