Surface phonon propagation in topological insulators

The effect of helical Dirac states on surface phonons in a topological insulators is investigated. Their coupling is derived in the continuum limit by assuming displacement dependent Dirac cones. The resulting renormalisation of sound velocity and attenuation and its dependence on chemical potential and wave vector is calculated. At finite wave vectors a Kohn anomaly in the renormalized phonon frequency is caused by intraband-transitions. It appears at wave vectors q<2k_F due to a lack of backscattering for helical Dirac electrons. The wave vector and chemical potential dependence of this anomaly is calculated.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Magnetic torque oscillations from warped helical surface states in topological insulators

A magnetic torque method is proposed that probes the warping and mass gap of Dirac cone surface states in topological insulators like Bi2X3 (X=Se,Te). A rotating field parallel to the surface induces a paramagnetic moment in the helical surface states for nonzero warping. It is non-collinear with the applied field and therefore produces torque oscillations as function of the field angle which are a direct signature of the surface states. The torque dependence on field strength and angle, the chemical potential and the Dirac cone parameters like warping strength and mass gap is calculated. It is shown that the latter leads to a symmetry reduction in the fourfold torque oscillations.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Field induced spin exciton doublet splitting in d_{x^2-y^2}-wave 115-heavy electron superconductors

We investigate the spin-exciton modes in the superconducting d_{x^2-y^2} state of CeMIn_5 heavy fermion compounds found at the antiferromagnetic wave vector by inelastic neutron scattering. We present a theoretical model that explains the field dependence for both field directions. We show that the recently observed splitting of the spin exciton doublet in CeCoIn_5 into two non-degenerate modes for in-plane field appears naturally in this model. This is due to the spin anisotropy of g- factors and quasiparticle interactions which lead to different resonant conditions for the dynamic susceptibility components. We predict that the splitting of the spin resonance doublet becomes strongly nonlinear for larger fields when the energy of both split components decreases. For field along the tetragonal axis no splitting but only a broadening of the resonance is found in agreement with experiment.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Inelastic magnetic scattering effect on LDOS of topological insulators

Magnetic ions such as Fe, Mn and Co with localized spins may be adsorbed on the surface of topological insulators like \Bi. They form scattering centers for the helical surface states which have a Dirac cone dispersion as long as the local spins are disordered. However, the local density of states (LDOS) may be severely modified by the formation of bound states. Commonly only elastic scattering due to normal and exchange potentials of the adatom is assumed. Magnetization measurements show, however, that considerable magnetic single ion anisotropies exist which lead to a splitting of the local impurity spin states resulting in a singlet ground state. Therefore inelastic scattering processes of helical Dirac electrons become possible as described by a dynamical local self energy of second order in the exchange interaction. The self energy influences bound state formation and leads to significant new anomalies in the LDOS at low energies and low temperatures which we calculate within T-matrix approach. We propose that they may be used for spectroscopy of local impurity spin states by appropriate tuning of chemical potential and magnetic field.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures; published version; Fig.9b and five references adde

Multiorbital and hybridization effects in the quasiparticle interference of triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4

The tetragonal compound Sr2RuO4 exhibits a chiral p-wave superconducting (SC) state of its three t2g-type conduction bands. The characteristics of unconventional gap structure are known from experiment, in particular field-angle resolved specific heat measurements and from microscopic theories. A rotated extremal structure on the main active SC band with respect to the nodal gaps on the passive bands was concluded. We propose that this gap structure can be further specified by applying the STM- quasiparticle interference (QPI) method. We calculate the QPI spectrum within a three band and chiral three gap model and give closed analytical expressions. We show that as function of bias voltage the chiral three gap model will lead to characteristic changes in QPI that may be identified and may be used for more quantitative gap determination of the chiral gap structure.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Thermodynamics of anisotropic triangular magnets with ferro- and antiferromagnetic exchange

