Formation and crossover of multiple helical dipole chains

We investigate the classical equilibrium properties and metamorphosis of the ground state of interacting dipoles on a helix. The dipoles are shown to arrange themselves into separate intertwined dipole chains forming single, double, and higher order helical chains with head-to-tail alignment. The number of dipole chains, their properties such as chirality and wavelength, can be tuned by the geometry of the setup. We demonstrate that all possible configurations form a self-similar bifurcation diagram which can be linked to the Stern-Brocot tree and the underlying Farey sequence. We describe the mechanism responsible for this behavior and subsequently discuss corresponding implications and possible applications.

External field-induced dynamics of a charged particle on a closed helix

We investigate the dynamics of a charged particle confined to move on a toroidal helix while being driven by an external time-dependent electric field. The underlying phase space is analyzed for linearly and circularly polarized fields. For small driving amplitudes and a linearly polarized field, we find a split-up of the chaotic part of the phase space which prevents the particle from inverting its direction of motion. This allows for a non-zero average velocity of chaotic trajectories without breaking the well-known symmetries commonly responsible for directed transport. Within our chosen normalized units, the resulting average transport velocity is constant and does not change significantly with the driving amplitude. A very similar effect is found in case of the circularly polarized field and low driving amplitudes. Furthermore, when driving with a circularly polarized field, we unravel a second mechanism of the split-up of the chaotic phase space region for very large driving amplitudes. There exists a wide range of parameter values for which trajectories may travel between the two chaotic regions by crossing a permeable cantorus. The limitations of these phenomena, as well as their implication on manipulating directed transport in helical geometries are discussed.

Theory of exciton-electron scattering in atomically thin semiconductors

The realization of mixtures of excitons and charge carriers in van-der-Waals materials presents a new frontier for the study of the many-body physics of strongly interacting Bose-Fermi mixtures. In order to derive an effective low-energy model for such systems, we develop an exact diagonalization approach based on a discrete variable representation that predicts the scattering and bound state properties of three charges in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. From the solution of the quantum mechanical three-body problem we thus obtain the bound state energies of excitons and trions within an effective mass model which are in excellent agreement with Quantum Monte Carlo predictions. The diagonalization approach also gives access to excited states of the three-body system. This allows us to predict the scattering phase shifts of electrons and excitons that serve as input for a low-energy theory of interacting mixtures of excitons and charge carriers at finite density. To this end we derive an effective exciton-electron scattering potential that is directly applicable for Quantum Monte-Carlo or diagrammatic many-body techniques. As an example, we demonstrate the approach by studying the many-body physics of exciton Fermi polarons in transition-metal dichalcogenides, and we show that finite-range corrections have a substantial impact on the optical absorption spectrum. Our approach can be applied to a plethora of many-body phenomena realizable in atomically thin semiconductors ranging from exciton localization to induced superconductivity.

Super-Lagrangian and variational principle for generalized continuity equations

We present a variational approach which shows that the wave functions belonging to quantum systems in different potential landscapes, are pairwise linked to each other through a generalized continuity equation. This equation contains a source term proportional to the potential difference. In case the potential landscapes are related by a linear symmetry transformation in a finite domain of the embedding space, the derived continuity equation leads to generalized currents which are divergence free within this spatial domain. In a single spatial dimension these generalized currents are invariant. In contrast to the standard continuity equation, originating from the abelian $U(1)$-phase symmetry of the standard Lagrangian, the generalized continuity equations derived here, are based on a non-abelian $SU(2)$-transformation of a Super-Lagrangian. Our approach not only provides a rigorous theoretical framework to study quantum mechanical systems in potential landscapes possessing local symmetries, but it also reveals a general duality between quantum states corresponding to different Schr{o}dinger problems.