Today on the archive
Thu Sep 7 08:52:53 EST 2006
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- Title: New Trends in Density Matrix Renormalization
- Authors: Karen Hallberg
- Journal-ref: Advances in Physics 55 (5-6) (2006)
- Abstract: The Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) has become a powerful numerical method that can be applied to low-dimensional strongly correlated fermionic and bosonic systems. It allows for a very precise calculation of static, dynamic and thermodynamic properties. Its field of applicability has now extended beyond Condensed Matter, and it is now successfully used in Quantum Chemistry, Statistical Mechanics, Quantum Information Theory, Nuclear and High Energy Physics as well. In this article, we briefly review the main aspects of the method and present some of the most relevant applications so as to give an overview on the scope and possibilities of DMRG. We focus on the most important extensions of the method such as the calculation of dynamical properties, the application to classical systems, finite temperature simulations, phonons and disorder, field theory, time-dependent properties and the ab initio calculation of electronic states in molecules. The recent quantum information interpretation, the development of highly accurate time-dependent algorithms and the possibility of using the DMRG as the impurity-solver of the Dynamical Mean Field Method (DMFT) give new insights into its present and potential uses. We review the numerous very recent applications of these techniques where the DMRG has shown to be one of the most reliable and versatile methods in modern computational physics.
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- Title: Quantum phase transitions of light
- Authors: Andrew D. Greentree, Charles Tahan, Jared H. Cole, L. C. L. Hollenberg
- Abstract: Recently, condensed matter and atomic experiments have reached a length-scale and temperature regime where new quantum collective phenomena emerge. Finding such physics in systems of photons, however, is problematic, as photons typically do not interact with each other and can be created or destroyed at will. Here, we introduce a physical system of photons that exhibits strongly correlated dynamics on a meso-scale. By adding photons to a two-dimensional array of coupled optical cavities each containing a single two-level atom in the photon-blockade regime, we form dressed states, or polaritons, that are both long-lived and strongly interacting. Our zero temperature results predict that this photonic system will undergo a characteristic Mott insulator (excitations localised on each site) to superfluid (excitations delocalised across the lattice) quantum phase transition. Each cavity's impressive photon out-coupling potential may lead to actual devices based on these quantum many-body effects, as well as observable, tunable quantum simulators. We explicitly show that such phenomena may be observable in micro-machined diamond containing nitrogen-vacancy colour centres and superconducting microwave strip-line resonators.
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