Since the proposal of monopole Cooper pairing in Ref. [1], considerable research efforts have been dedicated to the study of Copper pair order parameters constrained (or obstructed) by the nontrivial normal-state band topology at Fermi surfaces. In t
he current work, we propose a new type of topologically obstructed Cooper pairing, which we call Euler obstructed Cooper pairing. The Euler obstructed Cooper pairing widely exists between two Fermi surfaces with nontrivial band topology characterized by nonzero Euler numbers; such Fermi surfaces can exist in the $PT$-protected spinless-Dirac/nodal-line semimetals with negligible spin-orbit coupling, where $PT$ is the space-time inversion symmetry. An Euler obstructed pairing channel must have pairing nodes on the pairing-relevant Fermi surfaces, and the total winding number of the pairing nodes is determined by the sum or difference of the Euler numbers on the Fermi surfaces. In particular, we find that when the normal state is nonmagnetic and the pairing is weak, a sufficiently-dominant Euler obstructed pairing channel with zero total momentum leads to nodal superconductivity. If the Fermi surface splitting is small, the resultant nodal superconductor hosts hinge Majorana zero modes, featuring the first class of higher-order nodal superconductivity originating from the topologically obstructed Cooper pairing. The possible dominance of the Euler obstructed pairing channel near the superconducting transition and the robustness of the hinge Majorana zero modes against disorder are explicitly demonstrated using effective or tight-binding models.
We present a general approach to obtain effective field theories for topological crystalline insulators whose low-energy theories are described by massive Dirac fermions. We show that these phases are characterized by the responses to spatially depen
dent mass parameters with interfaces. These mass interfaces implement the dimensional reduction procedure such that the state of interest is smoothly deformed into a topological crystal, which serves as a representative state of a phase in the general classification. Effective field theories are obtained by integrating out the massive Dirac fermions, and various quantized topological terms are uncovered. Our approach can be generalized to other crystalline symmetry protected topological phases and provides a general strategy to derive effective field theories for such crystalline topological phases.
Electrons in low-temperature solids are governed by the non-relativistic Schr$ddot{o}$dinger equation, since the electron velocities are much slower than the speed of light. Remarkably, the low-energy quasi-particles given by electrons in various mat
erials can behave as relativistic Dirac/Weyl fermions that obey the relativistic Dirac/Weyl equation. We refer to these materials as Dirac/Weyl materials, which provide a tunable platform to test relativistic quantum phenomena in table-top experiments. More interestingly, different types of physical fields in these Weyl/Dirac materials, such as magnetic fluctuations, lattice vibration, strain, and material inhomogeneity, can couple to the relativistic quasi-particles in a similar way as the $U(1)$ gauge coupling. As these fields do not have gauge-invariant dynamics in general, we refer to them as pseudo-gauge fields. In this chapter, we overview the concept and physical consequences of pseudo-gauge fields in Weyl/Dirac materials. In particular, we will demonstrate that pseudo-gauge fields can provide a unified understanding of a variety of physical phenomena, including chiral zero modes inside a magnetic vortex core of magnetic Weyl semimetals, a giant current response at magnetic resonance in magnetic topological insulators, and piezo-electromagnetic response in time-reversal invariant systems. These phenomena are deeply related to various concepts in high-energy physics, such as chiral anomaly and axion electrodynamics.
In two-dimensional insulators with time-reversal (TR) symmetry, a nonzero local Berry curvature of low-energy massive Dirac fermions can give rise to nontrivial spin and charge responses, even though the integral of the Berry curvature over all occup
ied states is zero. In this work, we present a new effect induced by the electronic Berry curvature. By studying electron-phonon interactions in BaMnSb$_2$, a prototype two-dimensional Dirac material possessing two TR-related massive Dirac cones, we find that the nonzero local Berry curvature of electrons can induce a phonon angular momentum. The direction of this phonon angular momentum is locked to the phonon propagation direction, and thus we refer it as phonon helicity, in a way that is reminiscent of electron helicity in spin-orbit-coupled electronic systems. We discuss possible experimental probes of such phonon helicity.
Although fragile topology has been intensely studied in static crystals, it is not clear how to generalize the concept to dynamical systems. In this work, we generalize the concept of fragile topology, and provide a definition of fragile topology for
noninteracting Floquet crystals, which we refer to as dynamical fragile topology. In contrast to the static fragile topology defined for Wannier obstruction, dynamical fragile topology is defined for the nontrivial quantum dynamics characterized by obstruction to static limits (OTSL). Specifically, OTSL of a Floquet crystal is fragile if and only if the OTSL disappears after adding a symmetry-preserving static Hamiltonian in a direct-sum way preserving the relevant gaps (RGs). We further present a concrete 2+1D example for dynamical fragile topology, based on a slight modification of the model in [Rudner et al, Phys. Rev. X 3, 031005 (2013)]. The fragile OTSL in the 2+1D example exhibits anomalous chiral edge modes for a natural open boundary condition, and does not require any crystalline symmetries besides lattice translations. Our work paves the way to study fragile topology for general quantum dynamics.
