Topological crystalline superconductors are known to have possible higher-order topology, which results in Majorana modes on $d-2$ or lower dimensional boundaries. Given the rich possibilities of boundary signatures, it is desirable to have topologic
al invariants that can predict the type of Majorana modes from band structures. Although symmetry indicators, a type of invariants that depends only on the band data at high-symmetry points, have been proposed for certain crystalline superconductors, there exist symmetry classes in which symmetry indicators fail to distinguish superconductors with different Majorana boundaries. Here, we systematically obtain topological invariants for an example of this kind, the two-dimensional time-reversal symmetric superconductors with two-fold rotational symmetry $C_2$. First, we show that the non-trivial topology is independent of band data on the high-symmetry points by conducting a momentum-space classification study. Then from the resulting K groups, we derive calculable expressions for four $mathbb{Z}_2$ invariants defined on the high-symmetry lines or general points in the Brillouin zone. Finally, together with a real-space classification study, we establish the bulk-boundary correspondence and show that the four $mathbb{Z}_2$ invariants can predict Majorana boundary types from band structures. Our proposed invariants can fuel practical material searches for $C_2$-symmetric topological superconductors featuring Majorana edge and corner modes.
Recent experiments have observed correlated insulating and possible superconducting phases in twisted homobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Besides the spin-valley locked moire bands due to the intrinsic Ising spin-orbit coupling, homo
bilayer moire TMDs also possess either logarithmic or power-law divergent Van Hove singularities (VHS) near the Fermi surface, controllable by an external displacement field. The former and the latter are dubbed conventional and higher-order VHS, respectively. Here, we perform a perturbative renormalization group (RG) analysis to unbiasedly study the dominant instabilities in homobilayer TMDs for both the conventional and higher-order VHS cases. We find that the spin-valley locking largely alters the RG flows and leads to instabilities unexpected in the corresponding extensively-studied graphene-based moire systems, such as spin- and valley-polarized ferromagnetism and topological superconductivity with mixed parity. In particular, for the case with two higher-order VHS, we find a spin-valley-locking-driven metallic state with no symmetry breaking in the TMDs despite the diverging bare susceptibility. Our results show how the spin-valley locking significantly affects the RG analysis and demonstrate that moire TMDs are suitable platforms to realize various interaction-induced spin-valley locked phases, highlighting physics fundamentally different from the well-studied graphene-based moire systems.
Topological crystalline superconductors have attracted rapidly rising attention due to the possibility of higher-order phases, which support Majorana modes on boundaries in $d-2$ or lower dimensions. However, although the classification and bulk topo
logical invariants in such systems have been well studied, it is generally difficult to faithfully predict the boundary Majoranas from the band-structure information due to the lack of well-established bulk-boundary correspondence. Here we propose a protocol for deriving symmetry indicators that depend on a minimal set of necessary symmetry data of the bulk bands and can diagnose boundary features. Specifically, to obtain indicators manifesting clear bulk-boundary correspondence, we combine the topological crystal classification scheme in the real space and a twisted equivariant K group analysis in the momentum space. The key step is to disentangle the generally mixed strong and weak indicators through a systematic basis-matching procedure between our real-space and momentum-space approaches. We demonstrate our protocol using an example of two-dimensional time-reversal odd-parity superconductors, where the inversion symmetry is known to protect a higher-order phase with corner Majoranas. Symmetry indicators derived from our protocol can be readily applied to ab initio database and could fuel material predictions for strong and weak topological crystalline superconductors with various boundary features.
Recent experiments have observed possible spin- and valley-polarized insulators and spin-triplet superconductivity in twisted double bilayer graphene, a moire structure consisting of a pair of Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene. Besides the continuously
tunable band widths controlled by an applied displacement field and twist angle, these moire bands also possess van Hove singularities near the Fermi surface and a field-dependent nesting which is far from perfect. Here we carry out a perturbative renormalization group analysis to unbiasedly study the competition among all possible instabilities in twisted double bilayer graphene and related systems with a similar van Hove fermiology in the presence of weak but finite repulsive interactions. Our key finding is that there are several competing magnetic, valley, charge, and superconducting instabilities arising from interactions in twisted double bilayer graphene, which can be tuned by controlling the displacement field and the twist angle. In particular, we show that spin- or valley-polarized uniform instabilities generically dominate under moderate interactions smaller than the band width, whereas $p$-wave spin-triplet topological superconductivity and exotic spin-singlet modulated paired state become important as the interactions decrease. Realization of our findings in general moire systems with a similar van Hove fermiology should open up new opportunities for manipulating topological superconductivity and spin- or valley-polarized states in highly tunable platforms.
We introduce higher-order topological Dirac superconductor (HOTDSC) as a new gapless topological phase of matter in three dimensions, which extends the notion of Dirac phase to a higher-order topological version. Topologically distinct from the tradi
tional topological superconductors and known Dirac superconductors, a HOTDSC features helical Majorana hinge modes between adjacent surfaces, which are direct consequences of the symmetry-protected higher-order band topology manifesting in the system. Specifically, we show that rotational, spatial inversion, and time-reversal symmetries together protect the coexistence of bulk Dirac nodes and hinge Majorana modes in a seamless way. We define a set of topological indices that fully characterizes the HOTDSC. We further show that a practical way to realize the HOTDSC phase is to introduce unconventional odd-parity pairing to a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal while preserving the necessary symmetries. As a concrete demonstration of our idea, we construct a corresponding minimal lattice model for HOTDSC obeying the symmetry constraints. Our model exhibits the expected topological invariants in the bulk and the defining spectroscopic features on an open geometry, as we explicitly verify both analytically and numerically. Remarkably, the HOTDSC phase offers an example of a higher-order topological quantum critical point, which enables realizations of various higher-order topological phases under different symmetry-breaking patterns. In particular, by breaking the inversion symmetry of a HOTDSC, we arrive at a higher-order Weyl superconductor, which is yet another new gapless topological state that exhibits hybrid higher-order topology.
