Pair-Kondo effect: a mechanism for time-reversal broken superconductivity in UTe$_2$
Tamaghna Hazra, Pavel A. Volkov
An important open puzzle in the superconductivity of UTe$_2$ is the emergence of time-reversal broken superconductivity from a non-magnetic normal state. Breaking time-reversal symmetry in a single second-order superconducting transition requires the existence of two degenerate superconducting order parameters, which is not natural for orthorhombic UTe$_2$. Moreover, experiments under pressure (Braithwaite et. al., Comm. Phys. \bf{2}, 147 (2019), arXiv:1909.06074 [cond-mat.str-el]) suggest that superconductivity sets in at a single transition temperature in a finite parameter window, in contrast to the splitting between the symmetry breaking temperatures expected for accidental degenerate orders. Motivated by these observations, we propose a mechanism for the emergence of time-reversal breaking superconductivity without accidental or symmetry-enforced order parameter degeneracies in systems close to a magnetic phase transition. We demonstrate using Landau theory that a cubic coupling between incipient magnetic order and magnetic moments of Cooper pairs (pair-Kondo coupling) can drive time-reversal symmetry breaking superconductivity that onsets in a single, weakly first order transition over an extended region of the phase diagram. We discuss the experimental signatures of such transition in thermodynamic and resonant ultrasound measurements. A microscopic origin of pair-Kondo coupling is identified as screening of magnetic moments by chiral Cooper pairs, built out of two non-degenerate order parameters - an extension of Kondo screening to unconventional pairs.
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
"Waterfalls" phenomenon in superconducting cuprates
D. S. Inosov, A. A. Kordyuk, S. V. Borisenko
et al.
We show that the "waterfalls", as reported in recent ARPES studies on HTSC, can neither be described as a part of a self-consistent quasiparticle spectrum nor represent a new physical phenomena, namely the "new energy scale". They stem from the critical suppression of the photoemission intensity along the Brillouin zone (BZ) diagonals. Our arguments, however, do not question the existence of the high-energy scale itself (~ 0.25 eV), which is a simple consequence of the renormalization maximum and has been explained earlier in terms of coupling to a continuum of bosonic excitations. Moreover, when the matrix-elements are taken into account, it becomes clear that the photoemission spectrum consists of two components: one represents the spectrum of one-particle excitations and the other, having a grid-like structure along the bonding directions in the BZ, is of yet unknown origin.
en
cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.supr-con
Point-contact Andreev reflection spectroscopy of heavy-fermion-metal/superconductor junctions
W. K. Park, H. Stalzer, J. L. Sarrao
et al.
Our previous point-contact Andreev reflection studies of the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn$_5$ using Au tips have shown two clear features: reduced Andreev signal and asymmetric background conductance [1]. To explore their physical origins, we have extended our measurements to point-contact junctions between single crystalline heavy-fermion metals and superconducting Nb tips. Differential conductance spectra are taken on junctions with three heavy-fermion metals, CeCoIn$_5$, CeRhIn$_5$, and YbAl$_3$, each with different electron mass. In contrast with Au/CeCoIn$_5$ junctions, Andreev signal is not reduced and no dependence on effective mass is observed. A possible explanation based on a two-fluid picture for heavy fermions is proposed. [1] W. K. Park et al., Phys. Rev. B 72 052509 (2005); W. K. Park et al., Proc. SPIE-Int. Soc. Opt. Eng. 5932 59321Q (2005); W. K. Park et al., Physica C (in press) (cond-mat/0606535).
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
How Magnetic Field Enters Heat Current: Application to Fluctuation Nernst Effect
A. Sergeev, M. Yu. Reizer, V. Mitin
A problem of the definition of the heat transported in thermomagnetic phenomena has been well realized in the late sixties, but not solved up to date. Ignoring this problem, numerous recent theories grossly overestimate the thermomagnetic coefficients in strongly interacting systems. Here we develop a gauge-invariant microscopic approach, which shows that the heat transfer should include the energy of the interaction between electrons and a magnetic field. We also demonstrate that the surface currents induced by the magnetic field transfer the charge in the Nernst effect, but do not transfer the heat in the Ettingshausen effect. Only with these two modifications of the theory, the physically measurable thermomagnetic coefficients satisfy the Onsager relation. We critically revised the Gaussian fluctuation model above the superconducting transition and show that the gauge invariance uniquely relates thermomagnetic phenomena in the Fermi liquid with the particle-hole asymmetry.
