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Classical nonlinear dynamical systems are often characterized by their steady-state probability distribution functions (PDFs). Typically, PDFs are accumulated from numerical simulations that involve solving the underlying dynamical equations of motion using integration techniques. An alternative procedure, direct statistical simulation (DSS), solves for the statistics directly. One approach to DSS is the Fokker-Planck Equation (FPE), which can be used to find the PDF of classical dynamical systems. Here, we investigate the utility of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers to find steady-state solutions to the FPE. We employ the Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) and the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithms to find the zero-mode of the FPE for one-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck problems enabling comparison with exact solutions. The quantum computed steady-state probability distribution functions (PDFs) are demonstrated to be in reasonable agreement with the classically computed PDFs. We conclude with a discussion of potential extensions to higher-dimensional dynamical systems., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures

The Chemical Master Equation (CME) provides a highly accurate, yet extremely resource-intensive representation of a stochastic chemical reaction network and its kinetics due to the exponential scaling of its possible states with the number of reacting species. In this work, we demonstrate how quantum algorithms and hardware can be employed to model stochastic chemical kinetics as described by the CME using the Schl\"ogl Model of a trimolecular reaction network as an illustrative example. To ground our study of the performance of our quantum algorithms, we first determine a range of suitable parameters for constructing the stochastic Schl\"ogl operator in the mono- and bistable regimes of the model using a classical computer and then discuss the appropriateness of our parameter choices for modeling approximate kinetics on a quantum computer. We then apply the Variational Quantum Deflation (VQD) algorithm to evaluate the smallest-magnitude eigenvalues, $\lambda_0$ and $\lambda_1$, which describe the transition rates of both the mono- and bi-stable systems, and the Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) algorithm combined with the Variational Quantum Singular Value Decomposition (VQSVD) algorithm to estimate the zeromode (ground state) of the bistable case. Our quantum computed results from both noisy and noiseless quantum simulations agree within a few percent with the classically computed eigenvalues and zeromode. Altogether, our work outlines a practical path toward the quantum solution of exponentially complex stochastic chemical kinetics problems and other related stochastic differential equations.

We explore the robustness of the correlation matrix Hamiltonian reconstruction technique with respect to the choice of operator basis, studying the effects of bases that are undercomplete and over-complete -- too few or too many operators respectively. An approximation scheme for reconstructing from an undercomplete basis is proposed and performed numerically on select models. We discuss the confounding effects of conserved quantities and symmetries on reconstruction attempts. We apply these considerations to a variety of one-dimensional systems in zero- and finite-temperature regimes., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures

The rotation of the earth breaks time-reversal and reflection symmetries in an opposite sense north and south of the equator, leading to a topological origin for certain atmospheric and oceanic equatorial waves. Away from the equator the rotating shallow water and stably stratified primitive equations exhibit Poincare inertio-gravity waves that have nontrivial topology as evidenced by their strict superinertial timescale and a phase singularity in frequency-wavevector space. This non-trivial topology then predicts, via the principle of bulk-interface correspondence, the existence of two equatorial waves along the equatorial interface, the Kelvin and Yanai waves. To directly test the nontrivial topology of Poincare-gravity waves in observations, we examine ERA5 reanalysis data and study cross-correlations between the wind velocity and geopotential height of the mid-latitude stratosphere at the 50 hPa height. We find the predicted vortex and anti-vortex in the relative phase of the geopotential height and velocity at the high frequencies of the waves. By contrast, lower-frequency planetary waves are found to have trivial topology also as expected from theory. These results demonstrate a new way to understand stratospheric waves, and provide a new qualitative tool for the investigation of waves in other components of the climate system., Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

In recent years, the Generalised Quasilinear (GQL) approximation has been developed and its efficacy tested against purely quasilinear (QL) approximations. GQL systematically interpolates between QL and fully non-linear dynamics by employing a generalised Reynolds decomposition. Here, we examine an exact statistical closure for the GQL equations on the doubly periodic $\beta$-plane. Closure is achieved at second order using a generalised cumulant approach which we term GCE2. GCE2 is shown to yield improved performance over statistical representations of purely QL dynamics (CE2) and thus enables Direct Statistical Simulation (DSS) of complex mean flows that do not entirely fall within the remit of pure QL theory. Despite the existence of an exact closure, GCE2 like CE2 admits the possibility of a rank instability that leads to differences with statistics obtained from GQL. Recognition of this instability is a necessary step before further progress can be made with the GCE2 statistical closure., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. Version to appear in JFM

