In this thesis we review the gauge/gravity duality and how it can be used to compute the thermodynamic properties and low-energy excitations of holographic quantum liquids - strongly-interacting field theories with a non-zero density of matter. We then study in detail the charge density excitations of two such liquids, the D3/D7 theory and the RN-AdS₄ theory, by computing the poles of their charge density Green's functions, and their charge density spectral functions. Although it is not a Landau Fermi liquid, the charge density excitations of the D3/D7 theory display many of the same properties as one, including a collisionless/hydrodynamic crossover as the temperature is increased. In contrast to this, the charge density (and energy density) excitations of the RN-AdS₄ theory do not share these properties but behave in a way that cannot be explained by Landau's theory of interacting fermionic quasiparticles. This is consistent with other results which indicate that this is not a Landau Fermi liquid.

Silicon nitride is a bulk and a coating material exhibiting excellent mechanical properties. The understanding of the complex processes at the nanometre scale gained through experimental research will be enhanced by the existence of a computationally efficient and accurate model that is able to describe the mechanical properties of silicon nitride. Such a model has yet to be proposed. In this thesis we present a transferable reduced tight-binding (TB) model for the silicon nitride system. More precisely, this model consists of a reduced TB model for elemental silicon, a reduced TB model for elemental nitrogen, and a reduced TB model for silicon nitride. These models are developed within the framework of coarse-graining the electronic structure from density functional theory (DFT) to tight binding (TB) to bond-order potentials (BOPs), and can therefore be used in the future as the stepping stone to develop BOPs for the application in large scale simulations. The bond integrals employed in the reduced TB models are obtained directly from mixed-basis DFT projections of wave functions onto a minimal basis of atom-centred orbitals. This approach reduces the number of overall parameters to be fitted and provides models which are transferable through the different coarse-graining levels. We provide an example by using the same bond integrals in the reduced TB model for silicon and the preliminary bond-based BOP for silicon. DFT binding energies of ground state and metastable crystal structures are used as the benchmark to which the TB and BOP repulsive parameters are fitted. In addition to model development, we present an improved methodology when going from TB to reduced TB. By weighting all four σ TB bond integrals equally, we provide a new parameterisation (Eqs. (2.73) and (2.74)) and show that the quality of the silicon reduced TB model can be increased by choosing one of the reduced TB parameters to be distance invariant. The ingredients, the development methodology, and the quality of each of the four models are discussed in a separate chapter. The quality of the reduced TB models and BOP is demonstrated by comparing their predictions for the binding energies, heats of formation, elastic constants, and defect energies with DFT and experimental values.

This thesis contains four studies of the effects of disorder and randomness on strongly correlated quantum phases of matter. Starting with an itinerant ferromagnet, I first use an order-by-disorder approach to show that adding quenched charged disorder to the model generates new quantum fluctuations in the vicinity of the quantum critical point which lead to the formation of a novel magnetic phase known as a helical glass. Switching to bosons, I then employ a momentum-shell renormalisation group analysis of disordered lattice gases of bosons where I show that disorder breaks ergodicity in a non-trivial way, leading to unexpected glassy freezing effects. This work was carried out in the context of ultracold atomic gases, however the same physics can be realised in dimerised quantum antiferromagnets. By mapping the antiferromagnetic model onto a hard-core lattice gas of bosons, I go on to show the importance of the non-ergodic effects to the thermodynamics of the model and find evidence for an unusual glassy phase known as a Mott glass not previously thought to exist in this model. Finally, I use a mean-field numerical approach to simulate current generation quantum gas microscopes and demonstrate the feasibility of a novel measurement scheme designed to measure the Edwards-Anderson order parameter, a quantity which describes the degree of ergodicity breaking and which has never before been experimentally measured in any strongly correlated quantum system. Together, these works show that the addition of disorder into strongly interacting quantum systems can lead to qualitatively new behaviour, triggering the formation of new phases and new physics, rather than simply leading to small quantitative changes to the physics of the clean system. They provide new insights into the underlying physics of the models and make direct connection with experimental systems which can be used to test the results presented here.

