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In this work, building on state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we perform systematic finite-size scaling of both entanglement and participation entropies for long-range Heisenberg chain with unfrustrated power-law decaying interactions. We find distinctive scaling behaviors for both quantum entropies in the various regimes explored by tuning the decay exponent $\alpha$, thus capturing non-trivial features through logarithmic terms, beyond the case of linear Nambu-Goldstone modes. Our systematic analysis reveals that the quantum entanglement information, hidden in the scaling of the two studied entropies, can be obtained to the same level of order parameters and other usual finite-size observables of quantum many-body lattice models. The analysis and results obtained here can readily apply to more quantum criticalities in 1D and 2D systems.

We systematically investigate the scaling behavior of the disorder operator and the entanglement entropy (EE) of the easy-plane JQ (EPJQ) model at its transitions between the antiferromagnetic XY ordered phase (AFXY) and the valence bond solid (VBS) phase. We find $\mathbf{(1)}$ there exists a tiny yet finite value of the order parameters at the AFXY-VBS phase transition points of the EPJQ model, and the finite order parameter is strengthened as anisotropy $\Delta$ varies from the Heisenberg limit ($\Delta=1$) to the easy-plane limit ($\Delta=0$); $\mathbf{(2)}$ Both EE and disorder operator with smooth boundary cut exhibit anomalous scaling behavior at the transition points, resembling the scaling inside the Goldstone model phase, and the anomalous scaling becomes strengthened as the transition becomes more first order; $\mathbf{(3)}$ First put forward in Ref. [arXiv:2401.12838], with the finite-size corrections in EE for Goldstone phase is properly considered in the fitting form, the anomalous scaling behavior of EE can be adapted with emergent SO(5) symmetry breaking at the Heisenberg limit ($\Delta=1$). We extend this method in the EPJQ model and observe similar yet weaker results, which may indicate emergent SO(4) symmetry breaking in the easy-plane regime ($\Delta<1$) or emergent SO(5) symmetry breaking in the Heisenberg limit ($\Delta=1$). These observations provide evidence that the N\'eel-VBS transition in the JQ model setting evolves from weak to prominent first-order transition as the system becomes anisotropic, and the non-local probes such as EE and disorder operator, serve as the sensitive tool to detect such salient yet fundamental features.

The subleading corner logarithmic corrections in entanglement entropy (EE) are crucial for revealing universal characteristics of the quantum critical points (QCPs), but they are challenging to detect. Motivated by recent developments in the stable computation of EE in (2+1)D quantum many-body systems, we have developed a new method for directly measuring the corner contribution in EE with less computational cost. The cornerstone of our approach is to measure the subtracted corner entanglement entropy (SCEE) defined as the difference between the EEs of subregions with the same boundary length for smooth and cornered boundaries during the sign-problem free quantum Monte Carlo simulation. Our improved method inherently eliminates not only the area law term of EE but also the subleading log-corrections arising from Goldstone modes, leaving the universal corner contribution as the leading term of SCEE with greatly improved data quality. Utilizing this advanced approach, we calculate the SCEE of the bilayer Heisenberg model on both square and honeycomb lattices across their (2+1)D O(3) QCPs with different opening angles on entanglement boundary, and obtain the accurate values of the corresponding universal corner log-coefficients. These findings will encourage further theoretical investigations to access controlled universal information for interacting CFTs at (2+1)D., Comment: 6+6 pages, 4+6 figures

Direct laser acceleration of electrons in near-critical-density (NCD) carbon nanotube foams (CNFs) has its advantages in the high-efficiency generation of relativistic electrons and broadband X-rays. Here, we report the first simultaneous measurement on the spectra of laser-driven electrons and X-rays from CNFs at moderately relativistic intensities of around 5\times{10}^{19}\ W/cm^2.\ The density and thickness of the CNFs were scanned in the experiments, indicating the optimized electrons temperature of 5.5 MeV and X-ray critical energy of 5 keV. Two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations confirm that the electrons, with a temperature significantly higher than the pondermotive scale, are directly accelerated by the laser along the NCD plasma channel, while the bright X-rays are emitted by these electrons through betatron radiation or Thomson backscattering inside the channel. The simultaneously generated electrons and X-rays, automatically synchronized with the femtosecond laser driver, are suitable for applications such as bi-modal radiography., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2010.05702