Direct statistical simulation (DSS) of nonlinear dynamical systems bypasses the traditional route of accumulating statistics by lengthy direct numerical simulations (DNS) by solving the equations that govern the statistics themselves. DSS suffers, however, from the curse of dimensionality as the statistics (such as correlations) generally have higher dimension than the underlying dynamical variables. Here we investigate two approaches to reduce the dimensionality of DSS, illustrating each method with numerical experiments with the Lorenz-96 dynamical system. The forms of DSS chosen here involve approximate closures at second and third order in the equal time cumulants. We demonstrate significant reduction in computational effort that can be achieved without sacrificing the accuracy of DSS. The methods developed here can be applied to turbulent fluid and magnetohydrodynamical systems., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures and 6 tables

An overview is presented of several diverse branches of work in the area of effectively 2D fluid equilibria which have in common that they are constrained by an infinite number of conservation laws. Broad concepts, and the enormous variety of physical phenomena that can be explored, are highlighted. These span, roughly in order of increasing complexity, Euler flow, nonlinear Rossby waves, 3D axisymmetric flow, shallow water dynamics, and 2D magnetohydrodynamics. The classical field theories describing these systems bear some resemblance to perhaps more familiar fluctuating membrane and continuous spin models, but the fluid physics drives these models into unconventional regimes exhibiting large scale jet and eddy structures. From a dynamical point of view these structures are the end result of various conserved variable forward and inverse cascades. The resulting balance between large scale structure and small scale fluctuations is controlled by the competition between energy and entropy in the system free energy, in turn highly tunable through setting the values of the conserved integrals. Although the statistical mechanical description of such systems is fully self-consistent, with remarkable mathematical structure and diversity of solutions, great care must be taken because the underlying assumptions, especially ergodicity, can be violated or at minimum lead to exceedingly long equilibration times. Generalization of the theory to include weak driving and dissipation (e.g., non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and associated linear response formalism) could provide additional insights, but has yet to be properly explored., Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures

Understanding inhomogeneous and anisotropic fluid flows require mathematical and computational tools that are tailored to such flows and distinct from methods used to understand the canonical problem of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. We review some recent developments in the theory of inhomogeneous and anisotropic turbulence, placing special emphasis on several kinds of quasilinear approximations and their corresponding statistical formulations. Aspects of quasilinear theory that have received insufficient attention in the literature are discussed, and open questions are framed., Comment: Some added material and references and corrected typos. To appear in Annual Reviews of Fluid Mechanics. 29 pages, 7 figures. When citing this paper, please use the following: J. B. Marston and S. M. Tobias. 2022. "Recent Developments in Theories of Inhomogeneous and Anisotropic Turbulence," Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. Vol. 55. Accepted. http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-fluid-120720-031006

We consider direct statistical simulation (DSS) of a paradigm system of convection interacting with mean flows. In the Busse Annulus model zonal jets are generated through the interaction of convectively driven turbulence and rotation; non-trivial dynamics including the emergence of multiple jets and bursting `predator-prey' type dynamics can be found. We formulate the DSS by expanding around the mean flow in terms of equal-time cumulants and arrive at a closed set of equations of motion for the cumulants. Here, we present results using an expansion terminated at the second cumulant (CE2); it is fundamentally a quasi-linear theory. We focus on particular cases including bursting and bistable multiple jets and demonstrate that CE2 can reproduce the results of direct numerical simulation if particular attention is given to symmetry considerations., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures

It is widely believed that statistical closure theories for dynamical systems provide statistics equivalent to those of the governing dynamical equations from which the former are derived. Here, we demonstrate counterexamples in the context of the widely used mean-field quasilinear (QL) approximation applied to 2D fluid dynamical systems. We compare statistics of QL numerical simulations with those obtained by direct statistical simulation via a cumulant expansion closed at second order (CE2). We observe that, though CE2 is an exact statistical closure for QL dynamics, its predictions disagree with the statistics of the QL solution for identical parameter values. These disagreements are attributed to instabilities, which we term rank instabilities, of the second cumulant dynamics within CE2 that are unavailable in the QL equations., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures

We investigate two methods to reconstruct Hamiltonians of quantum matter, using a quantum spin chain to test them. The first method uses correlation functions and the second method uses entanglement spectra. The two methods are not specific to spin chains, and may find wider applicability to quantum matter that is sufficiently well characterized by experiment., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures

Poincar\'e-gravity modes described by the shallow water equations in a rotating frame have non-trivial topology, providing a new perspective on the origin of equatorially trapped Kelvin and Yanai waves. We investigate the topology of rotating shallow water equations and continuously stratified primitive equations in the presence of a background sinusoidal shear flow. The introduction of a background shear flow not only breaks the Hermiticity and homogeneity of the system but also leads to instabilities. We show that singularities in the phase of the Poincar\'e waves of the unforced shallow-water equations and primitive equations persist in the presence of shear. Thus the bulk Poincar\'e bands have non-trivial topology and we expect and confirm the persistence of the equatorial waves in the presence of shear along the equator where the Coriolis parameter $f$ changes sign.

