MIT Center for Theoretical Physics — a Leinweber Institute Publications

What are the symmetries of a dataset? Whereas the symmetries of an individual data element can be characterized by its invariance under various transformations, the symmetries of an ensemble of data elements are ambiguous due to Jacobian factors introduced while changing coordinates. In this paper, we provide a rigorous statistical definition of the symmetries of a dataset, which involves inertial reference densities, in analogy to inertial frames in classical mechanics. We then propose SymmetryGAN as a novel and powerful approach to automatically discover symmetries using a deep learning method based on generative adversarial networks (GANs). When applied to Gaussian examples, SymmetryGAN shows excellent empirical performance, in agreement with expectations from the analytic loss landscape. SymmetryGAN is then applied to simulated dijet events from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to demonstrate the potential utility of this method in high energy collider physics applications. Going beyond symmetry discovery, we consider procedures to infer the underlying symmetry group from empirical data.

Lattice QCD already offers the possibility of extracting three-hadron scattering quantities from first principles. In the last few years, significant progress has been achieved in developing and applying the finite-volume three-body formalism. The formalism is now able to treat physically relevant systems of three mesons, including those with resonances, as well as three-body decays. In this talk, I will review the state of the art, and comment on recent applications to lattice QCD data for systems of three pions and kaons.

We describe a broad class of 4D F-theory models in which an \(E_7\) gauge group is broken through fluxes to the Standard Model gauge group. In many of these models, the only chiral matter representations are those appearing in the Standard Model, with no exotic charges. These models are ubiquitous in the 4D F-theory landscape and can arise from flux breaking of any model with an \(E_7\) factor. The number of generations of matter can easily be small. We construct explicit examples that have three generations of chiral matter as the preferred matter content.

We study the formation and evolution of topological defects that arise in the post-recombination phase transition predicted by the gravitational neutrino mass model in [Dvali, Funcke, 2016]. In the transition, global skyrmions, monopoles, strings, and domain walls form due to the spontaneous breaking of the neutrino flavor symmetry. These defects are unique in their softness and origin, as they appear at a very low energy scale, they only require Standard Model particle content, and they differ fundamentally depending on the Majorana or Dirac nature of the neutrinos. One of the observational signatures is the time- and space-dependence of the neutrino mass matrix, which could be observable in future experiments such as DUNE or in the event of a near-future galactic supernova explosion. Already existing data rules out parts of the parameter space in the Majorana case. The detection of this effect could shed light onto the open question of the Dirac versus Majorana neutrino nature.

Demonstrating quantum advantage requires experimental implementation of a computational task that is hard to achieve using state-of-the-art classical systems. One approach is to perform sampling from a probability distribution associated with a class of highly entangled many-body wavefunctions. It has been suggested that this approach can be certified with the Linear Cross-Entropy Benchmark (XEB). We critically examine this notion. First, in a "benign" setting where an honest implementation of noisy quantum circuits is assumed, we characterize the conditions under which the XEB approximates the fidelity. Second, in an "adversarial" setting where all possible classical algorithms are considered for comparison, we show that achieving relatively high XEB values does not imply faithful simulation of quantum dynamics. We present an efficient classical algorithm that, with 1 GPU within 2s, yields high XEB values, namely 2-12% of those obtained in experiments. By identifying and exploiting several vulnerabilities of the XEB, we achieve high XEB values without full simulation of quantum circuits. Remarkably, our algorithm features better scaling with the system size than noisy quantum devices for commonly studied random circuit ensembles. To quantitatively explain the success of our algorithm and the limitations of the XEB, we use a theoretical framework in which the average XEB and fidelity are mapped to statistical models. We illustrate the relation between the XEB and the fidelity for quantum circuits in various architectures, with different gate choices, and in the presence of noise. Our results show that XEB's utility as a proxy for fidelity hinges on several conditions, which must be checked in the benign setting but cannot be assumed in the adversarial setting. Thus, the XEB alone has limited utility as a benchmark for quantum advantage. We discuss ways to overcome these limitations.

In the context of chaotic quantum many-body systems, we show that operator growth, as diagnosed by out-of-time-order correlators of local operators, also leaves a sharp imprint in out-of-time-order correlators of global operators. In particular, the characteristic spacetime shape of growing local operators can be accessed using global measurements without any local control or readout. Building on an earlier conjectured phase diagram for operator growth in chaotic systems with power-law interactions, we show that existing nuclear spin data for out-of-time-order correlators of global operators are well fit by our theory. We also predict super-polynomial operator growth in dipolar systems in 3d and discuss the potential observation of this physics in future experiments with nuclear spins and ultra-cold polar molecules.

