No Arabic abstract
In many quantum materials, strong electron correlations lead to the emergence of new states of matter. In particular, the study in the last decades of the complex phase diagram of high temperature superconducting cuprates highlighted intra-unit-cell electronic instabilities breaking discrete Ising-like symmetries, while preserving the lattice translation invariance. Polarized neutron diffraction experiments have provided compelling evidences supporting a new form of intra-unit-cell magnetism, emerging concomitantly with the so-called pseudogap state of these materials. This observation is currently interpreted as the magnetic hallmark of an intra-unit-cell loop current order, breaking both parity and time-reversal symmetries. More generally, this magneto-electric state is likely to exist in a wider class of quantum materials beyond superconducting cuprates. For instance, it has been already observed in hole-doped Mott insulating iridates or in the spin liquid state of hole-doped 2-leg ladder cuprates.
New phases with broken discrete Ising symmetries are uncovered in quantum materials with strong electronic correlations. The two-leg ladder cuprate textbf{$Sr_{14-x}Ca_{x}Cu_{24}O_{41}$} hosts a very rich phase diagram where, upon hole doping, the system exhibits a spin liquid state ending to an intriguing ordered magnetic state at larger $Ca$ content. Using polarized neutron diffraction, we report here the existence of short range magnetism in this material for two $Ca$ contents, whose origin cannot be ascribed to Cu spins. This magnetism develops exclusively within the two-leg ladders with a diffraction pattern at forbidden Bragg scattering which is the hallmark of loop current-like magnetism breaking both time-reversal and parity symmetries. Our discovery shows local discrete symmetry breaking in a one dimensional spin liquid system as theoretically predicted. It further suggests that a loop current-like phase could trigger the long range magnetic order reported at larger doping in two-leg ladder cuprates.
We study chiral phase transition and confinement of matter fields in (2+1)-dimensional U(1) gauge theory of massless Dirac fermions and scalar bosons. The vanishing scalar boson mass, $r=0$, defines a quantum critical point between the Higgs phase and the Coulomb phase. We consider only the critical point $r=0$ and the Coulomb phase with $r > 0$. The Dirac fermion acquires a dynamical mass when its flavor is less than certain critical value $N_{f}^{c}$, which depends quantitatively on the flavor $N_{b}$ and the scalar boson mass $r$. When $N_{f} < N_{f}^{c}$, the matter fields carrying internal gauge charge are all confined if $r eq 0$ but are deconfined at the quantum critical point $r = 0$. The system has distinct low-energy elementary excitations at the critical point $r=0$ and in the Coulomb phase with $r eq 0$. We calculate the specific heat and susceptibility of the system at $r=0$ and $r eq 0$, which can help to detect the quantum critical point and to judge whether dynamical fermion mass generation takes place.
We discuss the necessary symmetry conditions and the different ways in which they can be physically realized for the occurrence of ferromagnetism accompanying the loop current orbital magnetic order observed by polarized neutron-diffraction experiments or indeed any other conceivable principal order in the under-doped phase of cuprates. We contrast the Kerr effect experiments in single crystals observing ferromagnetism with the direct magnetization measurements in large powder samples, which do not observe it. We also suggest experiments to resolve the differences among the experiments, all of which we believe to be correct.
Quantum simulators could provide an alternative to numerical simulations for understanding minimal models of condensed matter systems in a controlled way. Typically, cold atom systems are used to simulate e.g. Hubbard models. In this paper, we discuss a range of exotic interactions that can be formed when cold Rydberg atoms are loaded into optical lattices with unconventional geometries; such as long-range electron-phonon interactions and extended Coulomb like interactions. We show how these can lead to proposals for quantum simulators for complex condensed matter systems such as superconductors. Continuous time quantum Monte Carlo is used to compare the proposed schemes with the physics found in traditional condensed matter Hamiltonians for systems such as high temperature superconductors.
The thermal Hall conductivity $kappa_{xy}$ and Hall conductivity $sigma_{xy}$ in CeCoIn$_5$ are used to determine the Lorenz number ${cal L}_H$ at low temperature $T$. This enables the separation of the observed thermal conductivity into its electronic and non-electronic parts. We uncover evidence for a charge-neutral, field-dependent thermal conductivity, which we identify with spin excitations. At low $T$, these excitations dominate the scattering of charge carriers. We show that suppression of the spin excitations in high fields leads to a steep enhancement of the electron mean-free-path, which leads to an interesting scaling relation between the magnetoresistance, thermal conductivity and $sigma_{xy}$.