759 research outputs found
Chiral spin-order in some purported Kitaev spin-liquid compounds
We examine recent magnetic torque measurements in two compounds,
-LiIrO and RuCl, which have been discussed as possible
realizations of the Kitaev model. The analysis of the reported discontinuity in
torque, as an external magnetic field is rotated across the axis in both
crystals, suggests that they have a translationally-invariant chiral spin-order
of the from in the ground
state and persisting over a very wide range of magnetic field and temperature.
An extra-ordinary dependence of the torque for small fields, beside
the usual part, is predicted due to the chiral spin-order, and found to
be consistent with experiments upon further analysis of the data. Other
experiments such as inelastic scattering and thermal Hall effect and several
questions raised by the discovery of chiral spin-order, including its
topological consequences are discussed.Comment: Clearer figures of the experimental data provided. Also clearer
exposition and comment on related recent wor
Thermodynamic constraints on the amplitude of quantum oscillations
Magneto-quantum oscillation experiments in high temperature superconductors
show a strong thermally-induced suppression of the oscillation amplitude
approaching critical dopings---in support of a quantum critical origin of their
phase diagrams. We suggest that, in addition to a thermodynamic mass
enhancement, these experiments may directly indicate the increasing role of
quantum fluctuations that suppress the oscillation amplitude through inelastic
scattering. We show that the traditional theoretical approaches beyond
Lifshitz-Kosevich to calculate the oscillation amplitude in correlated metals
result in a contradiction with the third law of thermodynamics and suggest a
way to rectify this problem.Comment: PRB Rapid commun. (2017
Langevin equations with multiplicative noise: resolution of time discretization ambiguities for equilibrium systems
A Langevin equation with multiplicative noise is an equation schematically of
the form dq/dt = -F(q) + e(q) xi, where e(q) xi is Gaussian white noise whose
amplitude e(q) depends on q itself. Such equations are ambiguous, and depend on
the details of one's convention for discretizing time when solving them. I show
that these ambiguities are uniquely resolved if the system has a known
equilibrium distribution exp[-V(q)/T] and if, at some more fundamental level,
the physics of the system is reversible. I also discuss a simple example where
this happens, which is the small frequency limit of Newton's equation d^2q/dt^2
+ e^2(q) dq/dt = - grad V(q) + e^{-1}(q) xi with noise and a q-dependent
damping term. The resolution does not correspond to simply interpreting naive
continuum equations in a standard convention, such as Stratanovich or Ito. [One
application of Langevin equations with multiplicative noise is to certain
effective theories for hot, non-Abelian plasmas.]Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures [further corrections to Appendix A
Extent of Fermi-surface reconstruction in the high-temperature superconductor HgBaCuO
High magnetic fields have revealed a surprisingly small Fermi-surface in
underdoped cuprates, possibly resulting from Fermi-surface reconstruction due
to an order parameter that breaks translational symmetry of the crystal
lattice. A crucial issue concerns the doping extent of this state and its
relationship to the principal pseudogap and superconducting phases. We employ
pulsed magnetic field measurements on the cuprate HgBaCuO to
identify signatures of Fermi surface reconstruction from a sign change of the
Hall effect and a peak in the temperature-dependent planar resistivity. We
trace the termination of Fermi-surface reconstruction to two hole
concentrations where the superconducting upper critical fields are found to be
enhanced. One of these points is associated with the pseudogap end-point near
optimal doping. These results connect the Fermi-surface reconstruction to both
superconductivity and the pseudogap phenomena.Comment: 5 pages. 3 Figures. PNAS (2020
Dirac dispersion and non-trivial Berry's phase in three-dimensional semimetal RhSb3
We report observations of magnetoresistance, quantum oscillations and
angle-resolved photoemission in RhSb, a unfilled skutterudite semimetal
with low carrier density. The calculated electronic band structure of RhSb
entails a quantum number in analogy to
strong topological insulators, and inverted linear valence/conduction bands
that touch at discrete points close to the Fermi level, in agreement with
angle-resolved photoemission results. Transport experiments reveal an
unsaturated linear magnetoresistance that approaches a factor of 200 at 60 T
magnetic fields, and quantum oscillations observable up to 150~K that are
consistent with a large Fermi velocity ( ms), high
carrier mobility ( /Vs), and small three dimensional hole pockets
with nontrivial Berry phase. A very small, sample-dependent effective mass that
falls as low as bare masses scales with Fermi velocity, suggesting
RhSb is a new class of zero-gap three-dimensional Dirac semimetal.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
An Approximate Variational Method for Improved Thermodynamics of Molecular Fluids
For a certain class of thermodynamic perturbation theories, a generalization of the Gibbs-Bogoliubov inequality holds through second order of perturbation theory and for a subset of terms the inequality is true to infinite order. Using this approximate variational principle, a perturbation theory is chosen for which the Helmholtz free energy of the reference system is minimized under the constraint that the first order term is identically zero. We apply these ideas to the determination of effective spherical potentials that accurately reproduce the thermodynamics of nonspherical molecular potentials. For a diatomic-Lennard-Jones (DLJ) potential with l ∕σ = 0.793, the resulting spherical reference potential is identical to the median average over angles for the repulsive part of the potential, but differs in the attractive well. The variational effective spherical potential leads to more accurate thermodynamics than the median, however, particularly in the triple point region
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