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
Why Vortex Lattice Melting Theory is Science Fiction
A. V. Nikulov
Five years ago the talk "The vortex lattice melting theory as example of science fiction" cond-mat/9811051 was presented. Nevertheless this theory predominates up to now and very many people devote oneself to it. It is explained in the present paper why the only first order phase transition observed on the way from the Abrikosov state in the normal state should be interpreted as phase coherence disappearance. The false concept of vortex lattice melting appeared because of some causes main of them are erroneous interpretation of direct observation of the Abrikosov state and the use by theorists the habitual determination of phase coherence invalid for multi-connected superconducting state. The distinguished work by A.A. Abrikosov awarded of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2003 predicted a periodic lattice structure with crystalline long-rang order only because that it is impossible to obtain any other result for the case of homogeneous, symmetric, infinite space. It is strange that most scientists have lightly admitted that this prediction corresponds to the facts. The long-rang order of superconducting state is phase coherence. Therefore if the Abrikosov state is also the vortex lattice then it have two long-rang orders and two phase transition may be expected. But only phase transition is assumed and observed always. History of this contradiction is considered in the present paper and it is analysed why some delusions about the Abrikosov state became popular. It is emphasized that taking into account thermal fluctuations changes in essence the habitual notion about the mixed state of type II superconductor built because of the Abrikosov result. First of all it shows that the Abrikosov solution is not valid just in the ideal case for which it was obtained.
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.stat-mech
Quantum Impurity in a Nearly Critical Two Dimensional Antiferromagnet
Subir Sachdev, Chiranjeeb Buragohain, Matthias Vojta
We describe the spin dynamics of an arbitrary localized impurity in an insulating two dimensional antiferromagnet, across the host transition from a paramagnet with a spin gap to a Neel state. The impurity spin susceptibility has a Curie-like divergence at the quantum-critical coupling, but with a universal, effective spin which is neither an integer nor a half-odd-integer. In the Neel state, the transverse impurity susceptibility is a universal number divided by the host spin stiffness (which determines the energy cost to slow twists in the orientation of the Neel order). These, and numerous other results for the thermodynamics, Knight shift, and magnon damping have significant applications to experiments on layered transition metal oxides.
en
cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.supr-con
Comment on ""Proximity effect in ultrafin Pb/Ag multilayers within the Cooper limit"
M. V. Feigel'man
I present here critical comment to the recent e-print "Proximity effect in ultrafin Pb/Ag multilayers within the Cooper limit" by by O.Bourgeois, A.Frydman and R.C.Dynes, demonstrating that the interpretaion of the data presented in cond-mat/0302251 does not seem to be reliable, and, simulteneously, large amount of previous work was ignored.
Renormalization group fixed points, universal phase diagram, and 1/N expansion for quantum liquids with interactions near the unitarity limit
Predrag Nikolic, Subir Sachdev
It has long been known that particles with short-range repulsive interactions in spatial dimension d=1 form universal quantum liquids in the low density limit: all properties can be related to those of the spinless free Fermi gas. Previous renormalization group (RG) analyses demonstrated that this universality is described by an RG fixed point, infrared stable for d<2, of the zero density gas. We show that for d>2 the same fixed point describes the universal properties of particles with short-range attractive interactions near a Feshbach resonance; the fixed point is now infrared unstable, and the relevant perturbation is the detuning of the resonance. Some exponents are determined exactly, and the same expansion in powers of (d-2) applies for scaling functions for d<2 and d>2. A separate exact RG analysis of a field theory of the particles coupled to `molecules' finds an alternative description of the same fixed point, with identical exponents; this approach yields a (4-d) expansion which agrees with the recent results of Nishida and Son (cond-mat/0604500). The existence of the RG fixed point implies a universal phase diagram as a function of density, temperature, population imbalance, and detuning; in particular, this applies to the BEC-BCS crossover of fermions with s-wave pairing. Our results open the way towards computation of these universal properties using the standard field-theoretic techniques of critical phenomena, along with a systematic analysis of corrections to universality. We also propose a 1/N expansion (based upon models with Sp(2N) symmetry) of the fixed point and its vicinity, and use it to obtain results for the phase diagram.