We investigate systems comprising chains and rings of quantum dots, coupled to two metallic leads. Such systems allow to study the competition between orbital and spin degrees of freedom in a nanodevice, and the effect this subtle interplay has on two-channel Kondo (2CK) physics. We demonstrate that a rich range of strongly correlated electron behaviour results, with non-Fermi liquid 2CK phases and non-trivial phase transitions accessible. We employ physical arguments and the numerical renormalization group (NRG) technique to analyse these systems in detail, examining in particular both thermodynamic and dynamical properties. When leads are coupled to either end of a chain of dots, we show that the resulting behaviour on low temperature/energy scales can be understood in terms of simpler paradigmatic quantum `impurity' models. An effective low-energy single-spin 2CK model is derived for all odd-length chains, while the behaviour of even-length chains is related fundamentally to that of the classic `two-impurity Kondo' model. In particular, for small interdot coupling, we show that an effective coupling mediated though incipient single-channel Kondo states drives all odd chains to the 2CK fixed point (FP) on the lowest temperature/energy scales. A theory is also developed to describe a phase transition in even chains. We derive an effective channel-anisotropic 2CK model, which indicates that the critical FP of such models must be the 2CK FP. This physical picture is confirmed using NRG for various chain systems. We also examine the effect of local frustration on 2CK physics in mirror-symmetric ring systems. The importance of geometry and symmetry is demonstrated clearly in the markedly different physical behaviour that arises in systems where two leads are either connected to the same dot, or to neighbouring dots. In the latter case, we show for all odd-membered rings that two distinct 2CK phases, with different ground state parities, arise on tuning the interdot couplings. A frustration-induced phase transition thus occurs, the 2CK phases being separated by a novel critical point for which an effective low-energy model is derived. Precisely at the transition, parity mixing of the quasidegenerate local trimer states acts to destabilise the 2CK FPs, and the critical FP is shown to consist of a free pseudospin together with effective single-channel spin quenching. While connecting both leads to the same dot again results in two parity-distinct phases, a simple level-crossing transition now results due to the symmetry of the setup. The proposed geometry also allows access to a novel ferromagnetically-coupled two-channel local moment phase. Driven by varying the interdot couplings and occurring at the point of inherent magnetic frustration, such transitions in ring structures provide a striking example of the subtle interplay between internal spin and orbital degrees of freedom in coupled quantum dot systems, and the resulting effect on Kondo physics.

La physique de la matière condensée, et notamment les systèmes fortement corrélés, amènent à des problèmes parmi les plus stimulants et difficiles de la physique moderne. Dans ces systèmes, les interactions à plusieurs corps et les corrélations entre les particules quantiques ne peuvent être négligées, sinon, les modèles échoueraient simplement à capturer les mécanismes physiques en jeu et les phénomènes qui en découlent. En particulier, le travail présenté dans ce manuscrit traite du magnétisme quantique et aborde plusieurs questions distinctes à l'aide d'approches computationnelles et méthodes numériques à l'état de l'art. Les effets conjoints du désordre (i.e. impuretés) et des interactions sont étudiés concernant un matériau magnétique spécifique : plutôt qu'une phase de la matière dite localisée, attendue à fort champ magnétique, une phase ordonnée induite par le désordre lui-même est mise en lumière, avec une réapparition inattendue de la cohérence quantique dans ledit composé. Par ailleurs, la réponse dynamique d'aimants quantiques à une perturbation externe, comme celle mesurée dans des expériences de résonance magnétique nucléaire ou de diffusion inélastique de neutrons est étudiée. / Condensed matter physics, and especially strongly correlated systems provide some of the most challenging problems of modern physics. In these systems, the many-body interactions and correlations between quantum particles cannot be neglected; otherwise, the models would simply fail to capture the relevant physics at play and phenomena ensuing. In particular, the work presented in this manuscript deals with quantum magnetism and addresses several distinct questions through computational approaches and state-of-the-art numerical methods. The interplay between disorder (i.e. impurities) and interactions is studied regarding a specific magnetic compound, where instead of the expected many-body localized phase at high magnetic fields, a novel disorder-induced ordered state of matter is found, with a resurgence of quantum coherence. Furthermore, the dynamical response of quantum magnets to an external perturbation, such as it is accessed and measured in nuclear magnetic resonance and inelastic neutron scattering experiments is investigated.

