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1. Atomic-scale electronic structure of the cuprate pair density wave state coexisting with superconductivity

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002429117  

   Choubey, Peayush ; Joo, Sang Hyun ; Fujita, K. ; Du, Zengyi ; Edkins, S. D. ; Hamidian, M. H. ; Eisaki, H. ; Uchida, S. ; Mackenzie, A. P. ; Lee, Jinho ; et al ( June 2020 , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   The defining characteristic of hole-doped cuprates is d -wave high temperature superconductivity. However, intense theoretical interest is now focused on whether a pair density wave state (PDW) could coexist with cuprate superconductivity [D. F. Agterberg et al., Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 11, 231 (2020)]. Here, we use a strong-coupling mean-field theory of cuprates, to model the atomic-scale electronic structure of an eight-unit-cell periodic, d -symmetry form factor, pair density wave (PDW) state coexisting with d -wave superconductivity (DSC). From this PDW + DSC model, the atomically resolved density of Bogoliubov quasiparticle states N r , E is predicted at the terminal BiO surface of Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 and compared with high-precision electronic visualization experiments using spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The PDW + DSC model predictions include the intraunit-cell structure and periodic modulations of N r , E , the modulations of the coherence peak energy Δ p r , and the characteristics of Bogoliubov quasiparticle interference in scattering-wavevector space q - space . Consistency between all these predictions and the corresponding experiments indicates that lightly hole-doped Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 does contain a PDW + DSC state. Moreover,more »in the model the PDW + DSC state becomes unstable to a pure DSC state at a critical hole density p *, with empirically equivalent phenomena occurring in the experiments. All these results are consistent with a picture in which the cuprate translational symmetry-breaking state is a PDW, the observed charge modulations are its consequence, the antinodal pseudogap is that of the PDW state, and the cuprate critical point at p * ≈ 19% occurs due to disappearance of this PDW.« less
2. Magnetic field–induced pair density wave state in the cuprate vortex halo

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat1773  

   Edkins, S. D. ; Kostin, A. ; Fujita, K. ; Mackenzie, A. P. ; Eisaki, H. ; Uchida, S. ; Sachdev, Subir ; Lawler, Michael J. ; Kim, E.-A. ; Séamus Davis, J. C. ; et al ( June 2019 , Science)

   High magnetic fields suppress cuprate superconductivity to reveal an unusual density wave (DW) state coexisting with unexplained quantum oscillations. Although routinely labeled a charge density wave (CDW), this DW state could actually be an electron-pair density wave (PDW). To search for evidence of a field-induced PDW, we visualized modulations in the density of electronic states N ( r ) within the halo surrounding Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 vortex cores. We detected numerous phenomena predicted for a field-induced PDW, including two sets of particle-hole symmetric N ( r ) modulations with wave vectors Q P and 2 Q P , with the latter decaying twice as rapidly from the core as the former. These data imply that the primary field-induced state in underdoped superconducting cuprates is a PDW, with approximately eight CuO 2 unit-cell periodicity and coexisting with its secondary CDWs.
3. Kagome superconductors AV3Sb5 (A = K, Rb, Cs)

   https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwac199  

   Jiang, Kun ; Wu, Tao ; Yin, Jia-Xin ; Wang, Zhenyu ; Hasan, M. Zahid ; Wilson, Stephen D. ; Chen, Xianhui ; Hu, Jiangping ( September 2022 , National Science Review)

   The quasi-two-dimensional kagome materials AV3Sb5 (A = K, Rb, Cs) were found to be a prime example of kagome superconductors, a new quantum platform to investigate the interplay between electron correlation effects, topology and geometric frustration. In this review, we report recent progress on the experimental and theoretical studies of AV3Sb5 and provide a broad picture of this fast-developing field in order to stimulate an expanded search for unconventional kagome superconductors. We review the electronic properties of AV3Sb5, the experimental measurements of the charge density wave state, evidence of time-reversal symmetry breaking and other potential hidden symmetry breaking in these materials. A variety of theoretical proposals and models that address the nature of the time-reversal symmetry breaking are discussed. Finally, we review the superconducting properties of AV3Sb5, especially the potential pairing symmetries and the interplay between superconductivity and the charge density wave state.
4. Stranger than metals

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abh4273  

   Phillips, Philip W. ; Hussey, Nigel E. ; Abbamonte, Peter ( July 2022 , Science)