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
Simple Mean-Field Theory for a Zero-Temperature Fermi Gas at a Feshbach Resonance
Juha Javanainen, Marijan Kostrun, Matt Mackie
et al.
We present a simple two-channel mean field theory for a zero-temperature two-component Fermi gas in the neighborhood of a Feshbach resonance. Our results agree with recent experiments on the bare-molecule fraction as a function of magnetic field [Partridge et al., cond-mat/0505353]. Even in this strongly-coupled gas of Li-6, the experimental results depend on the structure of the molecules formed in the Feshbach resonance and, therefore, are not universal.
Comment on cond-mat/0107336 ``Critical State Theory for Nonparallel Flux Line Lattices in Type-II Superconductors''
L. M. Fisher, V. A. Yampol'skii
Comment on the paper "Critical State Theory for Nonparallel Flux Line Lattices in Type-II Superconductors" by A. Badia and C. Lopez is presented here.
Berry phases and pairing symmetry in Holstein-Hubbard polaron systems
K. Yonemitsu, J. Zhong, H. -B. Schuttler
We study the tunneling dynamics of dopant-induced hole polarons which are self-localized by electron-phonon coupling in a two-dimensional antiferro- magnet. Our treatment is based on a path integral formulation of the adia- batic approximation, combined with many-body tight-binding, instanton, con- strained lattice dynamics, and many-body exact diagonalization techniques. Our results are mainly based on the Holstein-$tJ$ and, for comparison, on the Holstein-Hubbard model. We also study effects of 2nd neighbor hopping and long-range electron-electron Coulomb repulsion. The polaron tunneling dynamics is mapped onto an effective low-energy Hamiltonian which takes the form of a fermion tight-binding model with occupancy dependent, predominant- ly 2nd and 3rd neighbor tunneling matrix elements, excluded double occupan- cy, and an effective intersite charge interactions. Antiferromagnetic spin correlations in the original many-electron Hamiltonian are reflected by an attractive contribution to the 1st neighbor charge interaction and by Berry phase factors which determine the signs of effective polaron tunneling ma- trix elements. In the two-polaron case, these phase factors lead to polaron pair wave functions of either $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave symmetry or p-wave symme- try with zero and nonzero total pair momentum, respectively. Implications for the doping dependent isotope effect, pseudo-gap and Tc of a superconduc- ting polaron pair condensate are discussed/compared to observed in cuprates.
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
Quantum Ginzburg-Landau theory of doped Mott insulators
Qiang-Hua Wang
We improve a previous theory of doped Mott insulators with duality between pairing and magnetism by a further duality transform. As the result we obtained a quantum Ginzburg-Landau theory describing the Cooper pair condensate and the dual of spin condensate. We address the superconductivity by doping a Mott insulator, which we call Mott superconductivity. Some fingerprints of such novelty in cuprates are the scaling between neutron resonance energy and superfluid density, and the induced {\it quantized} spin moment by vortices or Zn impurity (together with circulating charge supper-current to be checked by experiments).
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
Large N expansion for frustrated and doped quantum antiferromagnets
Subir Sachdev, N. Read
A large N expansion technique, based on symplectic (Sp(N)) symmetry, for frustrated magnetic systems is studied. The phase diagram of a square lattice, spin S, quantum antiferromagnet with first, second and third neighbor antiferromagnetic coupling (the J_1-J_2-J_3 model) is determined in the large-N limit and consequences of fluctuations at finite N for the quantum disordered phases are discussed. In addition to phases with long range magnetic order, two classes of disordered phases are found: (i) states similar to those in unfrustrated systems with commensurate, collinear spin correlations, confinement of spinons, and spin-Peierls or valence-bond-solid order controlled by the value of 2S(mod 4) or 2S(mod 2); (ii) states with incommensurate, coplanar spin correlations, and unconfined bosonic spin-1/2 spinon excitations. The occurrence of ``order from disorder'' at large S is discussed. Neither chirally ordered nor spin nematic states are found. Initial results on superconductivity in the t-J model at N=infinity and zero temperature are also presented.
en
cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.supr-con
Comment on ''Superconducting decay length in a ferromagnetic metal''
A. F. Volkov, F. S. Bergeret, K. B. Efetov
In the paper " Superconducting decay length in a ferromagnetic metal" by Gusakova, Kupriyanov and Golubov [Pis'ma v ZhETF 83, 487 (2006); cond-mat/0605137], the authors claim that they solved the linearized Eilenberger equation in the ferromagnetic region of an S/F heterostructure at arbitrary mean free path. In this comment we show that the solution suggested by the authors is not correct and explain details of the exact solution found by us in an earlier work several years ago (Phys. Rev. B 64, 134506, (2001).
