skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Superconductivity from energy fluctuations in dilute quantum critical polar metals
Abstract Superconductivity in low carrier density metals challenges the conventional electron-phonon theory due to the absence of retardation required to overcome Coulomb repulsion. Here we demonstrate that pairing mediated by energy fluctuations, ubiquitously present close to continuous phase transitions, occurs in dilute quantum critical polar metals and results in a dome-like dependence of the superconducting T c on carrier density, characteristic of non-BCS superconductors. In quantum critical polar metals, the Coulomb repulsion is heavily screened, while the critical transverse optical phonons decouple from the electron charge. In the resulting vacuum, long-range attractive interactions emerge from the energy fluctuations of the critical phonons, resembling the gravitational interactions of a chargeless dark matter universe. Our estimates show that this mechanism may explain the critical temperatures observed in doped SrTiO 3 . We provide predictions for the enhancement of superconductivity near polar quantum criticality in two- and three-dimensional materials that can be used to test our theory.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1830707
PAR ID:
10403806
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Volume:
13
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2041-1723
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Nature Communications)
    null (Ed.)
    Abstract The Higgs mechanism, i.e., spontaneous symmetry breaking of the quantum vacuum, is a cross-disciplinary principle, universal for understanding dark energy, antimatter and quantum materials, from superconductivity to magnetism. Unlike one-band superconductors (SCs), a conceptually distinct Higgs amplitude mode can arise in multi-band, unconventional superconductors  via strong interband Coulomb interaction, but is yet to be accessed. Here we discover such hybrid Higgs mode and demonstrate its quantum control by light in iron-based high-temperature SCs. Using terahertz (THz) two-pulse coherent spectroscopy, we observe a tunable amplitude mode coherent oscillation of the complex order parameter from coupled lower and upper bands. The nonlinear dependence of the hybrid Higgs mode on the THz driving fields is distinct from any known SC results: we observe a large reversible modulation of resonance strength, yet with a persisting mode frequency. Together with quantum kinetic modeling of a hybrid Higgs mechanism, distinct from charge-density fluctuations and without invoking phonons or disorder, our result provides compelling evidence for a light-controlled coupling between the electron and hole amplitude modes assisted by strong interband quantum entanglement. Such light-control of Higgs hybridization can be extended to probe many-body entanglement and hidden symmetries in other complex systems. 
    more » « less
  2. ; (, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter)
    Abstract Cerium-based ternary compounds CeNi 2 Cd 20 and CePd 2 Cd 20 do not exhibit long-range order down to millikelvin temperature range. Given the large separation between Ce ions which significantly reduces the super-exchange interactions and vanishingly small Ruderman–Kittel–Kasuya–Yosida interaction, here we show that nodal superconductivity mediated by the valence fluctuations must be a ground state in these materials. We propose that the critical temperature for the superconducting transition can be significantly increased by applying hydrostatic pressure. We employ an extended periodic Anderson lattice model which includes the long-range Coulomb interactions between the itinerant electrons as well as the local Coulomb interaction between the predominantly localized and itinerant electrons to compute a critical temperature of the superconducting transition. Using the slave-boson approach we show that fluctuations mediated by the repulsive electron–electron interactions lead to the emergence of d -wave superconductivity. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; (, Physical Review B)
    Stephen E. Nagler (Ed.)
    The relevance of the single-band two-dimensional Hubbard model to superconductivity in the doped cuprates has recently been questioned, based on density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) computations that found superconductivity over an unrealistically broad doping region upon electron-doping, yet a complete absence of superconductivity for hole-doping. We report very similar results from DMRG calculations on a Cu2O3 twoleg ladder within the parent three-band correlated-electron Hamiltonian. The strong asymmetry found in our calculations are in contradiction to the deep and profound symmetry in the experimental phase diagrams of electron- and hole-doped cuprate superconductors, as seen from the occurrence of quantum critical points within the superconducting domes in both cases that are characterized by Fermi surface reconstruction, large jumps in carrier density, and strange metal behavior. 
    more » « less
  4. ; (, npj Quantum Materials)
    Abstract We consider a model of electrons at zero temperature, with a repulsive interaction which is a function of the energy transfer. Such an interaction can arise from the combination of electron–electron repulsion at high energies and the weaker electron–phonon attraction at low energies. As shown in previous works, superconductivity can develop despite the overall repulsion due to the energy dependence of the interaction, but the gap Δ( ω ) must change sign at some (imaginary) frequency ω 0 to counteract the repulsion. However, when the constant repulsive part of the interaction is increased, a quantum phase transition towards the normal state occurs. We show that, as the phase transition is approached, Δ and ω 0 must vanish in a correlated way such that $$1/| \log [{{\Delta }}(0)]| \sim {\omega }_{0}^{2}$$ 1 / ∣ log [ Δ ( 0 ) ] ∣ ~ ω 0 2 . We discuss the behavior of phase fluctuations near this transition and show that the correlation between Δ(0) and ω 0 locks the phase stiffness to a non-zero value. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, arXivorg)
    We present a reformulation of QM/MM as a fully quantum mechanical theory of interacting subsystems, all treated at the level of density functional theory (DFT). For the MM subsystem, which lacks orbitals, we assign an ad hoc electron density and apply orbital-free DFT functionals to describe its quantum properties. The interaction between the QM and MMsubsystems is also treated using orbital-free density functionals, accounting for Coulomb interactions, exchange, correlation, and Pauli repulsion. Consistency across QM and MM subsystems is ensured by employing data-driven, many-body MM force fields that faithfully represent DFT functionals. Applications to water-solvated systems demonstrate that this approach achieves unprecedented, very rapid convergence to chemical accuracy as the size of the QM subsystem increases. We validate the method with several pilot studies, including water bulk, water clusters (prism hexamer and pentamers), solvated glucose, a palladium aqua ion, and a wet monolayer of MoS2. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Text Encoded Conversion
  • XML
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email