   BACKGROUND Landau’s Fermi liquid theory provides the bedrock on which our understanding of metals has developed over the past 65 years. Its basic premise is that the electrons transporting a current can be treated as “quasiparticles”—electron-like particles whose effective mass has been modified, typically through interactions with the atomic lattice and/or other electrons. For a long time, it seemed as though Landau’s theory could account for all the many-body interactions that exist inside a metal, even in the so-called heavy fermion systems whose quasiparticle mass can be up to three orders of magnitude heavier than the electron’s mass. Fermi liquid theory also lay the foundation for the first successful microscopic theory of superconductivity. In the past few decades, a number of new metallic systems have been discovered that violate this paradigm. The violation is most evident in the way that the electrical resistivity changes with temperature or magnetic field. In normal metals in which electrons are the charge carriers, the resistivity increases with increasing temperature but saturates, both at low temperatures (because the quantized lattice vibrations are frozen out) and at high temperatures (because the electron mean free path dips below the smallest scattering pathway defined by the lattice spacing).more »In “strange metals,” by contrast, no saturation occurs, implying that the quasiparticle description breaks down and electrons are no longer the primary charge carriers. When the particle picture breaks down, no local entity carries the current. ADVANCES A new classification of metallicity is not a purely academic exercise, however, as strange metals tend to be the high-temperature phase of some of the best superconductors available. Understanding high-temperature superconductivity stands as a grand challenge because its resolution is fundamentally rooted in the physics of strong interactions, a regime where electrons no longer move independently. Precisely what new emergent phenomena one obtains from the interactions that drive the electron dynamics above the temperature where they superconduct is one of the most urgent problems in physics, attracting the attention of condensed matter physicists as well as string theorists. One thing is clear in this regime: The particle picture breaks down. As particles and locality are typically related, the strange metal raises the distinct possibility that its resolution must abandon the basic building blocks of quantum theory. We review the experimental and theoretical studies that have shaped our current understanding of the emergent strongly interacting physics realized in a host of strange metals, with a special focus on their poster-child: the copper oxide high-temperature superconductors. Experiments are highlighted that attempt to link the phenomenon of nonsaturating resistivity to parameter-free universal physics. A key experimental observation in such materials is that removing a single electron affects the spectrum at all energy scales, not just the low-energy sector as in a Fermi liquid. It is observations of this sort that reinforce the breakdown of the single-particle concept. On the theoretical side, the modern accounts that borrow from the conjecture that strongly interacting physics is really about gravity are discussed extensively, as they have been the most successful thus far in describing the range of physics displayed by strange metals. The foray into gravity models is not just a pipe dream because in such constructions, no particle interpretation is given to the charge density. As the breakdown of the independent-particle picture is central to the strange metal, the gravity constructions are a natural tool to make progress on this problem. Possible experimental tests of this conjecture are also outlined. OUTLOOK As more strange metals emerge and their physical properties come under the scrutiny of the vast array of experimental probes now at our disposal, their mysteries will be revealed and their commonalities and differences cataloged. In so doing, we should be able to understand the universality of strange metal physics. At the same time, the anomalous nature of their superconducting state will become apparent, offering us hope that a new paradigm of pairing of non-quasiparticles will also be formalized. The correlation between the strength of the linear-in-temperature resistivity in cuprate strange metals and their corresponding superfluid density, as revealed here, certainly hints at a fundamental link between the nature of strange metallicity and superconductivity in the cuprates. And as the gravity-inspired theories mature and overcome the challenge of projecting their powerful mathematical machinery onto the appropriate crystallographic lattice, so too will we hope to build with confidence a complete theory of strange metals as they emerge from the horizon of a black hole. Curved spacetime with a black hole in its interior and the strange metal arising on the boundary. This picture is based on the string theory gauge-gravity duality conjecture by J. Maldacena, which states that some strongly interacting quantum mechanical systems can be studied by replacing them with classical gravity in a spacetime in one higher dimension. The conjecture was made possible by thinking about some of the fundamental components of string theory, namely D-branes (the horseshoe-shaped object terminating on a flat surface in the interior of the spacetime). A key surprise of this conjecture is that aspects of condensed matter systems in which the electrons interact strongly—such as strange metals—can be studied using gravity.« less
5. Pair-density-wave in the strong coupling limit of the Holstein-Hubbard model

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-022-00426-w  

   Huang, Kevin S. ; Han, Zhaoyu ; Kivelson, Steven A. ; Yao, Hong ( February 2022 , npj Quantum Materials)

   A pair-density-wave (PDW) is a superconducting state with an oscillating order parameter. A microscopic mechanism that can give rise to it has been long sought but has not yet been established by any controlled calculation. Here we report a density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) study of an effectivet-J-Vmodel, which is equivalent to the Holstein-Hubbard model in a strong-coupling limit, on long two-, four-, and six-leg triangular cylinders. While a state with long-range PDW order is precluded in one dimension, we find strong quasi-long-range PDW order with a divergent PDW susceptibility as well as the spontaneous breaking of time-reversal and inversion symmetries. Despite the strong interactions, the underlying Fermi surfaces and electron pockets around theKand$${K}^{\prime}$$$K^{\prime }$points in the Brillouin zone can be identified. We conclude that the state is valley-polarized and that the PDW arises from intra-pocket pairing with an incommensurate center of mass momentum. In the two-leg case, the exponential decay of spin correlations and the measured central chargec ≈ 1 are consistent with an unusual realization of a Luther-Emery liquid.