The physics of iron pnictides has been the subject of intense research for half a decade since the discovery of superconductivity in doped LaFeAsO in 2008. By now there exists a large number of different materials that are summarized under the term "pnictides'' with significant differences in their crystal structure, electronic properties, and their phase diagrams. This thesis is concerned with the investigation of the various phase transitions that are observed in the underdoped compounds of the pnictide subgroups RFeAsO, where R is a rare-earth element, and AFe_2As_2, where A is an alkaline-earth element. These compounds display two closely bound transitions from a tetragonal to an orthorhombic phase and from a paramagnetic to an antiferromagnetic metal. Both symmetry-broken phases are suppressed by doping or pressure and close to their disappearance superconductivity sets in. The superconducting state is stabilized until some optimal doping or pressure is reached and gets suppressed thereafter. The central goal of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the interplay between these three phases and to describe the various phase transitions. We start from an itinerant picture that explains the magnetism as a result of an excitonic instability and show how the other phases can be included into this picture. This approach is based on the the observation that the compounds we are interested in have a Fermi surface with multiple nested electron and hole pockets and that they have small to intermediate interaction strengths. The thesis starts with a study of the doping dependence of the antiferromagnetic phase transition in four different five-orbital models. We use the random-phase approximation to determine the transition temperature, the dominant ordering vector, and the contribution of the different orbitals to the ordering. This allows us to identify the more realistic models, which give results that are in good agreement with experimental observations. In addition to the frequently made assumption of orbital-independent interaction potentials we study the effect of a reduction of the interaction strengths that involve the d_{xy} orbital. We find that this tunes the system between two different nesting instabilities. A reduction of the interactions that involve the d_{xy} orbital also enhances the tendency towards incommensurate (IC) order. For a weak reduction this tendency is compensated by the presence of the orthorhombic phase. However, for a reduction of 30%, as it is suggested by constrained random-phase-approximation calculations, we always find large doping ranges, where a state with IC order has the highest transition temperature. We continue the investigation of the magnetic phase transition by studying the competition of different possible types of antiferromagnetic order that arises from the presence of two degenerate nesting instabilities with the ordering vectors (pi,0) and (0,pi). We derive a Ginzburg-Landau free energy from a microscopic two-band model and find that the presence of the experimentally observed stripe phase strongly depends on the number and size of the hole pockets in the system and on the doping. We show that within the picture of a purely magnetically driven nematic phase transition, which breaks the C_4 symmetry and induces the orthorhombic distortion, the nematic phase displays exactly the same dependence on the model parameters as the magnetic stripe phase. We propose that in addition to the purely magnetically driven nematic instability there is a ferro-orbital instability in the system that stabilizes the nematic transition and, thus, explains the experimentally observed robustness of the orthorhombic transition. We argue that including a ferro-orbital instability into the picture may also be necessary to reproduce the transition from simultaneous first-order transitions into an orthorhombic antiferromagnetic state to two separate second-order transitions, which is observed as a function of doping. Finally, a study of the superconducting phase transition inside the antiferromagnetic phase that is observed in some pnictide compounds is presented. We present an approach to calculate the fluctuation-mediated pairing interaction in the spin-density-wave phase of a multiband system, which is based on the random-phase approximation. This approach is applied to a minimal two-band model for the pnictides to study the effect of the various symmetry-allowed bare on-site interactions on the gap symmetry and structure. We find a competition between various even- and odd-parity states and over a limited parameter range a p_x-wave state is the dominant instability. The largest part of the parameter space is dominated by even parity states but the gap structure sensitively depends on the bare interactions. We propose that the experimentally observed transition from a nodeless to a nodal gap can be due to changes in the on-site interaction potentials.

