35 research outputs found
Interacting Dirac fermions under spatially alternating pseudo-magnetic field: Realization of spontaneous quantum Hall effect
Both topological crystalline insulators surfaces and graphene host
multi-valley massless Dirac fermions which are not pinned to a high-symmetry
point of the Brillouin zone. Strain couples to the low-energy electrons as a
time-reversal invariant gauge field, leading to the formation of pseudo-Landau
levels (PLL). Here we study periodic pseudo-magnetic fields originating from
strain superlattices. We study the low-energy Dirac PLL spectrum induced by the
strain superlattice and analyze the effect of various polarized states. Through
self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations we establish that, due to the strain
superlattice and PLL electronic structure, a valley-ordered state spontaneously
breaking time-reversal and realizing a quantum Hall phase is favored, while
others are suppressed.Comment: 13 pages + 2 appendices, 9 figure
Odd-parity superconductors with two-component order parameters: nematic and chiral, full gap and Majorana node
Motivated by the recent experiment indicating that superconductivity in the
doped topological insulator CuBiSe has an odd-parity pairing
symmetry with rotational symmetry breaking, we study the general class of
odd-parity superconductors with two-component order parameters in trigonal and
hexagonal crystal systems. In the presence of strong spin-orbit interaction, we
find two possible superconducting phases below , a time-reversal-breaking
(i.e., chiral) phase and an anisotropic (i.e., nematic) phase, and determine
their relative energetics from the gap function in momentum space. The nematic
superconductor generally has a full quasi-particle gap, whereas the chiral
superconductor with a three-dimensional (3D) Fermi surface has point nodes with
lifted spin degeneracy, resulting in itinerant Majorana fermions in the bulk
and topological Majorana arcs on the surface.Comment: 4+ pages, 2 figures; 20 pages suppl mat + 4 figures; published
versio
Three-Dimensional Majorana Fermions in Chiral Superconductors
Through a systematic symmetry and topology analysis we establish that
three-dimensional chiral superconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling and
odd-parity pairing generically host low-energy nodal quasiparticles that are
spin-non-degenerate and realize Majorana fermions in three dimensions. By
examining all types of chiral Cooper pairs with total angular momentum
formed by Bloch electrons with angular momentum in crystals, we obtain a
comprehensive classification of gapless Majorana quasiparticles in terms of
energy-momentum relation and location on the Fermi surface. We show that the
existence of bulk Majorana fermions in the vicinity of spin-selective point
nodes is rooted in the non-unitary nature of chiral pairing in
spin-orbit-coupled superconductors. We address experimental signatures of
Majorana fermions, and find that the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin
relaxation rate is significantly suppressed for nuclear spins polarized along
the nodal direction as a consequence of the spin-selective Majorana nature of
nodal quasiparticles. Furthermore, Majorana nodes in the bulk have nontrivial
topology and imply the presence of Majorana bound states on the surface that
form arcs in momentum space. We conclude by proposing the heavy fermion
superconductor PrOsSb and related materials as promising candidates
for non-unitary chiral superconductors hosting three-dimensional Majorana
fermions.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures + appendices; published versio
Nematic superconductivity stabilized by density wave fluctuations: Possible application to twisted bilayer graphene
Nematic superconductors possess unconventional superconducting order
parameters that spontaneously break rotational symmetry of the underlying
crystal. In this work we propose a mechanism for nematic superconductivity
stabilized by strong density wave fluctuations in two dimensions. While the
weak-coupling theory finds the fully gapped chiral state to be energetically
stable, we show that strong density wave fluctuations result in an additional
contribution to the free energy of a superconductor with multicomponent order
parameters, which generally favors nematic superconductivity. Our theory shades
light on the recent observation of rotational symmetry breaking in the
superconducting state of twisted bilayer graphene