The superfluid stiffness fundamentally constrains the transition temperature of superconductors, especially in the strongly coupled regime. However, accurately determining this inherently quantum many-body property in microscopic models remains a significant challenge. In this Letter, we show how the quantum many-body bootstrap framework, specifically the reduced density matrix (RDM) bootstrap, can be leveraged to obtain rigorous lower bounds on the superfluid stiffness in frustration free interacting models with superconducting ground state. We numerically apply the method to a special class of frustration-free models, which are known as quantum geometric nesting models, for flatband superconductivity, where we uncover a general relation between the stiffness and the pair mass. Going beyond the familiar Hubbard case within this class, we find how additional interactions, notably simple magnetic couplings, can enhance the superfluid stiffness. Straightforward generalization of the method can lead to bounds on susceptibilities complementary to variational approaches. Our findings underscore the immense potential of the quantum many-body bootstrap as a powerful tool to derive rigorous bounds on physical quantities beyond energy.
The superfluid stiffness fundamentally constrains the transition temperature of superconductors, especially in the strongly coupled regime. However, accurately determining this inherently quantum many-body property in microscopic models remains a significant challenge. In this Letter, we show how the quantum many-body bootstrap framework, specifically the reduced density matrix (RDM) bootstrap, can be leveraged to obtain rigorous lower bounds on the superfluid stiffness in frustration free interacting models with superconducting ground state. We numerically apply the method to a special class of frustration-free models, which are known as quantum geometric nesting models, for flatband superconductivity, where we uncover a general relation between the stiffness and the pair mass. Going beyond the familiar Hubbard case within this class, we find how additional interactions, notably simple magnetic couplings, can enhance the superfluid stiffness. Straightforward generalization of the method can lead to bounds on susceptibilities complementary to variational approaches. Our findings underscore the immense potential of the quantum many-body bootstrap as a powerful tool to derive rigorous bounds on physical quantities beyond energy.
I summarize recent progress on obtaining rigorous upper bounds on superconducting transition temperature [Formula: see text] in two dimensions independent of pairing mechanism or interaction strength. These results are derived by finding a general upper bound for the superfluid stiffness for a multi-band system with arbitrary interactions, with the only assumption that the external vector potential couples to the kinetic energy and not to the interactions. This bound is then combined with the universal relation between the superfluid stiffness and the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless [Formula: see text] in 2D. For parabolic dispersion, one obtains the simple result that [Formula: see text], which has been tested in recent experiments. More generally, the bounds are expressed in terms of the optical spectral weight and lead to stringent constraints for the [Formula: see text] of low-density, strongly correlated superconductors. Results for [Formula: see text] bounds for models of flat-band superconductors, where the kinetic energy vanishes and the vector potential must couple to interactions, are briefly summarized. Upper bounds on [Formula: see text] in 3D remains an open problem, and I describe how questions of universality underlie the challenges in 3D.
Superconductivity is a macroscopic manifestation of a quantum phenomenon where pairs of electrons delocalize and develop phase coherence over a long distance. A long-standing quest has been to address the underlying microscopic mechanisms that fundamentally limit the superconducting transition temperature, T c . A platform which serves as an ideal playground for realizing “high”-temperature superconductors are materials where the electrons’ kinetic energy is quenched and interactions provide the only energy scale in the problem. However, when the noninteracting bandwidth for a set of isolated bands is small compared to the interactions, the problem is inherently nonperturbative. In two spatial dimensions, T c is controlled by superconducting phase stiffness. Here, we present a theoretical framework for computing the electromagnetic response for generic model Hamiltonians, which controls the maximum possible superconducting phase stiffness and thereby T c , without resorting to any mean-field approximation. Our explicit computations demonstrate that the contribution to the phase stiffness arises from i) “integrating out” the remote bands that couple to the microscopic current operator and ii) the density–density interactions projected on to the isolated narrow bands. Our framework can be used to obtain an upper bound on the phase stiffness and relatedly T c for a range of physically inspired models involving both topological and nontopological narrow bands with density–density interactions. We discuss a number of salient aspects of this formalism by applying it to a specific model of interacting flat bands and compare the upper bound against the known T c from independent numerically exact computations.
A numerical bootstrap method is proposed to provide rigorous and nontrivial bounds in general quantum many-body systems with locality. In particular, lower bounds on ground state energies of local lattice systems are obtained by imposing positivity constraints on certain operator expectation values. Complemented with variational upper bounds, ground state observables are constrained to be within a narrow range. The method is demonstrated with the Hubbard model in one and two dimensions, and bounds on ground state double occupancy and magnetization are discussed.