The designing of efficient signal detectors is important and yet challenge for orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) systems in high-mobility scenarios. In this letter, we develop an efficient message feedback interference cancellation aided unitary approximate message passing (denoted as UAMPMFIC) iterative detector, where the latest feedback messages from variable nodes are utilized for more reliable interference cancellation and performance improvement. A fast recursive scheme is leveraged in the proposed UAMP-MFIC detector to prevent complexity increasing. To further alleviate the error-propagation and improve the receiver performance, we also develop the bidirectional symbol detection structures, where Turbo UAMP-MFIC detector and iterative weight UAMP-MFIC detector are proposed to efficiently fuse the estimation results of forward and backward UAMP-MFIC detectors. The simulation results are finally provided to demonstrate performance improvement of our proposed detectors over existing detectors.

We systematically investigate the finite size scaling behavior of the R\'enyi entanglement entropy (EE) of several representative 2d quantum many-body systems between a subregion and its complement, with smooth boundaries as well as boundaries with corners. In order to reveal the subleading correction, we investigate the quantity ``subtracted EE" $S^s(l) = S(2l) - 2S(l)$ for each model, which is designed to cancel out the leading perimeter law. We find that $\mathbf{(1)}$ for a spin-1/2 model on a 2d square lattice whose ground state is the Neel order, the coefficient of the logarithmic correction to the perimeter law is consistent with the prediction based on the Goldstone modes; $\mathbf{(2)}$ for the $(2+1)d$ O(3) Wilson-Fisher quantum critical point (QCP), realized with the bilayer antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model, a logarithmic subleading correction exists when there is sharp corner of the subregion, but for subregion with a smooth boundary our data suggests the absence of the logarithmic correction to the best of our efforts; $\mathbf{(3)}$ for the $(2+1)d$ SU(2) J-Q$_2$ and J-Q$_3$ model for the deconfined quantum critical point (DQCP), we find a logarithmic correction for the EE even with smooth boundary.

In recent years a consensus has gradually been reached that the previously proposed deconfined quantum critical point (DQCP) for spin-1/2 systems, an archetypal example of quantum phase transition beyond the classic Landau's paradigm, actually does not correspond to a true unitary conformal field theory (CFT). In this work we carefully investigate another type of quantum phase transition supposedly beyond the similar classic paradigm, the so called ``symmetric mass generation" (SMG) transition proposed in recent years. We employ the sharp diagnosis including the scaling of disorder operator and R\'enyi entanglement entropy in large-scale lattice model quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our results strongly suggest that the SMG transition is indeed an unconventional quantum phase transition and it should correspond to a true $(2+1)d$ unitary CFT., Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures

Over the past two decades, the enigma of the deconfined quantum critical point (DQCP) has attracted broad attention across the condensed matter, quantum field theory, and high-energy physics communities, as it is expected to offer a new paradigm in theory, experiment, and numerical simulations that goes beyond the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson framework of symmetry breaking and phase transitions. However, the nature of DQCP has been controversial. For instance, in the square-lattice spin-1/2 $J$-$Q$ model, believed to realize the DQCP between N\'eel and valence bond solid states, conflicting results, such as first-order versus continuous transition, and critical exponents incompatible with conformal bootstrap bounds, have been reported. The enigma of DQCP is exemplified in its anomalous logarithmic subleading contribution in its entanglement entropy (EE), which was discussed in recent studies. In the current work, we demonstrate that similar anomalous logarithmic behavior persists in a class of models analogous to the DQCP. We systematically study the quantum EE of square-lattice SU($N$) DQCP spin models. Based on large-scale quantum Monte Carlo computation of the EE, we show that for a series of $N$ smaller than a critical value, the anomalous logarithmic behavior always exists in the EE, which implies that the previously determined DQCPs in these models do not belong to conformal fixed points. In contrast, when $N\ge N_c$ with a finite $N_c$ that we evaluate to lie between $7$ and $8$, the DQCPs are consistent with conformal fixed points that can be understood within the Abelian Higgs field theory with $N$ complex components., Comment: The revised version focuses on the anomalous logarithmic correction to the EE arising from the smooth boundary, rather than corners. And the critical $N_c$ is determined based on the anomalous EE signal from smooth boundary