Monolayer WTe$_2$, a centrosymmetric transition metal dichacogenide, has recently been established as a quantum spin Hall insulator and found superconducting upon gating. Here we study the pairing symmetry and topological nature of superconducting WT
e$_2$ with a microscopic model at mean-field level. Surprisingly, we find that the spin-triplet phases in our phase diagram all host Majorana modes localized on two opposite corners. Even when the conventional pairing is favored, we find that an intermediate in-plane magnetic field exceeding the Pauli limit stabilizes an unconventional equal-spin pairing aligning with the field, which also hosts Majorana corner modes. Motivated by our findings, we obtain a recipe for two-dimensional superconductors featuring higher-order topology from the boundary perspective: Generally a superconducting inversion-symmetric quantum spin Hall material whose normal-state Fermi surface is away from high-symmetry points, such as gated monolayer WTe$_2$, hosts Majorana corner modes if the superconductivity is parity-odd. We further point out that this higher-order phase is an inversion-protected topological crystalline superconductor and study the bulk-boundary correspondence. Finally, we discuss possible experiments for probing the Majorana corner modes. Our findings suggest superconducting monolayer WTe$_2$ is a playground for higher-order topological superconductivity, and possibly the first material realization for inversion-protected Majorana corner modes without utilizing proximity effect.
The many-body localization transition in quasiperiodic systems has been extensively studied in recent ultracold atom experiments. At intermediate quasiperiodic potential strength, a surprising Griffiths-like regime with slow dynamics appears in the a
bsence of random disorder and mobility edges. In this work, we study the interacting Aubry-Andre model, a prototype quasiperiodic system, as a function of incommensurate potential strength using a novel dynamical measure, information scrambling, in a large system of 200 lattice sites. Between the thermal phase and the many-body localized phase, we find an intermediate dynamical phase where the butterfly velocity is zero and information spreads in space as a power-law in time. This is in contrast to the ballistic spreading in the thermal phase and logarithmic spreading in the localized phase. We further investigate the entanglement structure of the many-body eigenstates in the intermediate phase and find strong fluctuations in eigenstate entanglement entropy within a given energy window, which is inconsistent with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. Machine-learning on the entanglement spectrum also reaches the same conclusion. Our large-scale simulations suggest that the intermediate phase with vanishing butterfly velocity could be responsible for the slow dynamics seen in recent experiments.
The breaking of ergodicity in isolated quantum systems with a single-particle mobility edge is an intriguing subject that has not yet been fully understood. In particular, whether a nonergodic but metallic phase exists or not in the presence of a one
-dimensional quasiperiodic potential is currently under active debate. In this Letter, we develop a neural-network-based approach to investigate the existence of this nonergodic metallic phase in a prototype model using many-body entanglement spectra as the sole diagnostic. We find that such a method identifies with high confidence the existence of a nonergodic metallic phase in the midspectrum at an intermediate quasiperiodic potential strength. Our neural-network based approach shows how supervised machine learning can be applied not only in locating phase boundaries but also in providing a way to definitively examine the existence or not of a novel phase.
Recent experiments demonstrating large spin-transfer torques in topological insulator (TI)-ferromagnetic metal (FM) bilayers have generated a great deal of excitement due to their potential applications in spintronics. The source of the observed spin
-transfer torque, however, remains unclear. This is because the large charge transfer from the FM to TI layer would prevent the Dirac cone at the interface from being anywhere near the Fermi level to contribute to the observed spin-transfer torque. Moreover, there is yet little understanding of the impact on the Dirac cone at the interface from the metallic bands overlapping in energy and momentum, where strong hybridization could take place. Here, we build a simple microscopic model and perform first-principles-based simulations for such a TI-FM heterostructure, considering the strong hybridization and charge transfer effects. We find that the original Dirac cone is destroyed by the hybridization as expected. Instead, we find a new interface state which we dub descendent state to form near the Fermi level due to the strong hybridization with the FM states at the same momentum. Such a `descendent state carries a sizable weight of the original Dirac interface state, and thus inherits the localization at the interface and the same Rashba-type spin-momentum locking. We propose that the `descendent state may be an important source of the experimentally observed large spin-transfer torque in the TI-FM heterostructure.
Recent experimental advances in using strain engineering to significantly alter the band structure of moderately correlated systems offer opportunities and challenges to weak-coupling renormalization group (RG) analysis approaches for predicting supe
rconducting instabilities. On one hand, the RG approach can provide theoretical guidance. On the other hand, it is now imperative to better understand how the predictions of the RG approach depends on microscopic and non-universal model details. Here we focus on the effect of band-selective mass-renormalization often observed in angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Focusing on a specific example of uniaxially strained $rm{Sr_2RuO_4}$ we carry out the weak-coupling RG analysis from two sets of band structures as starting points: one is based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations and the other is based on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements. Despite good agreement between the Fermi surfaces of the the two band structures we find the two sets of band structures to predict qualitatively different trends in the strain dependence of the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ as well as the dominant channel.
