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We use a numerical solution of the deterministic time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equations to determine the response induced by a probe field in a material quenched into a superconducting state. We characterize differences in response according to whether the probe is applied before, during, or after the phase stiffness has built up to its final steady-state value. We put an emphasis on the extent to which superfluid response requires a non-negligible phase stiffness, which for the considered quench has to build up dynamically. A key finding is that the time-dependent phase stiffness controls the likelihood of phase slips as well as the magnitude of the electromagnetic response. Additionally, we address the electromagnetic response expected if the probe itself is strong enough to activate phase slip processes. If the probe is applied before phase stiffness is sufficiently built up, we find that phase slips occur so that the vector potential is compensated and no long-term supercurrent is induced, while if it is applied at sufficient phase stiffness a weak probe pulse will induce a state with a long-lived supercurrent. If the probe is strong enough to activate the phase slip process, the supercurrent state will only be metastable with a lifetime that scales logarithmically with the amplitude of fluctuations in the magnitude of the order parameter. Finally, we study the response to experimentally motivated probe fields (electric field that integrates to zero). Interestingly, depending on the relative time difference of the probe field to the buildup of superconductivity, long-lived supercurrents can be induced even though the net change in vector potential is zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the central ideas regarding anomalies in topological phases of matter is that they imply the existence of higher-dimensional physics, with an anomaly in a D-dimensional theory typically being canceled by a bulk (D+1)-dimensional symmetry-protected topological phase (SPT). We demonstrate that for some topological phases with reflection symmetry, anomalies may actually be canceled by a D-dimensional SPT, provided that it comes embedded in an otherwise trivial (D+1)-dimensional bulk. We illustrate this for the example of ZN topological order enriched with reflection symmetry in (2+1)D, and along the way establish a classification of anomalous reflection symmetry fractionalization patterns. In particular, we show that anomalies occur if and only if both electric and magnetic quasiparticle excitations possess nontrivial fractional reflection quantum numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulations of diffusion in solids often produce poor statistics of diffusion events. We present an analytical expression for the statistical error in ion conductivity obtained in such simulations. The error expression is not restricted to any computational method in particular, but valid in the context of simulation of Poisson processes in general. This analytical error expression is verified numerically for the case of Gd-doped ceria by running a large number of kinetic Monte Carlo calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the spin-stripe mechanism responsible for the peculiar nanometer modulation of the incommensurate magnetic order that emerges between the vector-chiral and the spin-density-wave phase in the frustrated zigzag spin-1/2 chain compound β-TeVO4. A combination of magnetic-torque, neutron-diffraction, and spherical-neutron-polarimetry measurements is employed to determine the complex magnetic structures of all three ordered phases. Based on these results, we develop a simple phenomenological model, which exposes the exchange anisotropy as the key ingredient for the spin-stripe formation in frustrated spin systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]