Various exotic topological phases of Floquet systems have been shown to arise from crystalline symmetries. Yet, a general theory for Floquet topology that is applicable to all crystalline symmetry groups is still in need. In this work, we propose suc
h a theory for (effectively) non-interacting Floquet crystals. We first introduce quotient winding data to classify the dynamics of the Floquet crystals with equivalent symmetry data, and then construct dynamical symmetry indicators (DSIs) to sufficiently indicate the inherently dynamical Floquet crystals. The DSI and quotient winding data, as well as the symmetry data, are all computationally efficient since they only involve a small number of Bloch momenta. We demonstrate the high efficiency by computing all elementary DSI sets for all spinless and spinful plane groups using the mathematical theory of monoid, and find a large number of different nontrivial classifications, which contain both first-order and higher-order 2+1D anomalous Floquet topological phases. Using the framework, we further find a new 3+1D anomalous Floquet second-order topological insulator (AFSOTI) phase with anomalous chiral hinge modes.
We theoretically consider Fermi surface anomalies manifesting in the temperature dependent quasiparticle properties of two-dimensional (2D) interacting electron systems, comparing and contrasting with the corresponding 3D Fermi liquid situation. In p
articular, employing microscopic many body perturbative techniques, we obtain analytically the leading-order and the next-to-leading-order interaction corrections to the renormalized effective mass for three distinct physical interaction models: electron-phonon, electron-paramagnon, and electron-electron Coulomb coupling. We find that the 2D renormalized effective mass does not develop any Fermi surface anomaly due to electron-phonon interaction, manifesting $mathcal{O}(T^2)$ temperature correction and thus remaining consistent with the Sommerfeld expansion of the non-interacting Fermi function, in contrast to the corresponding 3D situation where the temperature correction to the renormalized effective mass has the anomalous $T^2 log T$ behavior. By contrast, both electron-paramagnon and electron-electron interactions lead to the anomalous $mathcal{O}(T)$ corrections to the 2D effective mass renormalization in contrast to $T^2 log T$ behavior in the corresponding 3D interacting systems. We provide detailed analytical results, and comment on the conditions under which a $T^2 log T$ term could possibly arise in the 2D quasiparticle effective mass from electron-phonon interactions. We also compare results for the temperature dependent specific heat in the interacting 2D and 3D Fermi systems, using the close connection between the effective mass and specific heat.
Charge-density waves (CDWs) in Weyl semimetals (WSMs) have been shown to induce an exotic axionic insulating phase in which the sliding mode (phason) of the CDW acts as a dynamical axion field, giving rise to a large positive magneto-conductance. In
this work, we predict that dynamical strain can induce a bulk orbital magnetization in time-reversal- (TR-) invariant WSMs that are gapped by a CDW. We term this effect the dynamical piezomagnetic effect (DPME). Unlike in [J. Gooth et al, Nature 575, 315 (2019)], the DPME introduced in this work occurs in a bulk-constant (i.e., static and spatially homogeneous in the bulk) CDW, and does not rely on fluctuations, such as a phason. By studying the low-energy effective theory and a minimal tight-binding (TB) model, we find that the DPME originates from an effective valley axion field that couples the electromagnetic gauge field with a strain-induced pseudo-gauge field. We further find that the DPME has a discontinuous change at a critical value of the phase of the CDW order parameter. We demonstrate that, when there is a jump in the DPME, the surface of the system undergoes a topological quantum phase transition (TQPT), while the bulk remains gapped. Hence, the DPME provides a bulk signature of the boundary TQPT in a TR-invariant Weyl-CDW.
The finite dihedral group generated by one rotation and one reflection is the simplest case of the non-abelian group. Cayley graphs are diagrammatic counterparts of groups. In this paper, much attention is given to the Cayley graph of the dihedral gr
oup. Considering the characteristics of the elements in the dihedral group, we propose a model of three-state discrete-time quantum walk (DTQW) on the Caylay graph of the dihedral group with Grover coin. We derive analytic expressions for the the position probability distribution and the long-time limit of the return probability starting from the origin. It is shown that the localization effect is governed by the size of the underlying dihedral group, coin operator and initial state. We also numerically investigate the properties of the proposed model via the probability distribution and the time-averaged probability at the designated position. The abundant phenomena of three-state Grover DTQW on the Caylay graph of the dihedral group can help the community to better understand and to develop new quantum algorithms.
Recent years have witnessed tremendous success in the discovery of topological states of matter. Particularly, sophisticated theoretical methods in time-reversal-invariant topological phases have been developed, leading to the comprehensive search of
crystal database and the prediction of thousands of new topological materials. In contrast, the discovery of magnetic topological phases that break time reversal is still limited to several exemplary materials because the coexistence of magnetism and topological electronic band structure is rare in a single compound. To overcome this challenge, we propose an alternative approach to realize the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, a typical example of magnetic topological phase, via engineering two-dimensional (2D) magnetic van der Waals heterojunctions. Instead of a single magnetic topological material, we search for the combinations of two 2D (typically trivial) magnetic insulator compounds with specific band alignment so that they can together form a type-III heterojunction with topologically non-trivial band structure. By combining the data-driven materials search, first principles calculations, and the symmetry-based analytical models, we identify 8 type-III heterojunctions consisting of 2D ferromagnetic insulator materials from a family of 2D monolayer MXY compounds (M = metal atoms, X = S, Se, Te, Y = F, Cl, Br, I) as a set of candidates for the QAH effect. In particular, we directly calculate the topological invariant (Chern number) and chiral edge states in the MnNF/MnNCl heterojunction with ferromagnetic stacking. This work illustrates how data-driven material science can be combined with symmetry-based physical principles to guide the search for novel heterojunction-based quantum materials hosting the QAH effect and other exotic quantum states in general.
