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Register a new userCorrelated insulators, semimetals, and superconductivity in twisted trilayer graphene
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Motivated by recent experiments indicating strong superconductivity and intricate correlated insulating and flavor-polarized physics in mirror-symmetric twisted trilayer graphene, we study the effects of interactions in this system close to the magic angle, using a combination of analytical and numerical methods. We identify asymptotically exact correlated many-body ground states at all integer filling fractions $ u$ of the flat bands. To determine their fate when moving away from these fine-tuned points, we apply self-consistent Hartree-Fock numerics and analytic perturbation theory, with good agreement between the two approaches. This allows us to construct a phase diagram for the system as a function of $ u$ and the displacement field, the crucial experimental tuning parameter of the system, and study the spectra of the different phases. The phase diagram is dominated by a correlated semimetallic intervalley coherent state and an insulating sublattice-polarized phase around charge neutrality, $ u=0$, with additional spin-polarization being present at quarter ($ u=-2$) or three quarter ($ u=+2$) fillings of the quasi-flat bands. We further study the superconducting instabilities emerging from these correlated states, both in the absence and in the additional presence of electron-phonon coupling, also taking into account possible Wess-Zumino-Witten terms. In the experimentally relevant regime, we find triplet pairing to dominate, possibly explaining the observed violation of the Pauli limit. Our results have several consequences for experiments as well as future theoretical work and illustrate the rich physics resulting from the interplay of almost flat bands and dispersive Dirac cones in twisted trilayer graphene.
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Recent experiments on twisted bilayer graphene have shown a high-temperature parent state with massless Dirac fermions and broken electronic flavor symmetry; superconductivity and correlated insulators emerge from this parent state at lower temperatures. We propose that the superconducting and correlated insulating orders are connected by Wess-Zumino-Witten terms, so that defects of one order contain quanta of another order and skyrmion fluctuations of the correlated insulator are a mechanism for superconductivity. We present a comprehensive listing of plausible low-temperature orders, and the parent flavor symmetry breaking orders. The previously characterized topological nature of the band structure of twisted bilayer graphene plays an important role in this analysis.
We introduce and analyze a model that sheds light on the interplay between correlated insulating states, superconductivity, and flavor-symmetry breaking in magic angle twisted bilayer graphene. Using a variational mean-field theory, we determine the normal-state phase diagram of our model as a function of the band filling. The model features robust insulators at even integer fillings, occasional weaker insulators at odd integer fillings, and a pattern of flavor-symmetry breaking at non-integer fillings. Adding a phonon-mediated inter-valley retarded attractive interaction, we obtain strong-coupling superconducting domes, whose structure is in qualitative agreement with experiments. Our model elucidates how the intricate form of the interactions and the particle-hole asymmetry of the electronic structure determine the phase diagram. It also explains how subtle differences between devices may lead to the different behaviors observed experimentally. A similar model can be applied with minor modifications to other moir{e} systems, such as twisted trilayer graphene.
Experiments on graphene bilayers, where the top layer is rotated with respect to the one below, have displayed insulating behavior when the moire bands are partially filled. We calculate the charge distributions in these phases, and estimate the excitation gaps.
Twisted graphene multilayers have demonstrated to yield a versatile playground to engineer controllable electronic states. Here, by combining first-principles calculations and low-energy models, we demonstrate that twisted graphene trilayers provide a tunable system where van Hove singularities can be controlled electrically. In particular, it is shown that besides the band flattening, bulk valley currents appear, which can be quenched by local chemical dopants. We finally show that in the presence of electronic interactions, a non-uniform superfluid density emerges, whose non-uniformity gives rise to spectroscopic signatures in dispersive higher energy bands. Our results put forward twisted trilayers as a tunable van der Waals heterostructure displaying electrically controllable flat bands and bulk valley currents.
When bilayer graphene is rotationally faulted to an angle $thetaapprox 1.1^circ$, theory predicts the formation of a flat electronic band and correlated insulating, superconducting, and ferromagnetic states have all been observed at partial band filling. The proximity of superconductivity to correlated insulators has suggested a close relationship between these states, reminiscent of the cuprates where superconductivity arises by doping a Mott insulator. Here, we show that superconductivity can appear without correlated insulating states. While both superconductivity and correlated insulating behavior are strongest near the flat band condition, superconductivity survives to larger detuning of the angle. Our observations are consistent with a competing phases picture, in which insulators and superconductivity arise from disparate mechanisms.
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