The study of quantum criticality and entanglement in systems with long-range (LR) interactions is still in its early stages, with many open questions remaining. In this work, we investigate critical exponents and scaling of entanglement entropies (EE) in the LR bilayer Heisenberg model using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations and the recently developed nonequilibrium increment algorithm for measuring EE. By applying modified (standard) finite-size scaling (FSS) above (below) the upper critical dimension and field theory analysis, we obtain precise critical exponents in three regimes: the LR Gaussian regime with a Gaussian fixed point, the short-range (SR) regime with Wilson-Fisher (WF) exponents, and a LR non-Gaussian regime where the critical exponents vary continuously from LR Gaussian to SR values. We compute the R\'enyi EE both along the critical line and in the N\'eel phase and observe that as the LR interaction is enhanced, the area-law contribution in EE gradually vanishes both at quantum critical points (QCPs) and in the N\'eel phase. The log-correction in EE arising from sharp corners at the QCPs also decays to zero as LR interaction grows, whereas the log-correction for N\'eel states, caused by the interplay of Goldstone modes and restoration of the symmetry in a finite system, is enhanced as LR interaction becomes stronger. We also discuss relevant experimental settings to detect these nontrivial properties in critical behavior and entanglement information for quantum many-body systems with LR interactions., Comment: 5pages, 4 figures

The Mermin-Wagner theorem states that spontaneous continuous symmetry breaking is prohibited in systems with short-range interactions at spatial dimension $D\le 2$. For long-range interactions with a power-law form ($1/r^{\alpha}$), the theorem further forbids ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic order at finite temperature when $\alpha\ge 2D$. However, the situation for $\alpha \in (2,4)$ at $D=2$ is not covered by the theorem. To address this, we conduct large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations and field theoretical analysis. Our findings show spontaneous breaking of $SU(2)$ symmetry in the ferromagnetic Heisenberg model with $1/r^{\alpha}$-form long-range interactions at $D=2$. We determine critical exponents through finite-size analysis for $\alpha<3$ (above the upper critical dimension with Gaussian fixed point) and $3\le\alpha<4$ (below the upper critical dimension with non-Gaussian fixed point). These results reveal new critical behaviors in 2D long-range Heisenberg models, encouraging further experimental studies of quantum materials with long-range interactions beyond the Mermin-Wagner theorem's scope.

Very thin free-flowing liquid sheets are promising targets for high-repetition-rate laser-ion acceleration. In this work, we report the generation of micrometer-thin free-flowing liquid sheets from the collision of two liquid jets, and study the vibration and jitter in their surface normal direction. The dependence of their motion amplitudes on the generation parameters is studied in detail. The origins of the vibration and jitter are discussed. Our results indicate that when the generation parameters are optimized, the motion amplitudes in the stable region can be stabilized below 3.7 {\mu}m to meet the stringent requirement of sheet position stability for a tight-focusing setup in laser-ion acceleration experiments., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, Original Reasearch

Employing large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we systematically compute the energy spectra of the 2D spin-1/2 Heisenberg model with long-range interactions. With the $1/r^{\alpha}$ ferromagnetic and staggered antiferromagnetic interactions, we find the explicit range in $\alpha$ for {\color{black} the short-range Goldstone-type (gapless), anomalous Goldstone-type (gapless) and Higgs-type (gapped) spectra. Accompanied by the spin wave analysis, our numerical results vividly reveal how the long-range interactions alter the usual linear and quadratic magnon dispersions in 2D quantum magnets and give rise to anomalous dynamical exponents. Moreover, we find explicit case where the gapped excitation exists even when the Hamiltonian is extensive. This work provides the first set of unbiased dynamical data} of long-range quantum many-body systems and suggests that many universally accepted low-energy customs for short-range systems need to be substantially modified for long-range ones which are of immediate relevance to the ongoing experimental efforts from quantum simulators to 2D quantum moir\'e materials., Comment: 5 pages,3 figures

