Superconductivity was recently discovered in rhombohedral trilayer graphene (RTG) in the absence of a moire potential. Intringuigly, superconductivity is observed proximate to a metallic state with reduced isospin symmetry, but it remains unknown whe
ther this is a coincidence or a key ingredient for superconductivity. Using a Hartree-Fock analysis and constraints from experiments, we argue that the symmetry breaking is inter-valley coherent (IVC) in nature. We evaluate IVC fluctuations as a possible pairing glue, and find that they lead to unconventional superconductivity which is $p$-wave when fluctuations are strong. We further elucidate how the inter-valley Hunds coupling determines the spin-structure of the IVC ground state and breaks the degeneracy between spin-singlet and triplet superconductivity. Intriguingly, if the normal state is spin-unpolarized, we find that a ferromagnetic Hunds coupling favors spin-singlet superconductivity, in agreement with experiments. Instead, if the normal state is spin-polarized, then IVC fluctuations lead to spin-triplet pairing.
We propose nanoscale magnetometry via isolated single-spin qubits as a probe of superconductivity in two-dimensional materials. We characterize the magnetic field noise at the qubit location, arising from current and spin fluctuations in the sample a
nd leading to measurable polarization decay of the qubit. We show that the noise due to transverse current fluctuations studied as a function of temperature and sample-probe distance can be used to extract useful information about the transition to a superconducting phase and the pairing symmetry of the superconductor. Surprisingly, at low temperatures, the dominant contribution to the magnetic noise arises from longitudinal current fluctuations and can be used to probe collective modes such as monolayer plasmons and bilayer Josephson plasmons. We also characterize the noise due to spin fluctuations, which allows probing the spin structure of the pairing wave function. Our results provide a non-invasive route to probe the rich physics of two-dimensional superconductors.
A single-spin qubit placed near the surface of a conductor acquires an additional contribution to its $1/T_1$ relaxation rate due to magnetic noise created by electric current fluctuations in the material. We analyze this technique as a wireless prob
e of superconductivity in atomically thin two dimensional materials. At temperatures $T lesssim T_c$, the dominant contribution to the qubit relaxation rate is due to transverse electric current fluctuations arising from quasiparticle excitations. We demonstrate that this method enables detection of metal-to-superconductor transitions, as well as investigation of the symmetry of the superconducting gap function, through the noise scaling with temperature. We show that scaling of the noise with sample-probe distance provides a window into the non-local quasi-static conductivity of superconductors, both clean and disordered. At low temperatures the quasiparticle fluctuations get suppressed, yet the noise can be substantial due to resonant contributions from collective longitudinal modes, such as plasmons in monolayers and Josephson plasmons in bilayers. Potential experimental implications are discussed.
It was recently suggested that the topology of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphenes (MATBG) flat bands could provide a novel mechanism for superconductivity distinct from both weakly-coupled BCS theory and the $d$-wave phenomenology of the high-$T_c
$ cuprates. In this work, we examine this possibility using a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) study of a model which captures the essential features of MATBGs symmetry and topology. Using large scale cylinder-DMRG calculations to obtain the ground state and its excitations as a function of the electron doping, we find clear evidence for superconductivity driven by the binding of electrons into charge-$2e$ skyrmions. Remarkably, this binding is observed even in the regime where the unscreened Coulomb repulsion is by-far the largest energy scale, demonstrating the robustness of this topological, all-electronic pairing mechanism.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking plays a pivotal role in many areas of physics, engendering a variety of excitations from sound modes in solids to pions in nuclear physics. Equally important excitations are solitons, nonlinear configurations of the symm
etry breaking field, which can enjoy exceptional stability as in the Skyrme model of nuclear forces. Here we argue that similar models may describe magic angle graphene, a remarkable new material . When the angle between two sheets of graphene is near the magic angle of $sim 1^circ$, insulating behavior is observed, which gives way to superconductivity on changing the electron density. We propose a unifying description of both the order underlying the insulator as well as the superconductor. While the symmetry breaking condensate leads to the ordered phase, topological solitons in the condensate - skyrmions - are shown to be bosons that carry an electric charge of 2e. Condensation of skyrmions leads to a superconductor whose pairing strength, symmetry and other properties are inferred. More generally, we show how topological textures can mitigate Coulomb repulsion to pair electrons and provide a new route to superconductivity. Our mechanism potentially applies to much wider class of systems but crucially invokes certain key ingredient such as inversion symmetry present in magic angle graphene. We discuss how these insights not only clarify why certain correlated moire materials do not superconduct, they also point to promising new platforms where robust superconductivity is anticipated.