We present a methodology for probing the details of electronic susceptibility through minimally-invasive nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. Specifically, we classify electron-mediated long-range interactions in an ensemble of nuclear spins by revealing their effect on simple spin echo experiments. We find that pulse strength and applied field orientation dependence of these spin echo measurements resolves the spatial extent and anisotropy of electronic spin susceptibility. This work provides an alternate explanation to NMR results in superconducting and magnetically-ordered systems. The methodology has direct applications for sensing and characterizing emergent electronic phases., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (main text)

We use direct statistical simulation (DSS) to find the low-order statistics of the well-known dynamical system, the Lorenz63 model. Instead of accumulating statistics from numerical simulation of the dynamical systems, we solve the equations of motion for the statistics themselves after closing them by making several different choices for the truncation. Fixed points of the statistics are obtained either by time evolving, or by iterative methods. Statistics so obtained are compared to those found by the traditional approach., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2103.12741

Quantum spin-orbital liquids (QSOLs) are a novel phase of matter, similar to quantum spin liquids, with quantum fluctuations in both spin and orbital degrees of freedom. We use non-equilibrium Green's function theory to study out-of-equilibrium spin transport in an exactly solvable QSOL model put forward by Yao and Lee. We find that the spin transport problem can be mapped to that of a free fermion problem with effective fermionic baths that have rapidly varying density of states. In the gapless phase, the spin current $I_s-V_s$ relation is thus highly nonlinear, while in the chiral gapped phase, the spin current conductance is quantized to be $1/2\pi$ provided that the contacts are sufficiently wide. The quantized conductance is a signature of the topological nature of the chiral gapped QSOL.

Electron spins in edge or surface modes of topological insulators (TIs) with strong spin-orbit coupling cannot be directly manipulated with microwaves due to the locking of electron spin to its momentum. We show by contrast that a resistively detected nuclear magnetic resonance (RDNMR) based technique can be used to probe the helical nature of surface conducting states. In such experiments, one applies a radio frequency (RF) field to reorient nuclear spins that then couple to electronic spins by the hyperfine interaction. The spin of the boundary electrons can thereby be modulated, resulting in changes in conductance at nuclear resonance frequencies. Here, we demonstrate that the conductivity is sensitive to the direction of the applied magnetic field with respect to the helicity of the electrons. This dependence of the RDNMR signal on angle probes the nature of the conductive edge or surface states. In the case of 3D TI in the quantum Hall regime, we establish that the dominant mechanism responsible for the conductance change in a RDNMR experiment is based on the Overhauser field effect. Our findings indicate that the same physics underlying the use of RDNMR to probe TI states also enables us to use RF control of nuclear spins to coherently manipulate topologically protected states which could be useful for a new generation of devices.

In this paper we investigate the effectiveness of direct statistical simulation (DSS) for two low-order models of dynamo action. The first model, which is a simple model of solar and stellar dynamo action, is third-order and has cubic nonlinearities whilst the second has only quadratic nonlinearities and describes the interaction of convection and an aperiodically reversing magnetic field. We show how DSS can be utilised to solve for the statistics of these systems of equations both in the presence and the absence of stochastic terms, by truncating the cumulant hierarchy at either second or third order. We compare two different techniques for solving for the statistics, timestepping -- which is able to locate only stable solutions of the equations for the statistics and direct detection of the fixed points. We develop a complete methodology and symbolic package in Python for deriving the statistical equations governing the Low-order dynamic systems in cumulant expansions. We demonstrate that although direct detection of the fixed points is efficient and accurate for DSS truncated at second order, the addition of higher order terms leads to the inclusion of many unstable fixed points that may be found by direct detection of the fixed point by iterative methods. In those cases timestepping is a more robust protocol for finding meaninful solutions to DSS.

We derive a closed equation of motion for the one particle density matrix of a quantum system coupled to multiple baths using the Redfield master equation combined with a mean-field approximation. The steady-state solution may be found analytically with perturbation theory. Application of the method to a one-dimensional non-interacting quantum wire yields an expression for the current that reproduces the celebrated Landauer's formula. Nonlinear rectification is found for the case of a mesoscopic three-dimensional semiconductor p-n junction. The results are in good agreement with numerical simulations obtained using non-equilibrium Green's functions, supporting the validity of the Redfield equations for the description of transport., Comment: 14 pages and 5 figures

Nontrivial topology in bulk matter has been linked with the existence of topologically protected interfacial states. We show that a gaseous plasmon polariton (GPP), an electromagnetic surface wave existing at the boundary of magnetized plasma and vacuum, has a topological origin that arises from the nontrivial topology of magnetized plasma. Because a gaseous plasma cannot sustain a sharp interface with discontinuous density, one must consider a gradual density falloff with scale length comparable or longer than the wavelength of the wave. We show that the GPP may be found within a gapped spectrum in present-day laboratory devices, suggesting that platforms are currently available for experimental investigation of topological wave physics in plasmas., Comment: Supplementary Material is included