Key Ingredients for Superconductivity in Cuprates
Z. -X. Shen, A. Lanzara, N. Nagaosa
Using high resolution angle-resolved photoemission data in conjunction with that from neutron and other probes, we show that electron-phonon (el-ph) coupling is strong in cuprates superconductors and it plays an important role in pairing. In addition to the strong electron correlation, the inclusion of phonons provides a theoretical framework explaining many important phenomena that cannot be understood by a strongly correlated electronic model alone. Especially it is indispensable to explain the difference among materials. The phonons with the wave number around the (0,qx) and (qx,0) axes create the d-wave pairing while that near (pi,pi) are pair breaking. Therefore the half-breathing mode of the oxygen motions helps d-wave superconductivity.
en
cond-mat.supr-con, cond-mat.str-el
Comment on "A Bragg glass phase in the vortex lattice of a type II superconductor"
S. Bogner, T. Emig, T. Nattermann
et al.
In a recent letter Klein et al. [Nature 413, 404 (2001); cond-mat/0110018] provide experimental evidence for the existence of the Bragg glass phase in impure type II superconductors. Here we show that a more complete consideration of recent theoretical findings allows an even better interpretation of the experimental data.
Reply to Valla's Comment on "Multiple Bosonic Mode Coupling in Electron Self-Energy of (La_{2-x}Sr_x)CuO_4"
X. J. Zhou, Junren Shi, W. L. Yang
et al.
From consistency among different measurements, new measurements with better energy resolution, as well as simulations, we show that the fine structure we have identified in the electron self-enery of LSCO is intrinsic, not due to random noise as Valla speculated.
en
cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.supr-con
Destruction of the phase coherence by the magnetic field in the fluctuation region of thin superconducting film
A. V. Nikulov, S. V. Dubonos, Y. I. Koval
It was shown as long ago as 1998 cond-mat/9811051 that the vortex lattice melting theories are science fiction because the Abrikosov state is not the vortex lattice with crystalline long-range order. Nevertheless this false conception is used up to now in many works including the lecture notes cond-mat/0111052 providing a pedagogical introduction. This false conception has resulted from visual but incorrect ideas. In spite of outward appearances only long-range order - long-range phase coherence exists in the Abrikosov state. The phase transition interpreted erroneously as the vortex lattice melting is in reality a disappearance of long-range phase coherence. The investigation of the nonlocal resistivity made in this work is experimental evidence that a state without phase coherence, differed qualitatively from mythical vortex liquid, is observed above this transition.
Comment on "Critical Dynamics of a Vortex-Loop Model for the Superconducting Transition"
Jack Lidmar
Recently, Aji and Goldenfeldt [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 197003 (2001), cond-mat/0105622] put forward an explanation for the value of the dynamic critical exponent z observed in certain Monte Carlo simulations of the superconducting phase transition in zero magnetic field. In this Comment, we point out that their analysis is based on incorrect assumptions regarding the scaling dimension of the vortex density.
Impurity susceptibility and the fate of spin-flop transitions in lightly-doped La(2)CuO(4)
M. B. Silva Neto, L. Benfatto
We investigate the occurrence of a two-step spin-flop transition and spin reorientation when a longitudinal magnetic field is applied to lightly hole-doped La(2)CuO(4). We find that for large and strongly frustrating impurities, such as Sr in La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4), the huge enhancement of the longitudinal susceptibility suppresses the intermediate flop and the reorientation of spins is smooth and continuous. Contrary, for small and weakly frustrating impurities, such as O in La(2)CuO(4+y), a discontinuous spin reorientation (two-step spin-flop transition) takes place. Furthermore, we show that for La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4) the field dependence of the magnon gaps differs qualitatively from the La(2)CuO(4) case, a prediction to be verified with Raman spectroscopy or neutron scattering.
en
cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.supr-con