We present a new framework for computing low frequency transport properties of strongly correlated, ergodic systems. Our main assumption is that, when a thermalizing diffusive system is driven at frequency $omega$, domains of size $xi simsqrt{D/omega
}$ can be considered as internally thermal, but weakly coupled with each other. We calculate the transport coefficients to lowest order in the coupling, assuming incoherent transport between such domains. Our framework naturally captures the sub-leading non analytic corrections to the transport coefficients, known as hydrodynamic long time tails. In addition, it allows us to obtain a generalized relation between charge and thermal transport coefficients, in the spirit of the Wiedemann-Franz law. We verify our results, which satisfy several non-trivial consistency checks, via exact diagonalization studies on the one-dimensional extended Fermi-Hubbard model.
Motivated by recent low-temperature magnetoresistance measurements in twisted bilayer graphene aligned with hexagonal Boron Nitride substrate, we perform a systematic study of possible symmetry breaking orders in this device at a filling of two elect
rons per Moire unit cell. We find that the surprising non-monotonic dependence of the resistance on an out-of-plane magnetic field is difficult to reconcile with particle-hole charge carriers from the low-energy bands in symmetry broken phases. We invoke the non-zero Chern numbers of the twisted bilayer graphene flat bands to argue that skyrmion textures provide an alternative for the dominant charge carriers. Via an effective field-theory for the spin degrees of freedom, we show that the effect of spin Zeeman splitting on the skyrmion excitations provides a possible explanation for the non-monotonic magnetoresistance. We suggest several experimental tests, including the functional dependence of the activation gap on the magnetic field, for our proposed correlated insulating states at different integer fillings. We also discuss possible exotic phases and quantum phase transitions that can arise via skyrmion-pairing on doping such an insulator.
Recent experiments on several cuprate compounds have identified an enhanced thermal Hall response in the pseudogap phase. Most strikingly, this enhancement persists even in the undoped system, which challenges our understanding of the insulating pare
nt compounds. To explain these surprising observations, we study the quantum phase transition of a square-lattice antiferromagnet from a confining Neel state to a state with coexisting Neel and semion topological order. The transition is driven by an applied magnetic field and involves no change in the symmetry of the state. The critical point is described by a strongly-coupled conformal field theory with an emergent global $SO(3)$ symmetry. The field theory has four different formulations in terms of $SU(2)$ or $U(1)$ gauge theories, which are all related by dualities; we relate all four theories to the lattice degrees of freedom. We show how proximity of the confining Neel state to the critical point can explain the enhanced thermal Hall effect seen in experiment.
We use a lowest Landau level model to study the recent observation of an anomalous Hall effect in twisted bilayer graphene. This effective model is rooted in the occurrence of Chern bands which arise due to the coupling between the graphene device an
d its encapsulating substrate. Our model exhibits a phase transition from a spin-valley polarized insulator to a partial or fully valley unpolarized metal as the bandwidth is increased relative to the interaction strength, consistent with experimental observations. In sharp contrast to standard quantum Hall ferromagnetism, the Chern number structure of the flat bands precludes an instability to an inter-valley coherent phase, but allows for an excitonic vortex lattice at large interaction anisotropy.
Motivated by recent transport measurements in high-$T_c$ cuprate superconductors in a magnetic field, we study the thermal Hall conductivity in materials with topological order, focusing on the contribution from neutral spinons. Specifically, differe
nt Schwinger boson mean-field ans{a}tze for the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square lattice are analyzed. We allow for both Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, and additional terms associated with scalar spin chiralities that break time-reversal and reflection symmetries, but preserve their product. It is shown that these scalar spin chiralities, which can either arise spontaneously or are induced by the orbital coupling of the magnetic field, can lead to spinon bands with nontrivial Chern numbers and significantly enhanced thermal Hall conductivity. Associated states with zero-temperature magnetic order, which is thermally fluctuating at any $T>0$, also show a similarly enhanced thermal Hall conductivity.
