Publications

In single sheets of graphene, vacancy-induced states have been shown to host an effective spin-1/2 hole that can be Kondo-screened at low temperatures. Here, we show how these vacancy-induced impurity states survive in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), which thus provides a tunable system to probe the critical destruction of the Kondo effect in pseudogap hosts. Ab-initio calculations and atomic-scale modeling are used to determine the nature of the vacancy states in the vicinity of the magic angle in TBG, demonstrating that the vacancy can be treated as a quantum impurity. Utilizing this insight, we construct an Anderson impurity model with a TBG host that we solve using the numerical renormalization group combined with the kernel polynomial method. We determine the phase diagram of the model and show how there is a strict dichotomy between vacancies in the AA / BB versus AB / BA tunneling regions. In AB / BA vacancies, we find that the Kondo temperature at the magic angle develops a broad distribution with a tail to vanishing temperatures due to multifractal wavefunctions at the magic angle. We argue that the scanning tunneling microscopy response in the vicinity of the vacancy can act as a non-trivial probe of both the critical single-particle states and the underlying many-body ground state in magic-angle TBG.

We propose heterostructures that realize first and second order topological superconductivity with vanishing net magnetization by utilizing altermagnetism. Such platforms may offer a significant improvement over conventional platforms with uniform magnetization since the latter suppresses the superconducting gap. We first introduce a 1D semiconductor-superconductor structure in proximity to an altermagnet which realizes end Majorana zero modes (MZMs) with vanishing net magnetization. Additionally, a coexisting Zeeman term provides a tuning knob to distinguish topological and trivial zero modes. We then propose 2D altermagnetic platforms that can realize chiral Majorana fermions or higher order corner MZMs. Our work paves the way towards realizing Majorana boundary states with an alternative source of time-reversal breaking and zero net magnetization.

Abstract A key advantage of utilizing van-der-Waals (vdW) materials as defect-hosting platforms for quantum applications is the controllable proximity of the defect to the surface or the substrate allowing for improved light extraction, enhanced coupling with photonic elements, or more sensitive metrology. However, this aspect results in a significant challenge for defect identification and characterization, as the defect's properties depend on the the atomic environment. This study explores how the environment can influence the properties of carbon impurity centers in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). It compares the optical and electronic properties of such defects between bulk-like and few-layer films, showing alteration of the zero-phonon line energies and their phonon sidebands, and enhancements of inhomogeneous broadenings. To disentangle the mechanisms responsible for these changes, including the atomic structure, electronic wavefunctions, and dielectric screening, it combines ab initio calculations with a quantum-embedding approach. By studying various carbon-based defects embedded in monolayer and bulk hBN, it demonstrates that the dominant effect of the change in the environment is the screening of density–density Coulomb interactions between the defect orbitals. The comparative analysis of experimental and theoretical findings paves the way for improved identification of defects in low-dimensional materials and the development of atomic scale sensors for dielectric environments.

Recently, several studies involving open quantum systems which possess a strong symmetry have observed that every individual trajectory in the Monte Carlo unravelling of the master equation will dynamically select a specific symmetry sector to freeze into in the long-time limit. This phenomenon has been termed dissipative freezing, and in this paper we argue, by presenting several simple mathematical perspectives on the problem, that it is a general consequence of the presence of a strong symmetry in an open system with only a few exceptions. Using a number of example systems we illustrate these arguments, uncovering an explicit relationship between the spectral properties of the Liouvillian in off-diagonal symmetry sectors and the time it takes for freezing to occur. In the limiting case that eigenmodes with purely imaginary eigenvalues are manifest in these sectors, freezing fails to occur. Such modes indicate the preservation of information and coherences between symmetry sectors of the system and can lead to phenomena such as non-stationarity and synchronisation. The absence of freezing at the level of a single quantum trajectory provides a simple, computationally efficient way of identifying these traceless modes.

We present the TRIQS/Nevanlinna analytic continuation package, an efficient implementation of the methods proposed by J. Fei et al in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 056402 (2021)] and [Phys. Rev. B 104, 165111 (2021)]. TRIQS/Nevanlinna strives to provide a high quality open source (distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3) alternative to the more widely adopted Maximum Entropy based analytic continuation programs. With the additional Hardy functions optimization procedure, it allows for an accurate resolution of wide band and sharp features in the spectral function. Those problems can be formulated in terms of imaginary time or Matsubara frequency response functions. The application is based on the TRIQS C++/Python framework, which allows for easy interoperability with other TRIQS-based applications, electronic band structure codes and visualization tools. Similar to other TRIQS packages, it comes with a convenient Python interface.

