No Arabic abstract
One of the most exciting discoveries in strongly correlated systems has been the existence of a superconducting dome on heavy fermions close to the quantum critical point where antiferromagnetic order disappears. It is hard even for the most skeptical not to admit that the excitations which bind the electrons in the Cooper pairs have a magnetic origin. As a system moves away from an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point, (AFQCP) the correlation length of the fluctuations decreases and the system goes into a local quantum critical regime. The attractive interaction mediated by the non-local part of these excitations vanishes and this allows to obtain an upper bound to the superconducting dome around an AFQCP.
An enduring question in correlated systems concerns whether superconductivity is favoured at a quantum critical point (QCP) characterised by a divergent quasiparticle effective mass. Despite such a scenario being widely postulated in high Tc cuprates and invoked to explain non-Fermi liquid transport signatures, experimental evidence is lacking for a critical divergence under the superconducting dome. We use ultra-strong magnetic fields to measure quantum oscillations in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x, revealing a dramatic doping-dependent upturn in quasiparticle effective mass at a critical metal-insulator transition beneath the superconducting dome. Given the location of this QCP under a plateau in Tc in addition to a postulated QCP at optimal doping, we discuss the intriguing possibility of two intersecting superconducting subdomes, each centred at a critical Fermi surface instability.
We address the quantum-critical behavior of a two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnetic systems described by a spin-fermion model in which fermions interact with close to critical bosonic modes. We consider Heisenberg ferromagnets, Ising ferromagnets, and the Ising nematic transition. Mean-field theory close to the quantum critical point predicts a superconducting gap with spin-triplet symmetry for the ferromagnetic systems and a singlet gap for the nematic scenario. Studying fluctuations in this ordered phase using a nonlinear sigma model, we find that these fluctuations are not suppressed by any small parameter. As a result, we find that a superconducting quasi-long-range order is still possible in the Ising-like models but long-range order is destroyed in Heisenberg ferromagnets.
The elastic neutron scattering experiments were carried out on the solid solutions CeRh_{1-x}Co_xIn_5 to clarify the nature of the antiferromagnetic (AF) state in the vicinity of the quantum critical point (QCP): x_c ~0.8. The incommensurate AF order with the wave vector of q_h=(1/2,1/2,~0.3) observed in pure CeRhIn_5 is weakly suppressed upon doping with Co, and a commensurate q_c=(1/2,1/2,1/2) and an incommensurate q_1=(1/2,1/2,~0.42) AF structures evolve at intermediate Co concentrations. These AF orders are enhanced at x=0.7, and furthermore the q_h AF order vanishes. These results suggest that the AF correlations with the q_c and q_1 modulations are significantly enhanced in the intermediate x range, and may be connected with the evolution of the superconductivity observed above x~0.3.
We study high frequency response functions, notably the optical conductivity, in the vicinity of quantum critical points (QCPs) by allowing for both detuning from the critical coupling and finite temperature. We consider general dimensions and dynamical exponents. This leads to a unified understanding of sum rules. In systems with emergent Lorentz invariance, powerful methods from conformal field theory allow us to fix the high frequency response in terms of universal coefficients. We test our predictions analytically in the large-N O(N) model and using the gauge-gravity duality, and numerically via Quantum Monte Carlo simulations on a lattice model hosting the interacting superfluid-insulator QCP. In superfluid phases, interacting Goldstone bosons qualitatively change the high frequency optical conductivity, and the corresponding sum rule.
We report the magnetoresistance in the novel spin-triplet superconductor UTe2 under pressure close to the critical pressure Pc, where the superconducting phase terminates, for field along the three a, b and c-axes in the orthorhombic structure. The superconducting phase for H // a-axis just below Pc shows a field-reentrant behavior due to the competition with the emergence of magnetic order at low fields. The upper critical field Hc2 for H // c-axis shows a quasi-vertical increase in the H-T phase diagram just below Pc, indicating that superconductivity is reinforced by the strong fluctuations which persist even at high fields above 20T. Increasing pressure leads to the disappearance of superconductivity at zero field with the emergence of magnetic order. Surprisingly, field-induced superconductivity is observed at high fields, where a spin-polarized state is realized due to the suppression of the magnetic ordered phases; the spin-polarized state is favorable for superconductivity, whereas the magnetic ordered phase at low field seems to be unfavorable. The huge Hc2 in the spin-polarized state seems to imply a spin-triplet state. Contrary to the a- and c-axes, no field-reinforcement of superconductivity occurs for magnetic field along the b-axis. We compare the results with the field-reentrant superconductivity above the metamagnetic field, Hm for the field direction tilted by about 30 deg. from b to c-axis at ambient pressure as well as the field-reentrant (-reinforced) superconductivity in ferromagnetic superconductors, URhGe and UCoGe.