We study infinite limits of neural network quantum states (\(\infty\)-NNQS), which exhibit representation power through ensemble statistics, and also tractable gradient descent dynamics. Ensemble averages of Renyi entropies are expressed in terms of neural network correlators, and architectures that exhibit volume-law entanglement are presented. A general framework is developed for studying the gradient descent dynamics of neural network quantum states (NNQS), using a quantum state neural tangent kernel (QS-NTK). For \(\infty\)-NNQS the training dynamics is simplified, since the QS-NTK becomes deterministic and constant. An analytic solution is derived for quantum state supervised learning, which allows an \(\infty\)-NNQS to recover any target wavefunction. Numerical experiments on finite and infinite NNQS in the transverse field Ising model and Fermi Hubbard model demonstrate excellent agreement with theory. \(\infty\)-NNQS opens up new opportunities for studying entanglement and training dynamics in other physics applications, such as in finding ground states.

We study the universal behavior of quantum information-theoretic quantities in thermalized isolated quantum many-body systems and evaporating black holes. In particular, we study a genuine mixed-state entanglement measure called the logarithmic negativity, other correlation measures including the Renyi negativities and the mutual information, and a signature of multipartite entanglement called the reflected entropy. We also probe the feasibility of recovering quantum information from subsystems of a thermalized quantum many-body system or from the radiation of an evaporating black hole, using quantities such as relative entropy and Petz map fidelity. A recently developed technique called the equilibrium approximation allows us to probe these quantities at finite temperature. We find striking qualitative differences from the infinite temperature case, which has been the topic of previous studies using Haar-random states. In particular, we find regimes where the logarithmic negativity is extensive but the mutual information is sub-extensive, indicating a large amount of undistillable, bound entanglement in thermalized states. For evaporating black holes at finite temperature, both the logarithmic negativity and the Petz map fidelity reveal an important new time scale \(t_b\), which is earlier than the Page time \(t_p\) by a finite fraction of the total evaporation time. We find that \(t_b\), as opposed to \(t_p\), is the time scale at which quantum entanglement between different parts of the radiation becomes extensive, and the fidelity of information recovery for a large diary thrown into the black hole starts to grow.

We investigate numerically different techniques to extract scattering amplitudes from the Euclidean Lattice ϕ4 theory with two fields, having different masses. We present an exploratory study of the recently proposed method by Bruno and Hansen for extracting the scattering length from a four-point function (cf 10.1007/JHEP06(2021)043), and a study of the two- and three-particle quantization condition.

Finding ground states and low-lying excitations of a given Hamiltonian is one of the most important problems in many fields of physics. As a novel approach, quantum computing on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices offers the prospect to efficiently perform such computations and may eventually outperform classical computers. However, current quantum devices still suffer from inherent quantum noise. In this work, we propose an error mitigation scheme suitable for parametric quantum circuits. This scheme is based on projecting a general quantum noise channel onto depolarization errors. Our method can efficiently reduce errors in quantum computations, which we demonstrate by carrying out simulations both on classical and IBM's quantum devices. In particular, we test the performance of the method by computing the mass gap of the transverse-field Ising model using the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm.

We show that the vacuum-subtracted maximal volume, the proposed holographic dual to complexity of formation, can be negative when contributions from compact directions are included. We construct explicit solutions with arbitrarily negative complexity of formation in asymptotically AdS\(_{4}\times S^{7}\) SUGRA. These examples rely critically on the compact directions, specifically the fact that the full eleven-dimensional spacetime is not asymptotically AdS\(_{11}\). While there is some ambiguity in the extension of the holographic complexity proposal to the compact directions, we show that the two natural candidates can both have arbitrarily negative complexity of formation in SUGRA solutions. We further find examples in which complexity can even decrease at late times, including cases of both single-sided geometries and two-sided wormholes. In particular, we construct a cosmological wormhole with simultaneously negative and decreasing complexity of formation (as computed by volume) at late times. We find a distinguished role for relevant primaries in these constructions and comment on possible interpretations.

Lattice QCD calculations require significant computational effort, with the dominant fraction of resources typically spent in the numerical inversion of the Dirac operator. One of the simplest methods to solve such large and sparse linear systems is the conjugate gradient (CG) approach. In this work we present an implementation of CG that can be executed on different devices, including CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs. This is achieved by using the SYCL/DPC++ framework, which allows the execution of the same source code on heterogeneous systems.

The pion light-cone distribution amplitude (LCDA) is a central non-perturbative object of interest for the calculation of high-energy exclusive processes in quantum chromodynamics. In this article, we discuss the calculation of the second and fourth Mellin moment of the pion LCDA using a heavy-quark operator product expansion. The resulting value for the second Mellin moment is \( \langle{ \xi^2 }\rangle(\mu = 2~\text{GeV})= 0.210 \pm 0.013\text{ (stat.)} \pm 0.034\text{ (sys.)}\). This result is compatible with those from previous determinations of this quantity.