The Bloch electron energy spectrum of a crystalline solid is determined by the underlying lattice structure at the atomic level. In a 2-dimensional (2d) crystal it is possible to impose a superlattice with nanometer-scale periodicity, allowing to tune the fundamental Bloch electron spectrum, and enabling novel physical properties which are not accessible in the original crystal. In recent years, a top-down approach for creating 2d superlattices on monolayer graphene by means of nanopatterned electric gates has been studied, which allows the formation of isolated energy bands and Hofstadter Butterfly physics in quantizing magnetic fields. Within this approach, however, evidence of electron correlations which drive many problems at the forefront of physics research remains to be uncovered. In this work we demonstrate signatures of a correlated insulator phase in Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene (BLG) modulated by a gate-defined superlattice potential, manifested as a set of resistance peaks centered at carrier densities of integer multiples of a single electron per unit cell of the superlattice potential. We associate the correlated insulator phase to the formation of flat energy bands due to the superlattice potential combined with inversion symmetry breaking. Inducing correlated electron phases with nanopatterning defined electric gates paves the way to custom-designed superlattices with arbitrary geometries and symmetries for studying band structure engineering and strongly correlated electrons in 2d materials.

The simulation of quantum Hall physics with rotating quantum gases is witnessing a revival due to recent experimental advances that enabled the observation of a Bose-Einstein condensate entirely contained in its lowest kinetic energy state, i.e. the lowest Landau level. We theoretically describe this experimental result, and show that it can be interpreted as a squeezing of the geometric degree of freedom of the problem, the guiding center metric. This "geometric squeezing" offers an unprecedented experimental control over the quantum geometry in Landau-level analogues, and at the same time opens a realistic path towards achieving correlated quantum phases akin to quantum Hall states with neutral atoms.

Strange metals arise in a variety of platforms for strongly correlated electrons, ranging from the cuprates, heavy fermions to flat band systems. Motivated by recent experiments in kagome metals, we study a Hubbard model on a kagome lattice whose noninteracting limit contains flat bands. A Kondo lattice description is constructed, in which the degrees of freedom are exponentially localized molecular orbitals. We identify an orbital-selective Mott transition through an extended dynamical mean field theory of the effective model. The transition describes a quantum critical point at which quasiparticles are lost and strange metallicity emerges. Our theoretical work opens up a new route for realizing beyond-Landau quantum criticality and emergent quantum phases that it nucleates.

Lattice symmetries are central to the characterization of electronic topology. Recently, it was shown that Green's function eigenvectors form a representation of the space group. This formulation has allowed the identification of gapless topological states even when quasiparticles are absent. Here we demonstrate the profundity of the framework in the extreme case, when interactions lead to a Mott insulator, through a solvable model with long-range interactions. We find that both Mott poles and zeros are subject to the symmetry constraints, and relate the symmetry-enforced spectral crossings to degeneracies of the original non-interacting eigenstates. Our results lead to new understandings of topological quantum materials and highlight the utility of interacting Green's functions toward their symmetry-based design.

Model Hamiltonians are regularly derived from first-principles data to describe correlated matter. However, the standard methods for this contain a number of largely unexplored approximations. For a strongly correlated impurity model system, here we carefully compare standard downfolding techniques with the best-possible ground-truth estimates for charge-neutral excited state energies and charge densities using state-of-the-art first-principles many-body wave function approaches. To this end, we use the vanadocene molecule and analyze all downfolding aspects, including the Hamiltonian form, target basis, double counting correction, and Coulomb interaction screening models. We find that the choice of target-space basis functions emerges as a key factor for the quality of the downfolded results, while orbital-dependent double counting correction diminishes the quality. Background screening to the Coulomb interaction matrix elements primarily affects crystal-field excitations. Our benchmark uncovers the relative importance of each downfolding step and offers insights into the potential accuracy of minimal downfolded model Hamiltonians.