Classification of matter through topological phases and topological edge states between distinct materials has been a subject of great interest recently. While lattices have been the main setting for these studies, a relatively unexplored realm for this physics is that of continuum fluids. In the typical case of a fluid model with a point spectrum, nontrivial topology and associated edge modes have been observed previously. However, another possibility is that a continuous spectrum can coexist with the point spectrum. Here we demonstrate that a fluid plasma model can harbor nontrivial topology within its continuous spectrum, and that there are boundary modes at the interface between topologically distinct regions. We consider the ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model. In the presence of magnetic shear, we find nontrivial topology in the Alfv\'{e}n continuum. For strong shear, the Chern number is $\pm 1$, depending on the sign of the shear. If the magnetic shear changes sign within the plasma, a topological phase transition occurs, and bulk-boundary correspondence then suggests a mode localized to the layer of zero magnetic shear. We confirm the existence of this mode numerically. Moreover, this reversed-shear Alfv\'{e}n eigenmode (RSAE) is well known within magnetic fusion as it has been observed in several tokamaks. In examining how the MHD model might be regularized at small scales, we also consider the electron limit of Hall MHD. We show that the whistler band, which plays an important role in planetary ionospheres, has nontrivial topology. More broadly, this work raises the possibility that fusion devices could be carefully tailored to produce other topological states with potentially useful behavior., Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures

The combined effectiveness of model reduction and the quasilinear approximation for the reproduction of the low-order statistics of oceanic surface boundary-layer turbulence is investigated. Idealized horizontally homogeneous problems of surface-forced thermal convection and Langmuir turbulence are studied in detail. Model reduction is achieved with a Galerkin projection of the governing equations onto an subset of modes determined by proper orthogonal decomposition. For less than 0.2% of the modes retained, the reduced quasilinear model is able to reproduce vertical profiles of horizontal mean fields as well as certain energetically important second-order turbulent transport statistics and energies to within 30% error. For intermediate sizes of the basis truncation some statistics approach those found in the fully nonlinear simulations. Thus basis reduction can actually improve upon the accuracy of quasilinear dynamics. A test model with a small total number of modes demonstrates the non-monotonic convergence toward the correct statistics as the size of the basis is increased., Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures

In this paper we examine the interaction of convection, rotation and mean flows in a thermal annulus. In this system mean flows are driven by correlations induced by rotation leading to non-trivial Reynolds stresses. The mean flows act back on the convective turbulence acting as a barrier to transport. For this system we demonstrate that the Generalised Quasilinear Approximation (GQL) (Marston et al 2016) may provide a much better approximation to the complicated full nonlinear dynamics than the widely used Quasilinear Approximation (QL). This result will enable the construction of more accurate statistical theories for the description of geophysical and astrophysical flows.

Global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities are investigated in a computationally tractable two-dimensional model of the solar tachocline. The model's differential rotation yields stability in the absence of a magnetic field, but if a magnetic field is present, a joint instability is observed. We analyze the nonlinear development of the instability via fully nonlinear direct numerical simulation, the generalized quasilinear approximation (GQL), and direct statistical simulation (DSS) based upon low-order expansion in equal-time cumulants. As the magnetic diffusivity is decreased, the nonlinear development of the instability becomes more complicated until eventually a set of parameters are identified that produce a previously unidentified long-term cycle in which energy is transformed from kinetic energy to magnetic energy and back. We find that the periodic transitions, which mimic some aspects of solar variability -- for example, the quasiperiodic seasonal exchange of energy between toroidal field and waves or eddies -- are unable to be reproduced when eddy-scattering processes are excluded from the model., Comment: 21 pages with 17 figure. Version accepted for publication in the Journal of Plasma Physics

Direct Statistical Simulation (DSS) solves the equations of motion for the statistics of turbulent flows in place of the traditional route of accumulating statistics by Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). That low-order statistics usually evolve slowly compared with instantaneous dynamics is one important advantage of DSS. Depending on the symmetry of the problem and the choice of averaging operation, however, DSS is usually more expensive computationally than DNS because even low order statistics typically have higher dimension than the underlying fields. Here we show that it is possible to go much further by using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) to address the "curse of dimensionality." We apply POD directly to DSS in the form of expansions in the equal-time cumulants to second order (CE2). We explore two averaging operations (zonal and ensemble) and test the approach on two idealized barotropic models on a rotating sphere (a jet that relaxes deterministically towards an unstable profile, and a stochastically-driven flow that spontaneously organizes into jets). Order-of-magnitude savings in computational cost are obtained in the reduced basis, potentially enabling access to parameter regimes beyond the reach of DNS., Comment: 17 pages and 11 figures. Corrections, improved figures, and new section on "Continuation in Parameter Space."