Topological states of matter are a novel family of phases that elude the conventional Landau paradigm of phase transitions. Topological phases are characterized by global topological invariants which are typically reflected in the quantization of physical observables. Moreover, their characteristic bulk-boundary correspondence often gives rise to robust surface modes with exceptional features, such as dissipationless charge transport or non-Abelian statistics. In this way, the study of topological states of matter not only broadens our knowledge of matter but could potentially lead to a whole new range of technologies and applications. In this light, it is of great interest to find novel topological phases and to study their unique properties. In this work, novel manifestations of topological states of matter are studied as they arise when materials are subject to additional symmetries. It is demonstrated how symmetries can profoundly enrich the topology of a system. More specifically, it is shown how symmetries lead to additional nontrivial states in systems which are already topological, drive trivial systems into a topological phase, lead to the quantization of formerly non-quantized observables, and give rise to novel manifestations of topological surface states. In doing so, this work concentrates on weakly interacting systems that can theoretically be described in a single-particle picture. In particular, insulating and semi-metallic topological phases in one, two, and three dimensions are investigated theoretically using single-particle techniques.

No description available.

Le domaine des problèmes quantiques à N-corps à l'équilibre et hors d'équilibre sont des sujets majeurs de la Physique et de la Physique de la matière condensée en particulier. Les propriétés d'équilibre de nombreux systèmes unidimensionnels en interaction sont bien comprises d'un point de vue théorique, des chaînes de spins aux théories quantiques des champs dans le continue. Ces progrès ont été rendus possibles par le développement de nombreuses techniques puissantes, comme, par exemple, l'ansatz de Bethe, le groupe de renormalisation, la bosonisation, les états produits de matrices ou la théorie des champs invariante conforme. Même si les propriétés à l'équilibre de nombreux modèles soient connues, ceci n'est en général pas suffisant pour décrire leurs comportements hors d'équilibre, et ces derniers restent moins explorés et beaucoup moins bien compris. Les modèles d'impuretés quantiques représentent certains des modèles à N-corps les plus simples. Mais malgré leur apparente simplicité ils peuvent capturer plusieurs phénomènes expérimentaux importants, de l'effet Kondo dans les métaux aux propriétés de transports dans les nanostructures, comme les points quantiques. Dans ce travail nous considérons un modèle d'impureté appelé "modèle de niveau résonnant en interaction" (IRLM). Ce modèle décrit des fermions sans spin se propageant dans deux fils semi-infinis qui sont couplés à un niveau résonant -- appelé point ou impureté quantique -- via un terme de saut et une répulsion Coulombienne. Nous nous intéressons aux situations hors d'équilibre où un courant de particules s'écoule à travers le point quantique, et étudions les propriétés de transport telles que le courant stationnaire (en fonction du voltage), la conductance différentielle, le courant réfléchi, le bruit du courant ou encore l'entropie d'intrication. Nous réalisons des simulations numériques de la dynamique du modèle avec la méthode du groupe de renormalisation de la matrice densité dépendent du temps (tDMRG), qui est basée sur une description des fonctions d'onde en terme d'états produits de matrices. Nous obtenons des résultats de grande précision concernant les courbes courant-voltage ou bruit-voltage de l'IRLM, dans un grand domaine de paramètres du modèle (voltage, force de l'interaction, amplitude de saut vers le dot, etc.). Ces résultats numériques sont analysés à la lumière de résultats exacts de théorie des champs hors d'équilibre qui ont été obtenus pour un modèle similaire à l'IRLM, le modèle de Sine-Gordon avec bord (BSG). Cette analyse est en particulier basée sur l'identification d'une échelle d'énergie Kondo et d'exposants décrivant les régimes de petit et grand voltage. Aux deux points particuliers où les modèles sont connus comme étant équivalents, nos résultats sont en accord parfait avec la solution exacte. En dehors de ces deux points particuliers nous trouvons que les courbes de transport de l'IRLM et du modèle BSG demeurent très proches, ce qui était inattendu et qui reste dans une certaine mesure inexpliqué. / The fields of in- and out-of-equilibrium quantum many-body systems are major topics in Physics, and in condensed-matter Physics in particular. The equilibrium properties of one-dimensional problems are well studied and understood theoretically for a vast amount of interacting models, from lattice spin chains to quantum fields in a continuum. This progress was allowed by the development of diverse powerful techniques, for instance, Bethe ansatz, renormalization group, bosonization, matrix product states and conformal field theory. Although the equilibrium characteristics of many models are known, this is in general not enough to describe their non-equilibrium behaviors, the latter often remain less explored and much less understood. Quantum impurity models represent some of the simplest many-body problems. But despite their apparent simplicity, they can capture several important experimental phenomena, from the Kondo effect in metals to transport in nanostructures such as point contacts or quantum dots. In this thesis consider a classic impurity model - the interacting resonant level model (IRLM). The model describes spinless fermions in two semi-infinite leads that are coupled to a resonant level -- called quantum dot or impurity -- via weak tunneling and Coulomb repulsion. We are interested in out-of-equilibrium situations where some particle current flows through the dot, and study transport characteristics like the steady current (versus voltage), differential conductance, backscattered current, current noise or the entanglement entropy. We perform extensive state-of-the-art computer simulations of model dynamics with the time-dependent density renormalization group method (tDMRG) which is based on a matrix product state description of the wave functions. We obtain highly accurate results concerning the current-voltage and noise-voltage curves of the IRLM in a wide range parameter of the model (voltage bias, interaction strength, tunneling amplitude to the dot, etc.).These numerical results are analyzed in the light of some exact out-of-equilibrium field-theory results that have been obtained for a model similar to the IRLM, the boundary sine-Gordon model (BSG).This analysis is in particular based on identifying an emerging Kondo energy scale and relevant exponents describing the high- and low- voltage regimes. At the two specific points where the models are known to be equivalent our results agree perfectly with the exact solution. Away from these two points, we find that, within the precision of our simulations, the transport curves of the IRLM and BSG remain very similar, which was not expected and which remains somewhat unexplained.

