Related papers: Low temperature universality in disordered solids
Knowledge of lattice anharmonicity is essential to elucidate distinctive thermal properties in crystalline solids. Yet, accurate \textit{ab initio} investigations of lattice anharmonicity encounter difficulties owing to the cumbersome…
Using the Activation-Relaxation Technique-nouveau, we search for two-level systems (TLSs) in models of amorphous silicon (a-Si). The TLSs are mechanisms related to internal mechanical dissipation and represent the main source of noise in…
The theoretical understanding of the low-frequency modes in amorphous solids at finite temperature is still incomplete. The study of the relevant modes is obscured by the dressing of inter-particle forces by collision-induced momentum…
The thermal fluctuations that exist at very low temperature in disordered systems are often attributed to the existence of some two-level excitations. In this paper, we revisit this question via the explicit studies of the following 1D…
The relevance of tunneling two-level systems (TLS) for electron dephasing in metals is analyzed. We demonstrate that if the concentration of TLS is sufficient to cause the observed dephasing rate, one also should expect quite substantial…
On the basis of the self-consistent phonon theory and the special displacement method, we develop an approach for the treatment of anharmonicity in solids. We show that this approach enables the efficient calculation of…
The phonon spectra of solids, described through the measurable vibrational density of states (VDOS), provide a wealth of information about the underlying atomic structure and bonding, and they determine fundamental macroscopic properties…
Tunnelling Two-Level Systems (TLS) dominate the physics of glasses at low temperatures. Yet TLS are extremely rare and it is extremely difficult to directly observe them $\it{in \, silico}$. It is thus crucial to develop simple structural…
While the vibrational thermodynamics of materials with small anharmonicity at low temperatures has been understood well based on the harmonic phonons approximation; at high temperatures, this understanding must accommodate how phonons…
In $e$-beam evaporated amorphous silicon ($a$-Si), the densities of two-level systems (TLS), $n_{0}$ and $\overline{P}$, determined from specific heat $C$ and internal friction $Q^{-1}$ measurements, respectively, have been shown to vary by…
We formulate the generalized tunneling model for two level systems in insulators that takes into account the interaction between them and a slow power law dependence of their density of states. We show that the predictions of this model are…
We investigate the low-temperature behavior of two-dimensional (2D) RP$^{N-1}$ models, characterized by a global O($N$) symmetry and a local ${\mathbb Z}_2$ symmetry. For $N=3$ we perform large-scale simulations of four different 2D lattice…
An accurate and easily extendable method to deal with lattice dynamics of solids is offered. It is based on first-principles molecular dynamics simulations and provides a consistent way to extract the best possible harmonic - or higher…
The fundamental problem of phase saturation of electrons in a disordered mesoscopic system at very low temperatures is addressed. The disorder in the medium has both static and dynamic components, the latter being in the form of two-level…
We consider an electron interacting locally with two-level systems (TLSs) as an archetypal model for charge transport in the presence of inelastic scatterers. To assess the importance of quantum effects in the optical and d.c. conductivity…
Solid-like behavior at low energies and long distances is usually associated with the spontaneous breaking of spatial translations at microscopic scales, as in the case of a lattice of atoms. We exhibit three quantum field theories that are…
Thermoelectric materials offer a promising route for efficient heat-to-power conversion. In search of materials functional at high and low operating temperatures, we investigate the thermoelectric properties of two-dimensional lead halide…
Phonon modes within pristine crystalline resonators now routinely reach the quantum ground state. Such systems are attractive for quantum information science applications, as advanced fabrication and processing can enable relatively long…
Several puzzling regularities concerning the low temperature excitations of glasses are quantitatively explained by quantizing domain wall motions of the random first order glass transition theory. The density of excitations agrees with…
Glasses are known to exhibit quantitative universalities at low temperatures, the most striking of which is the ultrasonic attenuation coefficient 1/Q. In this work we develop a theory of coupled generic blocks with a certain randomness…