The Reynolds stress, or equivalently the average of the momentum flux, is key to understanding the statistical properties of turbulent flows. Both typical and rare fluctuations of the time averaged momentum flux are needed to fully characterize the slow flow evolution. The fluctuations are described by a large deviation rate function that may be calculated either from numerical simulation, or from theory. We show that, for parameter regimes in which a quasilinear approximation is accurate, the rate function can be found by solving a matrix Riccati equation. Using this tool we compute for the first time the large deviation rate function for the Reynolds stress of a turbulent flow. We study a barotropic flow on a rotating sphere, and show that the fluctuations are highly non-Gaussian. This work opens up new perspectives for the study of rare transitions between attractors in turbulent flows.

Topology sheds new light on the emergence of unidirectional edge waves in a variety of physical systems, from condensed matter to artificial lattices. Waves observed in geophysical flows are also robust to perturbations, which suggests a role for topology. We show a topological origin for two celebrated equatorially trapped waves known as Kelvin and Yanai modes, due to the Earth's rotation that breaks time-reversal symmetry. The non-trivial structure of the bulk Poincar\'e wave modes encoded through the first Chern number of value $2$ guarantees existence for these waves. This invariant demonstrates that ocean and atmospheric waves share fundamental properties with topological insulators, and that topology plays an unexpected role in the Earth climate system.

We investigate the Fokker-Planck description of the equal-time statistics of the three-dimensional Lorenz-63 attractor with additive white noise. The invariant measure is found by computing the zero (or null) mode of the linear Fokker-Planck operator as a problem of sparse linear algebra. Two variants are studied: A self-adjoint construction of the linear operator, and the replacement of diffusion with hyperdiffusion. We also access the low-order statistics of the system by a perturbative expansion in equal-time cumulants. Comparison is made to statistics obtained by the standard approach of accumulation via direct numerical simulation. Theoretical and computational aspects of the Fokker-Planck and cumulant expansion methods are discussed., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. A typo corrected and larger axes numbers. To appear in Physical Review E

Quasilinear theory is often utilized to approximate the dynamics of fluids exhibiting significant interactions between mean flows and eddies. In this paper we present a generalization of quasilinear theory to include dynamic mode interactions on the large scales. This generalized quasilinear (GQL) approximation is achieved by separating the state variables into large and small zonal scales via a spectral filter rather than by a decomposition into a formal mean and fluctuations. Nonlinear interactions involving only small zonal scales are then removed. The approximation is conservative and allows for scattering of energy between small-scale modes via the large scale (through non-local spectral interactions). We evaluate GQL for the paradigmatic problems of the driving of large-scale jets on a spherical surface and on the beta-plane and show that it is accurate even for a small number of large-scale modes. As this approximation is formally linear in the small zonal scales it allows for the closure of the system and can be utilized in direct statistical simulation schemes that have proved an attractive alternative to direct numerical simulation for many geophysical and astrophysical problems., Comment: 5 pages and 5 figures

Using complementary numerical approaches at high resolution, we study the late-time behaviour of an inviscid, incompressible two-dimensional flow on the surface of a sphere. Starting from a random initial vorticity field comprised of a small set of intermediate wavenumber spherical harmonics, we find that -- contrary to the predictions of equilibrium statistical mechanics -- the flow does not evolve into a large-scale steady state. Instead, significant unsteadiness persists, characterised by a population of persistent small-scale vortices interacting with a large-scale oscillating quadrupolar vorticity field. Moreover, the vorticity develops a stepped, staircase distribution, consisting of nearly homogeneous regions separated by sharp gradients. The persistence of unsteadiness is explained by a simple point vortex model characterising the interactions between the four main vortices which emerge., Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, submitted to JFM

The equations governing atmospheric flows are nonlinear. Consequently, the hierarchy of cumulant equations is not closed. But because atmospheric flows are inhomogeneous and anisotropic, the nonlinearity may manifest itself only weakly through interactions of mean fields with disturbances such as thermals or eddies. In such situations, truncations of the hierarchy of cumulant equations hold promise as a closure strategy. We review how truncations at second order can be used to model and elucidate the dynamics of atmospheric flows. Two examples are considered. First, we study the growth of a dry convective boundary layer, which is heated from below, leading to turbulent upward energy transport and growth of the boundary layer. We demonstrate that a quasilinear truncation of the equations of motion, in which interactions of disturbances among each other are neglected but interactions with mean fields are taken into account, can capture the growth of the convective boundary layer even if it does not capture important turbulent transport terms. Second, we study the evolution of two-dimensional large-scale waves representing waves in Earth's upper atmosphere. We demonstrate that a cumulant expansion truncated at second order (CE2) can capture the evolution of such waves and their nonlinear interaction with the mean flow in some circumstances, for example, when the wave amplitude is small enough or the planetary rotation rate is large enough. However, CE2 fails to capture the flow evolution when nonlinear eddy--eddy interactions in surf zones become important. Higher-order closures can capture these missing interactions. The results point to new ways in which the dynamics of turbulent boundary layers may be represented in climate models, and they illustrate different classes of nonlinear processes that can control wave dissipation and momentum fluxes in the troposphere., Comment: 43 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the New Journal of Physics