<p>In recent years, correlated magnetic phenomena have emerged as a unique resource for enabling alternative computing, memory, and sensing applications. This has led to the exploration of novel magnetic hybrid platforms with the promise of improved figures of merit over the state-of-the-art. In this dissertation, we delve into several example platforms where magnets interact with various other degrees of freedom, resulting in enhanced figures of merit and/or the emergence of novel functionalities.</p><p>First, we investigate the possibility of utilizing the collective resonant mode of nanomagnets to enhance the electric field sensitivity of quantum spin defects. While quantum systems have garnered significant attention in recent years for their extraordinary potential in information processing, their potential in the field of quantum sensing remains yet to be fully explored. Quantum systems, with their inherent fragility to external signals, can be harnessed as powerful tools to develop highly efficient sensors. In this dissertation, we explore the potential of a specific type of quantum sensor, namely the quantum spin defects as an electric field sensor, when integrated with a nanomagnet/piezoelectric composite multiferroic. This integration yields at least an order of magnitude enhancement in sensitivity, presenting a promising avenue for quantum sensing applications.</p><p>Next, we shift our focus towards harnessing magnetic correlation in the emerging class of atomically thin magnets known as van der Waals magnets. These magnets provide distinctive opportunities for controlling and exploiting magnetic correlations. Specifically, these platforms allow for tunable magnetic interactions by twisting two vertically adjacent layers of the magnet, features that are unique to van der Waals materials. By capitalizing on such twist degrees of freedom, we demonstrate the creation of twist-tunable nanoscale magnetic ground states. This capability opens up avenues for applications such as high-density memories and magnon crystals.</p><p>Interestingly, the same material platform also allows for exploiting magnetic correlation by controlling the local electrical environment. We uncover the symmetry-allowed spin-charge coupling mechanisms in the heterostructures of such magnets, a prediction that has received experimental support. Utilizing such an understanding, we propose a setup for the electrical generation of magnons. Magnons—the elementary excitation of spin waves—have garnered a lot of attention these days due to their potential to couple various diverse physical systems and in the field of low dissipation computing. Our findings offer a potential pathway towards the realization of magnon-based spintronic devices.</p>