January 10, 2007
We investigate a quantum Heisenberg model with both antiferromagnetic and disordered nearest-neighbor couplings. We use an extended dynamical mean-field approach, which reduces the lattice problem to a self-consistent local impurity problem that we solve by using a quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. We consider both two- and three-dimensional antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and systematically analyze the effect of disorder. We find that in three dimensions for any small amoun...
November 7, 2001
The effect of strong disorder on the one-dimensional Kondo necklace model is studied using a perturbative real-space renormalization group approach which becomes asymptotically exact in the low energy limit. The phase diagram of the model presents a random quantum critical point separating two phases; the {\em random singlet phase} of a quantum disordered XY chain and the random Kondo phase. We also consider an anisotropic version of the model and show that it maps on the str...
October 5, 2006
The dynamic phase transitions have been studied, within a mean-field approach, in the kinetic spin-1 Ising model Hamiltonian with arbitrary bilinear and biquadratic pair interactions in the presence of a time varying (sinusoidal) magnetic field by using the Glauber-type stochastic dynamics. The nature (first- or second-order) of the transition is characterized by investigating the behavior of the thermal variation of the dynamic order parameters. The dynamic phase transitions...
May 30, 1997
In these lectures I will present an introduction to the modern way of studying the properties of glassy systems. I will start from soluble models of increasing complications, the Random Energy Model, the $p$-spins interacting model and I will show how these models can be solved due their mean field properties. Finally, in the last section, I will discuss the difficulties in the generalization of these findings to short range models.
June 15, 2017
We investigate the robustness of a dynamical phase transition against quantum fluctuations by studying the impact of a ferromagnetic nearest-neighbour spin interaction in one spatial dimension on the non-equilibrium dynamical phase diagram of the fully-connected quantum Ising model. In particular, we focus on the transient dynamics after a quantum quench and study the pre-thermal state via a combination of analytic time-dependent spin-wave theory and numerical methods based o...
August 3, 2018
We study the dynamics of an interacting Bose-Hubbard chain coupled to a non-Markovian environment. Our basic tool is the reduced generating functional expressed as a path integral over spin-coherent states. We calculate the leading contribution to the corresponding effective action, and by minimizing it, we derive mean-field equations that can be numerically solved. With this tool at hand, we examine the influence of the system's initial conditions and interparticle interacti...
January 8, 2002
I consider the effects of enforced dimerization on random Heisenberg antiferromagnetic S=1 chains. I argue for the existence of novel Griffiths phases characterized by {\em two independent dynamical exponents} that vary continuously in these phases; one of the exponents controls the density of spin-1/2 degrees of freedom in the low-energy effective Hamiltonian, while the other controls the corresponding density of spin-1 degrees of freedom. Moreover, in one of these Griffiths...
November 2, 2001
We investigate the effect of quenched bond-disorder on the anisotropic spin-1/2 (XXZ) chain as a model for disorder induced quantum phase transitions. We find non-universal behavior of the average correlation functions for weak disorder, followed by a quantum phase transition into a strongly disordered phase with only short-range xy-correlations. We find no evidence for the universal strong-disorder fixed point predicted by the real-space renormalization group, suggesting a q...
April 30, 2004
We present simple analytical arguments explaining the universal emergence of electronic Griffiths phases as precursors of disorder-driven metal-insulator transitions in correlated electronic systems. A simple effective model is constructed and solved within Dynamical Mean Field Theory. It is shown to capture all the qualitative and even quantitative aspects of such Griffiths phases.
September 23, 2020
We investigate the effects of dissipation on the quantum dynamics of many-body systems at quantum transitions, especially considering those of the first order. This issue is studied within the paradigmatic one-dimensional quantum Ising model. We analyze the out-of-equilibrium dynamics arising from quenches of the Hamiltonian parameters and dissipative mechanisms modeled by a Lindblad master equation, with either local or global spin operators acting as dissipative operators. ...