We present energy- and charge-resolved measurements of low and hyperthermal energy Na+ ions scattered from a Ag(001) surface. With the primary ion beam oriented along the [110] crystal direction, distinct peaks in the energy distributions of the scattered beam flux that correspond to single or multiple collisions with target atoms are observed. A classical trajectory simulation reveals that these collisions can occur either at the surface or within the [110] channels, depending on incident beam energy. Within the simulation we probe the role of finite temperature and thermally displaced atoms on specific scattering events and show that contributions to the scattered distributions from single and double collisions dominate within the [110] channels. We also report velocity dependent measurements of the neutral/ion ratio of the scattered beam flux. A deviation between the data and simulated charge transfer results is observed for Na trajectories which penetrate the surface., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures

We review progress that has been made in utilizing one form of Direct Statistical Simulation (DSS) to describe geophysical and astrophysical flows that are anisotropic and inhomogeneous. We first explain the approach, which is based upon a systematic and conservative expansion of the equations of motion for low-order equal-time cumulants. We place the method into context with other statistical procedures. Truncation at second order in the hierarchy of cumulants is equivalent to retaining the interaction between zonal mean flows and eddies. Eddy-eddy interactions appear at higher orders, but care must be taken to keep the higher-order expansions realizable with non-negative probability distribution functions. The strengths and weaknesses of different levels of approximation are assessed with numerical experiments on the fiducial problem of a stochastically forced jet on a spherical surface. The results give an insight into the mechanisms that may control jet spacing and strength, and indicate interesting avenues for future research., Comment: 22 pages and 9 figures. Updated references, typos corrected, Figure 1 clearer

Coherent structures such as jets and vortices appear in two-dimensional (2D) turbulence. To gain insight into both numerical simulation and equilibrium statistical mechanical descriptions of 2D Euler flows, the Euler equation with added hyperviscosity is integrated forward in time on the square torus and on the sphere. Coherent structures that form are compared against a hierarchy of truncated Miller-Robert-Sommeria equilibria. The energy-circulation-enstrophy MRS-2 description produces a complete condensation of energy to the largest scales, and in the absence of rotation correctly predicts the number and polarity of coherent vortices. Perturbative imposition of the quartic Casimir constraint improves agreement with numerical simulation by sharpening the cores and transferring some energy to smaller-scale modes. MRS-2 cannot explain qualitative changes due to rotation, but descriptions that conserve higher Casimirs beyond enstrophy have the potential to do so. The result is in agreement with the somewhat paradoxical observation that hyperviscosity helps to remedy the non-conservation of the third and higher Casimirs in numerical simulation. For a rotating sphere, numerical simulation also demonstrates that coherent structures found at late times depend on initial conditions, limiting the usefulness of statistical mechanics., Comment: 57 pages, 16 figures, 86 references. This version (v3) is accepted for publication in J. Stat. Phys. Th. Exp

Junctions of doped Mott insulators offer a route to rectification at frequencies beyond the terahertz range. Mott insulators have strong electronic correlations and therefore short timescales for electron-electron scattering. It is this short time scale that allows for the possibility of rectification at frequencies higher than those of semiconductor devices that are limited by the slow diffusion of charge carriers. We model a junction by a one dimensional chain of electrons with p- and n-doping on the two halves of the chain. Two types of systems are investigated: spin polarized electrons with nearest-neighbor interaction, and spin-half electrons that interact via on-site repulsion (the Hubbard model). For short chains the many-body Schrodinger equation can be integrated numerically exactly, and when driven by an oscillating electromagnetic field such idealized junctions rectify, showing a preferred direction for charge transfer. Longer chains are studied by the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization-group method, and also shown to rectify., Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE Lester Eastman Conference on High Performance Devices. Figure 5 has been replaced with a version that shows how tDMRG block size affects the accuracy of the simulation. Some wording changes have been made for clarity

We report nuclear magnetic resonance measurements of the spin-1/2 anisotropic triangular lattice antiferromagnet Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$ as a function of temperature and applied magnetic field. The observed temperature and magnetic field dependence of the NMR relaxation rate suggests that low energy excitations in the short-range ordered region stabilized over a wide range of intermediate fields and temperatures of the phase diagram are gapless or nearly gapless fermionic excitations. An upper bound on the size of the gap of 0.037 meV $\approx J/10$ is established. The magnetization and NMR relaxation rate can be qualitatively described either by a quasi-1D picture of weakly coupled chains, or by mean-field theories of specific 2D spin liquids; however, quantitative differences exist between data and theory in both cases. This comparison indicates that 2D interactions are quantitatively important in describing the low-energy physics., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures

Planetary atmospheres, and models of them, are discussed from the viewpoint of condensed matter physics. Atmospheres are a form of condensed matter, and many interesting phenomena of condensed matter systems are realized by them. The essential physics of the general circulation is illustrated with idealized 2-layer and 1-layer models of the atmosphere. Equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics are used to directly ascertain the statistics of these models., Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, to appear in Annual Reviews of Condensed Matter Physics (2012). Rhines scale (Eq. 25) corrected, one reference moved, and updates to other citations

Reduction-oxidation (redox) reactions of the redox couples An(VI)/An(V), An(V)/An(IV), and An(IV)/An(III), where An is an element in the family of early actinides (U, Np, and Pu), as well as Am(VI)/Am(V) and Am(V)/Am(III), are modeled by combining density functional theory with a generalized Anderson impurity model that accounts for the strong correlations between the 5f electrons. Diagonalization of the Anderson impurity model yields improved estimates for the redox potentials and the propensity of the actinide complexes to disproportionate., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure, 3 tables. Corrections and clarifications; this version has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Chemical Physics

In this paper we introduce the concept of Direct Statistical Simulation (DSS) for astrophysical flows. This technique may be appropriate for problems in astrophysical fluids where the instantaneous dynamics of the flows are of secondary importance to their statistical properties. We give examples of such problems including mixing and transport in planets, stars and disks. The method is described for a general set of evolution equations, before we consider the specific case of a spectral method optimised for problems on a spherical surface. The method is illustrated for the simplest non-trivial example of hydrodynamics and MHD on a rotating spherical surface. We then discuss possible extensions of the method both in terms of computational methods and the range of astrophysical problems that are of interest., Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, added clarifying remarks and references, and corrected typos. This version is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

Large-scale atmospheric flows may not be so nonlinear as to preclude their statistical description by systematic expansions in cumulants. I extend previous work by examining a two-layer baroclinic model of the general circulation. The fixed point of the cumulant expansion describes the statistically steady state of the out-of-equilibrium model. Equal-time statistics so obtained agree well with those accumulated by direct numerical simulation., Comment: 1 page paper with 4 figures that accompanies one of the winning entries in the APS gallery of nonlinear images competition

Experimental evidence for a plethora of low energy spin excitations in the spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2 may be understandable in terms of an extended Fermi surface of spinons coupled to a U(1) gauge field. We carry out variational calculations to examine the possibility that such a state may be energetically viable. A Gutzwiller-projected wavefunction reproduces the dimerization of a kagome strip found previously by DMRG. Application to the full kagome lattice shows that the inclusion of a small ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interaction favors a ground state with a spinon Fermi surface., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, some clarifications to the text

Low-order equal-time statistics of a barotropic flow on a rotating sphere are investigated. The flow is driven by linear relaxation toward an unstable zonal jet. For relatively short relaxation times, the flow is dominated by critical-layer waves. For sufficiently long relaxation times, the flow is turbulent. Statistics obtained from a second-order cumulant expansion are compared to those accumulated in direct numerical simulations, revealing the strengths and limitations of the expansion for different relaxation times., Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures. Version to appear in J. Atmos. Sci

The study of SU(N) quantum spin models is relevant to a variety of physical systems including ultracold atoms in optical lattices, and also leads to insights into novel quantum phases and phase transitions of SU(2) spin models. We use Gutzwiller projected fermionic variational wavefunctions to explore the phase diagram and correlation functions of SU(N) spin models in the self-conjugate representation, with Heisenberg bilinear and biquadratic interactions. In 1D, the variational phase diagram of the SU(4) spin chain is constructed by examining instabilities of the Gutzwiller projected free fermion ground state to various broken symmetries, and it agrees well with exact results.The spin and dimer correlations of the Gutzwiller projected free fermion state with N flavors of fermions are also in good agreement with exact and 1/N calculations for the critical points of SU(N) spin chains. In 2D, the variational phase diagram on the square lattice is obtained by studying instabilities of the Gutzwiller projected pi-flux state. The variational ground state of the pure Heisenberg model is found to exhibit long range Neel order for N=2,4 and spin Peierls order for N > 4. For N=4 and 6, biquadratic interactions lead to a complex phase diagram which includes an extended valence bond crystal in both cases, as well as a stable pi-flux phase for N=6. The spin correlations of the projected pi-flux state at N=4 are in good agreement with 1/N calculations. We find that this state also shows strongly enhanced dimer correlations, in qualitative accord with the large-N results. We compare our results with a recent QMC study of the SU(4) Heisenberg model., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figs, added references to arxiv version