We investigate thermodynamic properties like specific heat $c_{V}$ and susceptibility $\chi$ in anisotropic $J_1$-$J_2$ triangular quantum spin systems ($S=1/2$). As a universal tool we apply the finite temperature Lanczos method (FTLM) based on exact diagonalization of finite clusters with periodic boundary conditions. We use clusters up to $N=28$ sites where the thermodynamic limit behavior is already stably reproduced. As a reference we also present the full diagonalization of a small eight-site cluster. After introducing model and method we discuss our main results on $c_V(T)$ and $\chi(T)$. We show the variation of peak position and peak height of these quantities as function of control parameter $J_2/J_1$. We demonstrate that maximum peak positions and heights in N\'eel phase and spiral phases are strongly asymmetric, much more than in the square lattice $J_1$-$J_2$ model. Our results also suggest a tendency to a second side maximum or shoulder formation at lower temperature for certain ranges of the control parameter. We finally explicitly determine the exchange model of the prominent triangular magnets Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$ and Cs$_{2}$CuBr$_{4}$ from our FTLM results.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure

Collective spin resonance excitation in the gapped itinerant multipole hidden order phase of URu2Si2

An attractive proposal for the hidden order (HO) in the heavy electron compound URu2Si2 is an itinerant multipole order of high rank. It is due to the pairing of electrons and holes centered on zone center and boundary, respectively in states that have maximally different total angular momentum components. Due to the pairing with commensurate zone boundary ordering vector the translational symmetry is broken and a HO quasiparticle gap opens below the transition temperature T_HO. Inelastic neutron scattering (INS) has demonstrated that for T<T_HO the collective magnetic response is dominated by a sharp spin exciton resonance at the ordering vector Q that is reminiscent of spin exciton modes found inside the gap of unconventional superconductors and Kondo insulators. We use an effective two-orbital tight binding model incorporating the crystalline electric field effect to derive closed expressions for quasiparticle bands reconstructed by the multipolar pairing terms. We show that the magnetic response calculated within that model exhibits the salient features of the resonance found in INS. We also use the calculated dynamical susceptibility to explain the low temperature NMR relaxation rate.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Gap function of hexagonal pnictide superconductor SrPtAs from quasiparticle interference spectrum

The pnictide superconductor SrPtAs has a hexagonal layered structure containing inversion symmetry. It is formed by stacking two inequivalent PtAs layers separated by Sr layers. The former have no local (in-plane) inversion symmetry and therefore a (layer-) staggered Rashba spin orbit coupling appears which splits the three Kramers degenerate bands into six quasi-2D bands. The symmetry of the superconducting state of SrPtAs is unknown. Three candidates, spin-singlet $A_{1g}$ and $E_g$ as well as triplet $A_{2u}$ states have been proposed. We predict the quasiparticle interference (QPI) spectrum for these gap functions in t-matrix Born approximation. We show that distinct differences in the pattern of characteristic QPI wave vectors appear. These results may be important to determine the gap symmetry of SrPtAs by STM-QPI method.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Signatures of hidden order symmetry in torque oscillations, elastic constant anomalies and field induced moments in URu2Si2

We discuss the conclusions on the symmetry of hidden order (HO) in URu2Si2 that may be drawn from recent torque experiments in rotating magnetic field by Okazaki et al. [1]. They are very sensitive to changes in the magnetic susceptibility induced by HO. We show that the observed twofold angular torque oscillations give evidence that hidden order has degenerate E- type (yz,zx) symmetry where both components are realised. The oscillations have the wrong characteristics or are absent for the 1D nontrivial representations like quadrupolar B1 (x^2-y^2) and B2 (xy) type HO or hexadecapolar A2(xy(x^2-y^2)) type HO. Therefore they may be excluded as candidates for hidden order. We also predict the field-angular variation of possible field-induced Bragg peaks based on underlying E-type order parameter and discuss the expected elastic constant anomalies.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure ; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Frustrated two dimensional quantum magnets

We overview physical effects of exchange frustration and quantum spin fluctuations in (quasi-) two dimensional (2D) quantum magnets ($S=1/2$) with square, rectangular and triangular structure. Our discussion is based on the $J_1$-$J_2$ type frustrated exchange model and its generalizations. These models are closely related and allow to tune between different phases, magnetically ordered as well as more exotic nonmagnetic quantum phases by changing only one or two control parameters. We survey ground state properties like magnetization, saturation fields, ordered moment and structure factor in the full phase diagram as obtained from numerical exact diagonalization computations and analytical linear spin wave theory. We also review finite temperature properties like susceptibility, specific heat and magnetocaloric effect using the finite temperature Lanczos method. This method is powerful to determine the exchange parameters and g-factors from experimental results. We focus mostly on the observable physical frustration effects in magnetic phases where plenty of quasi-2D material examples exist to identify the influence of quantum fluctuations on magnetism.Comment: 78 pages, 54 figure