No Arabic abstract
Recent low temperature heat capacity (C$_P$) measurements on polycrystalline samples of the pyrochlore antiferromagnet Tb$_{2+x}$Ti$_{2-x}$O$_{7+delta}$ have shown a strong sensitivity to the precise Tb concentration $x$, with a large anomaly exhibited for $x sim 0.005$ at $T_C sim 0.5$ K and no such anomaly and corresponding phase transition for $x le 0$. We have grown single crystal samples of Tb$_{2+x}$Ti$_{2-x}$O$_{7+delta}$, with approximate composition $x=-0.001, +0.0042$, and $+0.0147$, where the $x=0.0042$ single crystal exhibits a large C$_P$ anomaly at $T_C$=0.45 K, but neither the $x=-0.001$ nor the $x=+0.0147$ single crystals display any such anomaly. We present new time-of-flight neutron scattering measurements on the $x=-0.001$ and the $x=+0.0147$ samples which show strong $left(frac{1}{2},frac{1}{2},frac{1}{2}right)$ quasi-Bragg peaks at low temperatures characteristic of short range antiferromagnetic spin ice (AFSI) order at zero magnetic field but only under field-cooled conditions, as was previously observed in our $x = 0.0042$ single crystal. These results show that the strong $left(frac{1}{2},frac{1}{2},frac{1}{2}right)$ quasi-Bragg peaks and gapped AFSI state at low temperatures under field cooled conditions are robust features of Tb$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$, and are not correlated with the presence or absence of the C$_P$ anomaly and phase transition at low temperatures. Further, these results show that the ordered state giving rise to the C$_P$ anomaly is confined to $0 leq x leq 0.01$ for Tb$_{2+x}$Ti$_{2-x}$O$_{7+delta}$, and is not obviously connected with conventional order of magnetic dipole degrees of freedom.
We present the quantitative phase diagram of the bilayer bosonic fractional quantum Hall system on the torus geometry at total filling factor $ u=1$ in the lowest Landau level. We consider short-range interactions within and between the two layers, as well as the inter-layer tunneling. In the fully polarized regime, we provide an updated detailed numerical analysis to establish the presence of the Moore-Read phase of both even and odd numbers of particles. In the actual bilayer situation, we find that both inter-layer interactions and tunneling can provide the physical mechanism necessary for the low-energy physics to be driven by the fully polarized regime, thus leading to the emergence of the Moore-Read phase. Inter-layer interactions favor a ferromagnetic phase when the system is $SU(2)$ symmetric, while the inter-layer tunneling acts as a Zeeman field polarizing the system. Besides the Moore-Read phase, the $(220)$ Halperin state and the coupled Moore-Read state are also realized in this model. We study their stability against each other.
The past few years have witnessed increased attention to the quest for Majorana-like excitations in the condensed matter community. As a promising candidate in this race, the one-dimensional chiral Majorana edge mode (CMEM) in topological insulator-superconductor heterostructures has gathered renewed interests during recent months after an experimental breakthrough. In this paper, we study the quantum transport of topological insulator-superconductor hybrid devices subject to light-matter interaction or general time-periodic modulation. We report half-integer quantized conductance plateaus at $frac{1}{2}frac{e^2}{h}$ and $frac{3}{2}frac{e^2}{h}$ upon applying the so-called sum rule in the theory of quantum transport in Floquet topological matter. In particular, in a photoinduced topological superconductor sandwiched between two Floquet Chern insulators, it is found that for each Floquet sideband, the CMEM admits equal probability for normal transmission and local Andreev reflection over a wide range of parameter regimes, yielding half-integer quantized plateaus that resist static and time-periodic disorder. The $frac{3}{2}frac{e^2}{h}$ plateau has not yet been computationally or experimentally observed in any other superconducting system, and indicates the possibility to simultaneously create and manipulate multiple pairs of CMEMs by light. The robust half-quantized conductance plateaus, due to CMEMs at quasienergies zero or half the driving frequency, are both fascinating and subtle because they only emerge after a summation over contributions from all Floquet sidebands. Such a distinctive transport signature can thus serve as a hallmark of photoinduced CMEMs in topological insulator-superconductor junctions.
The antiferromagnetic mixed valence ternary oxide $alpha$-CoV$_{3}$O$_{8}$ displays disorder on the Co$^{2+}$ site that is inherent to the $Ibam$ space group. The zero field structural and dynamic properties of $alpha$-CoV$_{3}$O$_{8}$~have been investigated using a combination of neutron and x-ray diffraction, DC susceptibility, and neutron spectroscopy. The low temperature magnetic and structural properties are consistent with a random macroscopic distribution of Co$^{2+}$ over the 16$k$ metal sites. However, by applying the sum rules of neutron scattering we observe the collective magnetic excitations are parameterized with an ordered Co$^{2+}$ arrangement and critical scattering consistent with a three dimensional Ising universality class. The low energy spectrum is well-described by Co$^{2+}$ cations coupled $via$ a three dimensional network composed of competing ferromagnetic and stronger antiferromagnetic superexchange within the $ab$ plane and along $c$, respectively. While the extrapolated Weiss temperature is near zero, the 3D dimensionality results in long range antiferromagnetic order at $Trm{_{N}}sim$ 19 K. A crystal field analysis finds two bands of excitations separated in energy at $hbar omega$ $sim$ 5 meV and 25 meV, consistent with a $jrm{_{eff}}=frac{1}{2}$ ground state with little mixing between spin-orbit split Kramers doublets. A comparison of our results to the random 3D Ising magnets and other compounds where spin-orbit coupling is present indicate that the presence of an orbital degree of freedom, in combination with strong crystal field effects and well-separated $jrm{_{eff}}$ manifolds may play a key role in making the dynamics largely insensitive to disorder.
I present first principles calculations of the phonon dispersions of TiSe$_2$ in the $Poverline{3}c1$ phase, which is the currently accepted low-temperature structure of this material. They show weak instabilities in the acoustic branches in the out-of-plane direction, suggesting that this phase may not be the true ground state. To find the lowest energy structure, I study the energetics of all possible distorted structures corresponding to the isotropy subgroups of $Poverline{3}m1$ for the $M_1^-$ and $L_1^-$ phonon instabilities present in this high-temperature phase at $q = (frac{1}{2},0,0)$ and $(frac{1}{2},0,frac{1}{2})$, respectively. I was able to stabilize 10 different structures that are lower in energy relative to the parent $Poverline{3}m1$ phase, including two monoclinic structures more energetically stable than the $Poverline{3}c1$ phase. The lowest energy structure has the space group $C2$ with the order parameter $M_1^- (a,0,0) + L_1^- (0,b,b)$. This structure lacks inversion symmetry, and its primitive unit cell has 12 atoms.
We study the zero-temperature phase diagram of the spin-$frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg model with breathing anisotropy (i.e., with different coupling strength on the upward and downward triangles) on the kagome lattice. Our study relies on large scale tensor network simulations based on infinite projected entangled-pair state and infinite projected entangled-simplex state methods adapted to the kagome lattice. Our energy analysis suggests that the U(1) algebraic quantum spin-liquid (QSL) ground-state of the isotropic Heisenberg model is stable up to very large breathing anisotropy until it breaks down to a critical lattice-nematic phase that breaks rotational symmetry in real space through a first-order quantum phase transition. Our results also provide further insight into the recent experiment on vanadium oxyfluoride compounds which has been shown to be relevant platforms for realizing QSL in the presence of breathing anisotropy.