No Arabic abstract
Quantum Hall states - the progenitors of the growing family of topological insulators -- are rich source of exotic quantum phases. The nature of these states is reflected in the gapless edge modes, which in turn can be classified as integer - carrying electrons, fractional - carrying fractional charges; and neutral - carrying excitations with zero net charge but a well-defined amount of heat. The latter two may obey anyonic statistics, which can be abelian or non-abelian. The most-studied putative non-abelian state is the spin-polarized filling factor { u}=5/2, whose charge e/4 quasiparticles are accompanied by neutral modes. This filling, however, permits different possible topological orders, which can be abelian or non-abelian. While numerical calculations favor the non-abelian anti-Pfaffian (A-Pf) order to have the lowest energy, recent thermal conductance measurements suggested the experimentally realized order to be the particle-hole Pfaffian (PH-Pf) order. It has been suggested that lack of thermal equilibration among the different edge modes of the A-Pf order can account for this discrepancy. The identification of the topological order is crucial for the interpretation of braiding (interference) operations, better understanding of the thermal equilibration process, and the reliability of the numerical studies. We developed a new method that helps identifying the topological order of the { u}=5/2 state. By creating an interface between the two 2D half-planes, one hosting the { u}=5/2 state and the other an integer { u}=3 state, the interface supported a fractional { u}=1/2 charge mode with 1/2 quantum conductance and a neutral Majorana mode. The presence of the Majorana mode, probed by measuring noise, propagating in the opposite direction to the charge mode, asserted the presence of the PH-Pf order but not that of the A-Pf order.
Strongly interacting electrons in solid-state systems often display tendency towards multiple broken symmetries in the ground state. The complex interplay between different order parameters can give rise to a rich phase diagram. Here, we report on the identification of intertwined phases with broken rotational symmetry in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). Using transverse resistance measurements, we find a strongly anisotropic phase located in a wedge above the underdoped region of the superconducting dome. Upon crossing the superconducting dome, a reduction of the critical temperature is observed, similar to the behavior of certain cuprate superconductors. Furthermore, the superconducting state exhibits a anisotropic response to an directional-dependent in-plane magnetic field, revealing a nematic pairing state across the entire superconducting dome. These results indicate that nematic fluctuations might play an important role in the low-temperature phases of magic-angle TBG, and pave the way for using highly-tunable moir{e} superlattices to investigate intertwined phases in quantum materials.
We study quantum phase transitions between competing orders in one-dimensional spin systems. We focus on systems that can be mapped to a dual-field double sine-Gordon model as a bosonized effective field theory. This model contains two pinning potential terms of dual fields that stabilize competing orders and allows different types of quantum phase transition to happen between two ordered phases. At the transition point, elementary excitations change from the topological soliton of one of the dual fields to that of the other, thus it can be characterized as a topological transition. We compute the dynamical susceptibilities and the entanglement entropy, which gives us access to the central charge, of the system using a numerical technique of infinite time-evolving block decimation and characterize the universality class of the transition as well as the nature of the order in each phase. The possible realizations of such transitions in experimental systems both for condensed matter and cold atomic gases are also discussed.
Topological orders are exotic phases of matter existing in strongly correlated quantum systems, which are beyond the usual symmetry description and cannot be distinguished by local order parameters. Here we report an experimental quantum simulation of the Wen-plaquette spin model with different topological orders in a nuclear magnetic resonance system, and observe the adiabatic transition between two $Z_2$ topological orders through a spin-polarized phase by measuring the nonlocal closed-string (Wilson loop) operator. Moreover, we also measure the entanglement properties of the topological orders. This work confirms the adiabatic method for preparing topologically ordered states and provides an experimental tool for further studies of complex quantum systems.
To explore the doping dependence of the recently discovered charge density wave (CDW) order in YBa2Cu3Oy, we present a bulk-sensitive high-energy x-ray study for several oxygen concentrations, including strongly underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.44. Combined with previous data around the so-called 1/8 doping, we show that bulk CDW order exists at least for hole concentrations (p) in the CuO2 planes of 0.078 <~ p <~ 0.132. This implies that CDW order exists in close vicinity to the quantum critical point for spin density wave (SDW) order. In contrast to the pseudogap temperature T*, the onset temperature of CDW order decreases with underdoping to T_CDW ~ 90K in YBa2Cu3O6.44. Together with a weakened order parameter this suggests a competition between CDW and SDW orders. In addition, the CDW order in YBa2Cu3O6.44 shows the same type of competition with superconductivity as a function of temperature and magnetic field as samples closer to p = 1/8. At low p the CDW incommensurability continues the previously reported linear increasing trend with underdoping. In the entire doping range the in-plane correlation length of the CDW order in b-axis direction depends only very weakly on the hole concentration, and appears independent of the type and correlation length of the oxygen-chain order. The onset temperature of the CDW order is remarkably close to a temperature T^dagger that marks the maximum of 1/(T_1T) in planar 63^Cu NQR/NMR experiments, potentially indicating a response of the spin dynamics to the formation of the CDW. Our discussion of these findings includes a detailed comparison to the charge stripe order in La2-xBaxCuO4.
We have investigated spin reorientation phenomena and interaction driven effects under the presence of applied strains on the (001) surface of Pb$_{1-x}$Sn$_x$(Te, Se) topological crystalline insulators, which host multiple Dirac cones. Our analysis is based on a four-band $kcdot p$ model, which captures the spin and orbital textures of the surface states at low energies around the $bar{X}$ and $bar{Y}$ points, including the Lifshitz transition. Even without breaking the time-reversal symmetry, we find that certain strains which break the mirror symmetry can induce hedgehog-like spin texture associated with gap formation at the Dirac points. The Chern number of the gapped surface ground state is shown to be tunable through the interplay of strains and a perpendicular Zeeman field. We also consider effects of strain in the presence of interactions in driving competing orders, and obtain the associated phase diagram at the mean-field level. Potential applications of our results for low power consuming electronics are discussed.