Recently, the formalism needed to relate the finite-volume spectrum of systems of nondegenerate spinless particles has been derived. In this work we discuss a range of issues that arise when implementing this formalism in practice, provide further theoretical results that can be used to check the implementation, and make available codes for implementing the three-particle quantization condition. Specifically, we discuss the need to modify the upper limit of the cutoff function due to the fact that the left-hand cut in the scattering amplitudes for two nondegenerate particles moves closer to threshold; we describe the decomposition of the three-particle amplitude \(\mathcal{K}_\text{df,3}\) into the matrix basis used in the quantization condition, including both \(s\) and \(p\) waves, with the latter arising in the amplitude for two nondegenerate particles; we derive the threshold expansion for the lightest three-particle state in the rest frame up to \(\mathcal{O}(1/L^5)\); and we calculate the leading-order predictions in chiral perturbation theory for \(\mathcal{K}_\text{df,3}\) in the \(\pi^+\pi^+K^+\) and \(\pi^+K^+K^+\) systems. We focus mainly on systems with two identical particles plus a third that is different (``2+1'' systems). We describe the formalism in full detail, and present numerical explorations in toy models, in particular checking that the results agree with the threshold expansion, and making a prediction for the spectrum of \(\pi^+\pi^+K^+\) levels using the two- and three-particle interactions predicted by chiral perturbation theory.

The design of parametric quantum circuits (PQCs) for efficient use in variational quantum simulations (VQS) is subject to two competing factors. On one hand, the set of states that can be generated by the PQC has to be large enough to contain the solution state. Otherwise, one may at best find the best approximation of the solution restricted to the states generated by the chosen PQC. On the other hand, the PQC should contain as few parametric quantum gates as possible to minimize noise from the quantum device. Thus, when designing a PQC one needs to ensure that there are no redundant parameters. The dimensional expressivity analysis discussed in these proceedings is a means of addressing these counteracting effects. Its main objective is to identify independent and redundant parameters in the PQC. Using this information, superfluous parameters can be removed and the dimension of the space of states that are generated by the PQC can be computed. Knowing the dimension of the physical state space then allows us to deduce whether or not the PQC can reach all physical states. Furthermore, the dimensional expressivity analysis can be implemented efficiently using a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm. This implementation has relatively small overhead costs both for the classical and quantum part of the algorithm and could therefore be used in the future for on-the-fly circuit construction. This would allow for optimized circuits to be used in every loop of a VQS rather than the same PQC for the entire VQS. These proceedings review and extend work in [1, 2].

We study general freeze-out scenarios where an arbitrary number of initial and final dark matter particles participate in the number-changing freeze-out interaction. We consider a simple sector with two particle species undergoing such a thermal freeze-out; one of the relics is stable and gives rise to the dark matter today, while the other one decays to the Standard Model, injecting significant entropy into the thermal bath that dilutes the dark matter abundance. We show that this setup can lead to a stable relic population that reproduces the observed dark matter abundance without requiring weak scale masses or couplings. The final dark matter abundance is estimated analytically. We carry out this calculation for arbitrary temperature dependence in the freeze-out process and identify the viable dark matter mass and cross section ranges that explain the observed dark matter abundance. This setup can be used to open parameter space for both heavy (above the unitarity bound) or light (sub-GeV) dark matter candidates. We point out that the best strategy for probing most parts of our parameter space is to look for signatures of an early matter-dominant epoch.

Estimating the free energy, as well as other thermodynamic observables, is a key task in lattice field theories. Recently, it has been pointed out that deep generative models can be used in this context. Crucially, these models allow for the direct estimation of the free energy at a given point in parameter space. This is in contrast to existing methods based on Markov chains which generically require integration through parameter space. In this contribution, we will review this novel machine-learning-based estimation method. We will in detail discuss the issue of mode collapse and outline mitigation techniques which are particularly suited for applications at finite temperature.

We present an error mitigation scheme which corrects readout errors on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers [1,2]. After a short review of applying the method to one qubit, we proceed to discuss the case when correlations between different qubits occur. We demonstrate how the readout error can be mitigated in this case. By performing experiments on IBMQ hardware, we show that such correlations do not have a strong effect on the results, justifying to neglect them.

Standard sampling algorithms for lattice QCD suffer from topology freezing (or critical slowing down) when approaching the continuum limit, thus leading to poor sampling of the distinct topological sectors. I will present a modified Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm that triggers topological sector jumps during the assembly of Markov chain of lattice configurations. We study its performance in the 2D Schwinger model and compare it to alternative methods, such as fixing topology or master field. We then briefly discuss the difficulties of the algorithm in a SU(2) gauge model in 4D.

We present results for \(B_{(s)}\)- and \(D_{(s)}\)-meson semileptonic decays from ongoing calculations by the Fermilab Lattice and MILC Collaborations. Our calculation employs the highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) action for both sea and valence quarks and includes several ensembles with physical-mass up, down, strange, and charm quarks and lattice spacings ranging from \(a\approx0.15\) fm down to 0.06 fm. At most lattice spacings, an ensemble with physical-mass light quarks is included. The use of the highly improved action, combined with the MILC Collaboration's gauge ensembles with lattice spacings down to \(a\approx0.042\) fm, allows heavy valence quarks to be treated with the same discretization as the light and strange quarks. This unified treatment of the valence quarks allows (in some cases) for absolutely normalized currents, bypassing the need for perturbative matching, which has been a leading source of uncertainty in previous calculations of \(B\)-meson decay form factors by our collaboration. All preliminary form-factor results are blinded.