Understanding the material parameters that control the superconducting transition temperature T c is a problem of fundamental importance.In many novel superconductors phase fluctuations determine T c , rather than the collapse of the pairing amplitude.We derive rigorous upper bounds on the superfluid phase stiffness for multiband systems, valid in any dimension.This in turn leads to an upper bound on T c in two dimensions, which holds irrespective of pairing mechanism, interaction strength, or order-parameter symmetry.Our bound is particularly useful for the strongly correlated regime of low-density and narrowband systems, where mean-field theory fails.For a simple parabolic band in 2D with Fermi energy E F , we find that k B T c ≤ E F =8, an exact result that has direct implications for the 2D BCS-BEC crossover in ultracold Fermi gases.Applying our multiband bound to magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, we find that band structure results constrain the maximum T c to be close to the experimentally observed value.Finally, we discuss the question of deriving rigorous upper bounds on T c in 3D.
Preprint and reproducibility archive; not peer reviewed. WHAT IS THE QUESTION? In an ordinary dispersive band, charge stiffness is closely related to kinetic energy. In a perfectly flat band, ordinary band velocity vanishes, so superconducting or superfluid stiffness can instead depend on quantum geometry and interactions. In the quantum-geometric-nesting (QGN) class of frustration-free flat-band models, previous work established a rigorous bound relating the many-body superfluid stiffness to the inverse mass of a Cooper pair and reported numerical saturation at approximately the 0.1% level. This raises a natural question: Is perfect quantum geometric nesting by itself sufficient to make the pair-mass bound an exact equality? This work does not assume that the answer is yes and does not attempt to prove a universal saturation theorem. Instead, it calculates the finite-size static charge-twist response exactly and identifies the structural obstruction that decides whether saturation occurs. MAIN RESULT: TWO EXACT RESPONSE CHANNELS For the isolated QGN condensates studied here, the finite-size second derivative of the ground-state energy under a charge twist has the exact structure E_0^(N)''(0) = alpha C_3(N) + gamma C_2(N), where C_3(N) and C_2(N) are fixed hypergeometric filling factors. The amplitudes alpha and gamma are independent of pair number N and can be determined entirely within the one-pair sector. The second amplitude satisfies gamma >= 0, so its contribution has a fixed sign. This converts the question of saturation from a numerical observation into a structural condition: The familiar one-channel pair-mass form is saturated exactly when the second channel vanishes. The paper then determines how this second channel can arise. The spin trace first decides whether a generator contributes at all. Traceless spin structures make the relevant contribution vanish identically. For the contributing charge-type sector of the on-site construction, the remaining finite-size term is an aliasing contribution associated with nonzero lattice Fourier or Poisson modes rather than the continuum mode. EXPLICIT FINITE-SIZE COUNTEREXAMPLE The paper constructs an explicit admissible QGN model with a numerically certified unique gapped ground state for which gamma / alpha = 0.846 at N_k = 4. Relative to the one-channel saturating form, the finite-size departure is approximately 42% at half filling and rises to approximately 169% at N = 3, where the reference one-channel contribution is itself small. These percentages are finite-size departures from the one-channel form. They are not claimed to be thermodynamic violations of the rigorous pair-mass bound. THERMODYNAMIC RECOVERY The same analysis also explains why near-perfect saturation may appear in larger regular systems. Under the stated joint analyticity and regularity assumptions, uniform normalization assumptions, and a uniform charge-gap condition, the finite-size aliasing contribution decays and the conjectured one-channel relation is recovered in the thermodynamic limit. The work therefore separates two logically different statements: 1. perfect QGN alone does not force exact finite-size saturation; 2. with additional regularity and gap assumptions, the finite-size obstruction disappears in the thermodynamic limit. This distinction is important because an exact identity at finite system size and a thermodynamic definition of stiffness are not interchangeable statements. ADDITIONAL STRUCTURAL RESULTS The paper derives further constraints on the pairing form factor. When the generators that actually enter the Hamiltonian act irreducibly on each flat-band fibre and the momentum graph generated by them is connected, the pairing form factor has a degenerate, momentum-independent singular-value spectrum and the condensate is unique up to an overall scale. Counterexamples to converses are given, so these properties are not claimed to follow from QGN alone. The admissible band-space bilinears are also organized by a Z2-graded real structure. In an appropriate real basis, the even sector is real symmetric and the odd sector is i times a real antisymmetric matrix, with dimensions m(m+1)/2 and m(m-1)/2, respectively. This grading clarifies which algebraic sectors can carry the finite-size obstruction. The work additionally checks that, in the translation-invariant setting considered, optimization over the relevant all-spin matrix-valued antisymmetrized-geminal-power variational family reproduces the exact finite-size curvature to second order. The additional response channel is therefore