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1. A d 8 anti-Hund’s singlet insulator in an infinite-layer nickelate

   https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7639/ac6040  

   Jin, Hyo-Sun ; Pickett, Warren E. ; Lee, Kwan-Woo ( April 2022 , Journal of Physics: Materials)

   The status of nickelate superconductors in relation to cuprate high temperature superconductors is one of the concepts being discussed in high temperature superconductivity in correlated transition metal oxides. New additions to the class of infinite layer nickelates can provide essential input relating to connections or distinctions. A recently synthesized compound Ba₂NiO₂(AgSe)₂, which contains isolated ‘infinite layer’ NiO₂planes, may lead to new insights. Our investigations have discovered that, at density functional theory mean field level, the ground state consists of an unusual$e_{\mathrm{g}}$singlet on the Ni²⁺ion arising from large but separate Mott insulating gaps in both$e_{\mathrm{g}}$orbitals, but with different, anti-Hund’s, spin directions of their moments. This textured singlet incorporates at the least new physics, and potentially a new platform for nickelate superconductivity, which might be of an unconventional form for transition metal oxides due to the unconventional undoped state. We include in this paper a comparison of electronic structure parameters of Ba₂NiO₂(AgSe)₂with a better characterized infinite layer nickelate LaNiO₂. We provide more analysis of thed⁸anti-Hund’s singlet that emerges in this compound, and consider a minimally correlated wavefunction for this singlet in an itinerant background, and begin discussion of excitations—real or virtual—that may figure into new electronic phases.

    

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2. Magnon Bose–Einstein condensation and superconductivity in a frustrated Kondo lattice

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2000501117  

   Volkov, Pavel A. ; Gazit, Snir ; Pixley, Jedediah H. ( August 2020 , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Motivated by recent experiments on magnetically frustrated heavy fermion metals, we theoretically study the phase diagram of the Kondo lattice model with a nonmagnetic valence bond solid ground state on a ladder. A similar physical setting may be naturally occurring in${\mathrm{Y}\mathrm{b}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{l}}_3{\mathrm{C}}_3$,${\mathrm{C}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{B}\mathrm{i}}_2$, and${\mathrm{T}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{B}}_4$compounds. In the insulating limit, the application of a magnetic field drives a quantum phase transition to an easy-plane antiferromagnet, which is described by a Bose–Einstein condensation of magnons. Using a combination of field theoretical techniques and density matrix renormalization group calculations we demonstrate that in one dimension this transition is stable in the presence of a metallic Fermi sea, and its universality class in the local magnetic response is unaffected by the itinerant gapless fermions. Moreover, we find that fluctuations about the valence bond solid ground state can mediate an attractive interaction that drives unconventional superconducting correlations. We discuss the extensions of our findings to higher dimensions and argue that depending on the filling of conduction electrons, the magnon Bose–Einstein condensation transition can remain stable in a metal also in dimensions two and three.

    

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3. Electron temperature of the solar wind

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917905117  

   Boldyrev, Stanislav ; Forest, Cary ; Egedal, Jan ( April 2020 , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Solar wind provides an example of a weakly collisional plasma expanding from a thermal source in the presence of spatially diverging magnetic-field lines. Observations show that in the inner heliosphere, the electron temperature declines with the distance approximately as$T_e\left(r\right)\sim r^{-0.3}\dots r^{-0.7}$, which is significantly slower than the adiabatic expansion law$\sim r^{-4/3}$. Motivated by such observations, we propose a kinetic theory that addresses the nonadiabatic evolution of a nearly collisionless plasma expanding from a central thermal source. We concentrate on the dynamics of energetic electrons propagating along a radially diverging magnetic-flux tube. Due to conservation of their magnetic moments, the electrons form a beam collimated along the magnetic-field lines. Due to weak energy exchange with the background plasma, the beam population slowly loses its energy and heats the background plasma. We propose that no matter how weak the collisions are, at large enough distances from the source a universal regime of expansion is established where the electron temperature declines as$T_e\left(r\right)\propto r^{-2/5}$. This is close to the observed scaling of the electron temperature in the inner heliosphere. Our first-principle kinetic derivation may thus provide an explanation for the slower-than-adiabatic temperature decline in the solar wind. More broadly, it may be useful for describing magnetized collisionless winds from G-type stars.

    

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4. High-harmonic generation in spin and charge current pumping at ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic resonance in the presence of spin–orbit coupling

   https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7639/aceaad  

   Varela-Manjarres, Jalil ; Nikolić, Branislav K. ( August 2023 , Journal of Physics: Materials)

   One of the cornerstone effects in spintronics is spin pumping by dynamical magnetization that is steadily precessing (around, for example, thez-axis) with frequencyω₀due to absorption of low-power microwaves of frequencyω₀under the resonance conditions and in the absence of any applied bias voltage. The two-decades-old ‘standard model’ of this effect, based on the scattering theory of adiabatic quantum pumping, predicts that component$I^{S_z}$of spin current vector$(I^{S_x}(t),I^{S_y}(t),I^{S_z})\propto {\omega }_0$is time-independent while$I^{S_x}(t)$and$I^{S_y}(t)$oscillate harmonically in time with a single frequencyω₀whereas pumped charge current is zero$I\equiv 0$in the same adiabatic$\propto {\omega }_0$limit. Here we employ more general approaches than the ‘standard model’, namely the time-dependent nonequilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) and the Floquet NEGF, to predict unforeseen features of spin pumping: namely precessing localized magnetic moments within a ferromagnetic metal (FM) or antiferromagnetic metal (AFM), whose conduction electrons are exposed to spin–orbit coupling (SOC) of either intrinsic or proximity origin, will pump both spin$I^{S_{\alpha }}(t)$and chargeI(t) currents. All four of these functions harmonically oscillate in time at both even and odd integer multiples$N{\omega }_0$of the driving frequencyω₀. The cutoff order of such high harmonics increases with SOC strength, reaching$N_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{x}}\simeq 11$in the one-dimensional FM or AFM models chosen for demonstration. A higher cutoff$N_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{x}}\simeq 25$can be achieved in realistic two-dimensional (2D) FM models defined on a honeycomb lattice, and we provide a prescription of how to realize them using 2D magnets and their heterostructures.

    

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5. Structural phase purification of bulk HfO 2 :Y through pressure cycling

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2312571121  

   Musfeldt, J. L. ; Singh, Sobhit ; Fan, Shiyu ; Gu, Yanhong ; Xu, Xianghan ; Cheong, S.-W. ; Liu, Z. ; Vanderbilt, David ; Rabe, Karin M. ( January 2024 , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   We combine synchrotron-based infrared absorption and Raman scattering spectroscopies with diamond anvil cell techniques and first-principles calculations to explore the properties of hafnia under compression. We find that pressure drives HfO${}_2$:7%Y from the mixed monoclinic ($P{2}_1/c$)$+$antipolar orthorhombic ($\mathit{Pbca}$) phase to pure antipolar orthorhombic ($\mathit{Pbca}$) phase at approximately 6.3 GPa. This transformation is irreversible, meaning that upon release, the material is kinetically trapped in the$\mathit{Pbca}$metastable state at 300 K. Compression also drives polar orthorhombic ($Pca{2}_1$) hafnia into the tetragonal ($P{4}_2/nmc$) phase, although the latter is not metastable upon release. These results are unified by an analysis of the energy landscape. The fact that pressure allows us to stabilize targeted metastable structures with less Y stabilizer is important to preserving the flat phonon band physics of pure HfO${}_2$.

    

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