Coupled topological flat and wide bands: Quasiparticle formation and destruction

Flat bands amplify correlation effects and are of extensive current interest. They provide a platform to explore both topology in correlated settings and correlation physics enriched by topology. Recent experiments in correlated kagome metals have found evidence for strange-metal behavior. A major theoretical challenge is to study the effect of local Coulomb repulsion when the band topology obstructs a real-space description. In a variant to the kagome lattice, we identify an orbital-selective Mott transition for the first time in any system of coupled topological flat and wide bands. This was made possible by the construction of exponentially localized and Kramers-doublet Wannier functions, which in turn leads to an effective Kondo lattice description. Our findings show how quasiparticles are formed in such coupled topological flat-wide band systems and, equally important, how they are destroyed. Our work provides a conceptual framework for the understanding of the existing and emerging strange-metal properties in kagome metals and beyond.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures. To appear in Science Advance

Orbital-selective superconductivity in the nematic phase of FeSe

The interplay between electronic orders and superconductivity is central to the physics of unconventional superconductors, and is particularly pronounced in the iron-based superconductors. Motivated by recent experiments on FeSe, we study the superconducting pairing in its nematic phase in a multiorbital model with frustrated spin-exchange interactions. The electron correlations in the presence of the nematic order give rise to an enhanced orbital selectivity in the superconducting pairing amplitudes. This orbital-selective pairing produces a large gap anisotropy on the Fermi surface. Our results naturally explain the striking experimental observations, and shed new light on the unconventional superconductivity of correlated electron systems in general.Comment: Final version as published in PRB, Rapid Communications. 6 pages with 4 figures, plus supplementary materia