Recent experiments reported gate-induced superconductivity in the monolayer 1T$$-WTe$_2$ which is a two-dimensional topological insulator in its normal state [1, 2]. The in-plane upper critical field $B_{c2}$ is found to exceed the conventional Pauli
paramagnetic limit $B_p$ by 1-3 times. The enhancement cannot be explained by conventional spin-orbit coupling which vanishes due to inversion symmetry. In this work, we unveil some distinctive superconducting properties of centrosymmetric 1T$$-WTe$_2$ which arise from the coupling of spin, momentum and band parity degrees of freedom. As a result of this spin-orbit-parity coupling: (i) there is a first-order superconductor-metal transition at $B_{c2}$ much higher than the Pauli paramagnetic limit $B_p$, (ii) spin-susceptibility is anisotropic with respect to in-plane directions and results in anisotropic $B_{c2}$ and (iii) the $B_{c2}$ exhibits a strong gate dependence as the spin-orbit-parity coupling is significant only near the topological band crossing points. The importance of SOPC on the topologically nontrivial inter-orbital pairing phase is also discussed. Our theory generally applies to centrosymmetric materials with topological band
In recent years, signatures of Majorana fermions have been demonstrated experimentally in several superconducting systems. However, finding systems which can be scaled up to accommodate a large number of Majorana fermions for quantum computation rema
ins a major challenge for experimentalists. In a recent work [1], signatures of a pair of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) were found in a new experimental platform formed by EuS islands deposited on top of a gold wire which were made superconducting through proximity coupling to a superconductor. In this work, we provide a theoretical explanation for how MZMs can be formed in EuS/Au/superconductor heterostructures. This simple experimental setup provides a new route for realizing a large number of Majorana fermions for quantum computations.
Recently, signatures of nonlinear Hall effects induced by Berry-curvature dipoles have been found in atomically thin 1T/Td-WTe$_2$. In this work, we show that in strained polar transition-metal dichalcogenides(TMDs) with 2H-structures, Berry-curvatur
e dipoles created by spin degrees of freedom lead to strong nonlinear Hall effects. Under an easily accessible uniaxial strain of order 0.2%, strong nonlinear Hall signals, characterized by a Berry-curvature dipole on the order of 1{AA}, arise in electron-doped polar TMDs such as MoSSe, and this is easily detectable experimentally. Moreover, the magnitude and sign of the nonlinear Hall current can be easily tuned by electric gating and strain. These properties can be used to distinguish nonlinear Hall effects from classical mechanisms such as ratchet effects. Importantly, our system provides a potential scheme for building electrically switchable energy-harvesting rectifiers.
In our previous work [arXiv:1803.00999, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 046401 (2018)], we found a quantum spin liquid phase with a spinon Fermi surface in the two dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg model with four-spin ring exchange on a triangular lattice. In t
his work we dope the spinon Fermi surface phase by studying the $t$-$J$ model with four-spin ring exchange. We perform density matrix renormalization group calculations on four-leg cylinders of a triangular lattice and find that the dominant pair correlation function is that of a pair density wave; i.e., it is oscillatory while decaying with distance with a power law. The doping dependence of the period is studied. This is the first example where pair density wave is the dominant pairing in a generic strongly interacting system where the pair density wave cannot be explained as a composite order and no special symmetry is required.
Using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we exactly solve a model of Fermions hopping on the honeycomb lattice with cluster charge interactions, which has been proposed as an effective model with possible application to twisted bilayer grap
hene near half-filling. We find an interaction driven semimetal to insulator transition to an insulating phase consisting of a valence bond solid with Kekule pattern. Finite size scaling reveals that the phase transition of the semimetal to Kekule valence bond solid phase is continuous and belongs to chiral XY universality class.
We find an optical Raman lattice without spin-orbit coupling showing chiral topological orders for cold atoms. Two incident plane-wave lasers are applied to generate simultaneously a double-well square lattice and periodic Raman couplings, the latter
of which drive the nearest-neighbor hopping and create a staggered flux pattern across the lattice. Such a minimal setup is can yield the quantum anomalous Hall effect in the single particle regime, while in the interacting regime it achieves the $J_1$-$J_2$-$K$ model with all parameters controllable, which supports a chiral spin liquid phase. We further show that heating in the present optical Raman lattice is reduced by more than one order of magnitude compared with the conventional laser-assisted tunneling schemes. This suggests that the predicted topological states be well reachable with the current experimental capability.