Post-acceleration of protons in helical coil targets driven by intense, ultrashort laser pulses can enhance the ion energy by utilizing the transient current originating from the self-discharging of the targets. The acceleration length of the protons can exceed a few millimeters, and the accelerating gradient is in the order of GeV/m. How to ensure the synchronization of the accelerating electric field with the protons is a crucial problem for an efficient post-acceleration. In this paper, we study how the electric field mismatch induced by the current dispersion affects the synchronous acceleration of the protons. We propose a scheme using a two-stage helical coil to control the current dispersion. With optimized parameters, the energy gain of protons is enhanced by 4 times. And it is expected that the proton energy would reach 45 MeV using a hundreds-terawatt laser, or over 100 MeV using a petawatt laser, by controlling the current dispersion.

We propose a physical picture based on the wormhole effect of the path-integral formulation to explain the mechanism of entanglement spectrum (ES), such that, our picture not only explains the topological state with bulk-edge correspondence of the energy spectrum and ES (the Li and Haldane conjecture), but is generically applicable to other systems independent of their topological properties. We point out it is ultimately the relative strength of bulk energy gap (multiplied with inverse temperature $\beta=1/T$) with respect to the edge energy gap that determines the behavior of the low-lying ES of the system. Depending on the circumstances, the ES can resemble the energy spectrum of the virtual edge, but can also represent that of the virtual bulk. We design models both in 1D and 2D to successfully demonstrate the bulk-like low-lying ES at finite temperatures, in addition to the edge-like case conjectured by Li and Haldane at zero temperature. Our results support the generality of viewing the ES as the wormhole effect in the path integral and the different temperature-dependence for the edge and bulk of ES., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Here we report the generation of MeV alpha-particles from H-11B fusion initiated by laser-accelerated boron ions. Boron ions with maximum energy of 6MeV and fluence of 10^9/MeV/sr@5MeV were generated from 60-nm-thick self-supporting boron nanofoils irradiated by 1J femtosecond pulses at an intensity of 10^19W/cm^2. By bombarding secondary hydrogenous targets with the boron ions, 3*10^5/sr alpha-particles from H-11B fusion were registered, which is consistent with the theoretical yield calculated from the measured boron energy spectra. Our results demonstrate an alternative way toward ultrashort MeV alpha-particle sources employing compact femtosecond lasers. The ion acceleration and product measurement scheme are referential for the studies on the ion stopping power and cross-section of the H-11B reaction in solid or plasma.

In this work, the high-energy-density plasmas (HEDP) evolved from joule-class-femtosecond-laser-irradiated nanowire array (NWA) targets are numerically and experimentally studied. The particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations indicate that ions accelerated in the sheath field around the nanowires' surface were eventually confined in NWA plasma, contributing most to the high energy densities. The protons emitted from the front surface of targets provide rich information about the interaction. The electron and ion energy densities in a broad target parameter range are given. Compared to planar targets, the ion energy density is one order of magnitude higher, and the volume of the HEDP is several-fold larger. At optimal target parameters, 8% of the laser energy can be converted to confined protons and results in ion energy densities of up to GJ/cm3 level. Experimental measurements of the emitted ions and neutrons from 2H(d, n)3He fusion from polyethylene and deuterated polyethylene NWA targets confirm the above results.

We develop a nonequilibrium increment method in quantum Monte Carlo simulations to obtain the R\'enyi entanglement entropy of various quantum many-body systems with high efficiency and precision. To demonstrate its power, we show the results on a few important yet difficult $(2+1)d$ quantum lattice models, ranging from the Heisenberg quantum antiferromagnet with spontaneous symmetry breaking, the quantum critical point with O(3) conformal field theory (CFT) to the toric code $\Z_2$ topological ordered state and the Kagome $\Z_2$ quantum spin liquid model with frustration and multi-spin interactions. In all these cases, our method either reveals the precise CFT data from the logarithmic correction or extracts the quantum dimension in topological order, from the dominant area law in finite-size scaling, with very large system sizes, controlled errorbars and minimal computational costs. Our method therefore establishes a controlled and practical computation paradigm to obtain the difficult yet important universal properties in highly entangled quantum matter.