We discuss the transport anomalies associated with the development of heavy electrons out of a neutral spin fluid using the large-N treatment of the Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model. At the phase transition in this model the spin excitations suddenly acquire charge. The Higgs process by which this takes place causes the constraint gauge field to loosely ``lock'' together with the external, electromagnetic gauge field. From this perspective, the heavy fermion phase is a Meissner phase in which the field representing the difference between the electromagnetic and constraint gauge field, is excluded from the material. We show that at the transition into the heavy fermion phase, both the linear and the Hall conductivity jump together. However, the Drude weight of the heavy electron fluid does not jump at the quantum critical point, but instead grows linearly with the distance from the quantum critical point, forming a kind of ``gossamer'' Fermi-liquid., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. Small change in references in v2

By employing Hopf's functional method, we find the exact characteristic functional for a simple nonlinear dynamical system introduced by Orszag. Steady-state equal-time statistics thus obtained are compared to direct numerical simulation. The solution is both non-trivial and strongly non-Gaussian., Comment: 6 pages and 2 figures

Asymmetric current--voltage ($I(V)$) curves, known as the diode or rectification effect, in one--dimensional electronic conductors can have their origin from scattering off a single asymmetric impurity in the system. We investigate this effect in the framework of the Tomonaga--Luttinger model for electrons with spin. We show that electron interactions strongly enhance the diode effect and lead to a pronounced current rectification even if the impurity potential is weak. For strongly interacting electrons and not too small voltages, the rectification current, $I_r = [I(V)+I(-V)]/2$, measuring the asymmetry in the current--voltage curve, has a power--law dependence on the voltage with a negative exponent, $I_r \sim V^{-|z|}$, leading to a bump in the current--voltage curve., Comment: 9 pages; 3 figures

We determine the phase diagram of the half-filled two-leg ladder both at weak and strong coupling, taking into account the Cu d_{x^2-y^2} and the O p_x and p_y orbitals. At weak coupling, renormalization group flows are interpreted with the use of bosonization. Two different models with and without outer oxygen orbitals are examined. For physical parameters, and in the absence of the outer oxygen orbitals, the D-Mott phase arises; a dimerized phase appears when the outer oxygen atoms are included. We show that the circulating current phase that preserves translational symmetry does not appear at weak coupling. In the opposite strong-coupling atomic limit the model is purely electrostatic and the ground states may be found by simple energy minimization. The phase diagram so obtained is compared to the weak-coupling one., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, Version accepted for publication in PRB

We study a generalized Hubbard model on the two-leg ladder at zero temperature, focusing on a parameter region with staggered flux (SF)/d-density wave (DDW) order. To guide our numerical calculations, we first investigate the location of a SF/DDW phase in the phase diagram of the half-filled weakly interacting ladder using a perturbative renormalization group (RG) and bosonization approach. For hole doping delta away from half-filling, finite-size density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) calculations are used to study ladders with up to 200 rungs for intermediate-strength interactions. In the doped SF/DDW phase, the staggered rung current and the rung electron density both show periodic spatial oscillations, with characteristic wavelengths 2/delta and 1/delta, respectively, corresponding to ordering wavevectors 2k_F and 4k_F for the currents and densities, where 2k_F = pi(1-delta). The density minima are located at the anti-phase domain walls of the staggered current. For sufficiently large dopings, SF/DDW order is suppressed. The rung density modulation also exists in neighboring phases where currents decay exponentially. We show that most of the DMRG results can be qualitatively understood from weak-coupling RG/bosonization arguments. However, while these arguments seem to suggest a crossover from non-decaying correlations to power-law decay at a length scale of order 1/delta, the DMRG results are consistent with a true long-range order scenario for the currents and densities., Comment: 24 pages, 17 figures. Follow-up to cond-mat/0209444. (v2) Some revisions in text, improved presentation. Minor changes in title, abstract and references

A systematic truncation of the many-body Hilbert space is implemented to study how electrons in a quantum dot attached to conducting leads respond to time-dependent biases. The method, which we call the dynamical 1/N approach, is first tested in the most unfavorable case, the case of spinless fermions (N=1). We recover the expected behavior, including transient ringing of the current in response to an abrupt change of bias. We then apply the approach to the physical case of spinning electrons, N=2, in the Kondo regime for the case of infinite intradot Coulomb repulsion. In agreement with previous calculations based on the non-crossing approximation (NCA), we find current oscillations associated with transitions between Kondo resonances situated at the Fermi levels of each lead. We show that this behavior persists for a more realistic model of semiconducting quantum dots in which the Coulomb repulsion is finite., Comment: 18 pages, 7 eps figures, discussion extended for spinless electrons and typos