not merely an artifact of evaluating a single fixed trial vector. WHY THIS MATTERS The scientific point is not simply that one numerical conjecture has a finite-size exception. The stronger result is that the apparent equality between a collective many-body charge response and a two-particle pair-mass quantity has an identifiable structural condition. The exact two-channel decomposition explains both: - why many QGN examples may appear almost perfectly saturated, and - how a valid QGN system can depart strongly from the one-channel form at finite size. For a broader reader, the work illustrates an important problem in many-body physics: When can information obtained from a low-particle sector determine a collective many-body response? In this QGN class, the one-pair sector carries unexpectedly strong information: it determines both response amplitudes. However, an additional algebraic and finite-size aliasing condition decides whether the response collapses to the commonly assumed pair-mass form. The lesson is therefore not that few-particle information is generally insufficient, but that its sufficiency must be established structurally rather than inferred from numerical agreement. SCOPE AND NONCLAIMS The observable treated here is the static charge-twist curvature in the conventions stated in the manuscript. The work does not claim that the 42% or 169% finite-size departures survive as thermodynamic violations. The thermodynamic recovery theorem requires the regularity, normalization, and gap hypotheses stated in the paper. Finite-range or infinite-volume situations outside those hypotheses are separate questions. The surjectivity theorem in release v1.1 explicitly assumes a momentum-independent, invertible singlet nesting matrix. That hypothesis is essential and should not be omitted when quoting the theorem. The relation between the graded algebraic sectors and the complete QGN interaction class also requires the stated orbital-coverage conditions; the manuscript gives cases in which those conditions fail. VERSION CLARIFICATION Release v1.1 tightens the formal scope of the v1.0 statements. Most importantly, it explicitly adds the momentum-independence hypothesis required by the surjectivity argument and separates analytically proved statements from numerically certified properties of the explicit counterexample. The finite-size two-channel response result and the thermodynamic scope should be quoted in the v1.1 form given above. REPRODUCIBILITY The deposit includes the manuscript and a fail-closed reproducibility package containing exact or symbolic checks, numerical certificates, figure generators, deterministic reference outputs, and a frozen manifest. The explicit finite-size counterexample, response formulas, convention factors, gap diagnostics, and auxiliary algebraic claims are mapped to executable verification routines. SEARCH AND INDEXING CONTEXT Relevant concepts include: flat-band superconductivity; quantum geometric nesting; QGN; superfluid stiffness; static charge curvature; Kohn twist; Cooper-pair mass; pair-mass bound; quantum metric; quantum geometry; exact pairing; antisymmetrized geminal power; AGP; finite-size aliasing; Poisson summation; thermodynamic limit; frustration-free Hamiltonian; Z2 grading.
The bootstrap method aims to solve problems by imposing constraints on the space of physical observables, which often follow from physical assumptions such as positivity and symmetry. Here, we employ a bootstrap approach to study interacting electrons in the lowest Landau level by minimizing the energy as a function of the static structure factor subject to a set of constraints, bypassing the need to construct the full many-body wave function. This approach rigorously lower bounds the ground state energy, making it complementary to conventional variational upper bounds. We show that the lower bound we obtain is relatively tight, within at most a few percent from the ground state energy computed with exact diagonalization at small system sizes, and generally gets tighter as we include more constraints. We also show that, by combining the bootstrap lower bounds with variational Monte Carlo calculations for various quantum Hall states, we can obtain two-sided bounds on the ground state energy that rigorously bounds the error to below a few percentage for large system sizes where exact diagonalization is not accessible. Beyond the energetics, our results reproduce the correct power law dependence of the pair correlation function at short distances and the existence of a large entanglement gap in the two-particle entanglement spectra for the Laughlin states at ν = 1 / 3 . We further identify signatures of the composite Fermi liquid state close to half filling. This shows that the bootstrap approach is capable, in principle, of describing nontrivial gapped topologically ordered, as well as gapless, phases. We further study the evolution of the ground state energy and correlation functions as we interpolate between the lowest and first Landau levels at half filling and find indications of a phase transition from a composite Fermi liquid to a non-Abelian state. We also discuss more generally how the geometry of the allowed set of structure factors can be used to diagnose phase transitions. At the end, we discuss possible extensions and current limitations of this approach and how they can be overcome in future studies. Our work establishes numerical bootstrap as a promising method to study many-body phases in topological bands, paving the way to its application in moiré platforms where the energetic competition between fractional quantum anomalous Hall, symmetry broken, and gapless states remains poorly understood.