We develop a nonequilibrium increment method to compute the R\'enyi entanglement entropy and investigate its scaling behavior at the deconfined critical (DQC) point via large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. To benchmark the method, we first show that at an conformally-invariant critical point of O(3) transition, the entanglement entropy exhibits universal scaling behavior of area law with logarithmic corner corrections and the obtained correction exponent represents the current central charge of the critical theory. Then we move on to the deconfined quantum critical point, where although we still observe similar scaling behavior but with a very different exponent. Namely, the corner correction exponent is found to be negative. Such a negative exponent is in sharp contrast with positivity condition of the R\'enyi entanglement entropy, which holds for unitary conformal field theories(CFT). Our results unambiguously reveal fundamental differences between DQC and quantum critical points(QCPs) described by unitary CFTs., Comment: published version

We demonstrate the high-efficiency generation of water-window soft x-ray emissions from polyethylene nanowire array targets irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses at the intensity of 4*10^19 W/cm^2. The experimental results indicate more than one order of magnitude enhancement of the water-window x-ray emissions from the nanowire array targets compared to the planar targets. The highest energy conversion efficiency from laser to water-window x-rays is measured as 0.5%/sr, which comes from the targets with the longest nanowires. Supported by particle-in-cell simulations and atomic kinetic codes, the physics that leads to the high conversion efficiency is discussed.

In recent years, new phases of matter that are beyond the Landau paradigm of symmetry breaking are mountaining, and to catch up with this fast development, new notions of global symmetry are introduced. Among them, the higher-form symmetry, whose symmetry charges are spatially extended, can be used to describe topologically ordered phases as the spontaneous breaking of the symmetry, and consequently unify the unconventional and conventional phases under the same conceptual framework. However, such conceptual tools have not been put into quantitative test except for certain solvable models, therefore limiting its usage in the more generic quantum manybody systems. In this work, we study Z2 higher-form symmetry in a quantum Ising model, which is dual to the global (0-form) Ising symmetry. We compute the expectation value of the Ising disorder operator, which is a non-local order parameter for the higher-form symmetry, analytically in free scalar theories and through unbiased quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the interacting fixed point in (2+1)d. From the scaling form of this extended object, we confirm that the higher-form symmetry is indeed spontaneously broken inside the paramagnetic, or quantum disordered phase (in the Landau sense), but remains symmetric in the ferromagnetic/ordered phase. At the Ising critical point, we find that the higher-form symmetry is also spontaneously broken, even though the 0-form symmetry is preserved. We discuss examples where both the global 0-form symmetry and the dual higher-form symmetry are preserved, in systems with a codimension-1 manifold of gapless points in momentum space. These results provide non-trivial working examples of higher-form symmetry operators, including the first computation of one-form order parameter in an interacting conformal field theory, and open the avenue for their generic implementation in quantum many-body systems.

We report the experimental results of simultaneous measurements on the electron and X-ray spectra from near-critical-density (NCD) double-layer targets irradiated by relativistic femtosecond pulses at the intensity of 5E19 W/cm^2. The dependence of the electron and X-ray spectra on the density and thickness of the NCD layer was studied. For the optimal targets, electrons with temperature of 5.5 MeV and X-rays with critical energy of 5 keV were obtained. 2D particle-in-cell simulations based on the experimental parameters confirm the electrons are accelerated in the plasma channel through direct laser acceleration, resulting in temperature significantly higher than the pondermotive temperature. Bright X-rays are generated from betatron emission and Thomson backscattering before the electrons leave the double-layer targets.

We present the results of neutron detection in a laser plasma experiment with a CD$_2$ nanowire target. A hybrid semiconductor pixel detector Timepix3 covered with neutron converters was used for the detection of neutrons. D-D fusion neutrons were detected in a polyethylene converter through recoiled protons. Both the energy of recoiled protons and the time-of-flight of neutrons (and thus their energy) were determined. We report $(2.4 \pm 1.8) \times 10^7$ neutrons generated for 1~J of incoming laser energy. Furthermore, we proved that Timepix3 is suitable for difficult operational conditions in laser experiments., Comment: pdflatex, accepted for publication in NIM A