Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Cascade of vestigial orders in two-component superconductors: Nematic, ferromagnetic, s -wave charge- 4e , and d -wave charge- 4e states

Journal Article · · Physical Review. B
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States); OSTI
  2. Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology (KIT) (Germany); Institute of Systems Engineering, Sion (Switzerland)
  3. Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology (KIT) (Germany)
  4. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
Electronically ordered states that break multiple symmetries can melt in multiple stages, similarly to liquid crystals. In a partially melted phase, known as vestigial phase, a bilinear made out of combinations of the multiple components of the primary order parameter condenses. Multicomponent superconductors are thus natural candidates for vestigial order since they break both the U⁡(1)-gauge and also time-reversal or lattice symmetries. Here, we use group theory to classify all possible real-valued and complex-valued bilinears of a generic two-component superconductor on a tetragonal or hexagonal lattice. While the more widely investigated real-valued bilinears correspond to vestigial nematic or ferromagnetic order, the little explored complex-valued bilinears correspond to a vestigial charge-4e condensate, which itself can have an underlying s-wave, dx2–y2-wave, or dxy-wave symmetry. To properly describe the fluctuating regime of the superconducting Ginzburg-Landau action and thus access these competing vestigial phases, we employ both a large-N and a variational method. We show that while vestigial order can be understood as a weak-coupling effect in the large-N approach, it is akin to a moderate-coupling effect in the variational method. Despite these distinctions, both methods yield similar results in wide regions of the parameter space spanned by the quartic Landau coefficients. Specifically, we find that the nematic and ferromagnetic phases are the leading vestigial instabilities, whereas the various types of charge-4⁢e order are attractive albeit subleading vestigial channels. The only exception is for the hexagonal case, in which the nematic and s-wave charge-4e vestigial states are degenerate. Finally, we discuss the limitations of our approach, as well as the implications of our results for the realization of exotic charge-4⁢e states in material candidates.
Research Organization:
Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division (MSE)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0020045
OSTI ID:
2421409
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 2478705
Journal Information:
Physical Review. B, Journal Name: Physical Review. B Journal Issue: 22 Vol. 107; ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (120)

The onset of superconductivity in the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory journal August 1968
Disorder version of the Abelian Higgs model and the order of the superconductive phase transition journal November 1982
The influence of fluctuation pairing of electrons on the conductivity of normal metal journal February 1968
Quantum field theory in the large N limit: a review journal October 2003
Time-reversal symmetry-breaking superconductivity in Sr2RuO4 journal August 1998
Electronic liquid-crystal phases of a doped Mott insulator journal June 1998
A superconductor to superfluid phase transition in liquid metallic hydrogen journal October 2004
Charge-4e superconductivity from pair-density-wave order in certain high-temperature superconductors journal September 2009
Spin-rotation symmetry breaking in the superconducting state of CuxBi2Se3 journal May 2016
Z3-vestigial nematic order due to superconducting fluctuations in the doped topological insulators NbxBi2Se3 and CuxBi2Se3 journal June 2020
Tunable unconventional kagome superconductivity in charge ordered RbV3Sb5 and KV3Sb5 journal January 2023
Vestigial nematic order and superconductivity in the doped topological insulator Cu x Bi2Se3 journal May 2018
A proposal for reconciling diverse experiments on the superconducting state in Sr2RuO4 journal June 2020
Three-state nematicity in the triangular lattice antiferromagnet Fe1/3NbS2 journal May 2020
Broken time-reversal symmetry in the topological superconductor UPt3 journal March 2020
Thermodynamic evidence for a two-component superconducting order parameter in Sr2RuO4 journal September 2020
Ultrasound evidence for a two-component superconducting order parameter in Sr2RuO4 journal September 2020
Two-fold symmetric superconductivity in few-layer NbSe2 journal April 2021
State with spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry above the superconducting phase transition journal October 2021
Single thermodynamic transition at 2 K in superconducting UTe2 single crystals journal May 2022
Rotational symmetry breaking in the topological superconductor SrxBi2Se3 probed by upper-critical field experiments journal June 2016
A magnetic analogue of stereoisomerism : application to helimagnetism in two dimensions journal January 1977
Particle vs. pair condensation in attractive Bose liquids journal January 1982
Biquadratic Exchange and Quadrupolar Ordering journal March 1969
journal January 2006
Quenched disorder and vestigial nematicity in the pseudogap regime of the cuprates journal May 2014
Evidence for a vestigial nematic state in the cuprate pseudogap phase journal June 2019
The order parameter for the superconducting phases of UPt 3 journal February 1994
Recent progress on superconductors with time-reversal symmetry breaking journal October 2020
Superconducting gap structure of heavy-Fermion compound URu 2 Si 2 determined by angle-resolved thermal conductivity journal May 2009
Multicritical behaviour in the fully frustrated XY model and related systems journal December 2005
Fluctuations and phase transitions in Larkin-Ovchinnikov liquid-crystal states of a population-imbalanced resonant Fermi gas journal August 2011
Intertwined and vestigial order with ultracold atoms in multiple cavity modes journal December 2017
Intertwined spin-orbital coupled orders in the iron-based superconductors journal July 2019
Modeling the pseudogap metallic state in cuprates: Quantum disordered pair density wave journal February 2020
Nematic superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene journal June 2020
Symmetry-mixed bound-state order journal November 2020
Twisted bilayer graphene. III. Interacting Hamiltonian and exact symmetries journal May 2021
Inhomogeneous time-reversal symmetry breaking in Sr 2 RuO 4 journal July 2021
Frustrated Kondo impurity triangle: A simple model of deconfinement journal September 2021
Nematic superconductivity in the topological semimetal CaSn3 journal March 2022
Charge, bond, and pair density wave orders in a strongly correlated system journal April 2022
Tensor network approach to the two-dimensional fully frustrated XY model and a chiral ordered phase journal April 2022
Solvable model for a charge- 4e superconductor journal September 2022
Role of electromagnetic gauge-field fluctuations in the selection between chiral and nematic superconductivity journal September 2022
Absence of Ginzburg-Landau mechanism for vestigial order in the normal phase above a two-component superconductor journal March 2023
Two-stage melting of an intercomponent Potts long-range order in two dimensions journal April 2023
Partially ordered states in Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson models with cubic-type anisotropy journal August 1988
Order of the metal-to-superconductor transition journal January 2002
Magnetic model of the tetragonal-orthorhombic transition in the cuprates journal September 2006
Theory of electron nematic order in LaFeAsO journal June 2008
Ising and spin orders in the iron-based superconductors journal July 2008
Hidden vortex lattices in a thermally paired superfluid journal October 2008
Global phase diagram for magnetism and lattice distortion of iron-pnictide materials journal September 2009
Fluctuation-driven first-order behavior near the T = 0 two-dimensional stripe to Fermi liquid transition journal January 2010
Three-band superconductivity and the order parameter that breaks time-reversal symmetry journal April 2010
Phase transitions in a three dimensional U ( 1 ) × U ( 1 ) lattice London superconductor: Metallic superfluid and charge- 4 e superconducting states journal October 2010
Conventional and charge-six superfluids from melting hexagonal Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov phases in two dimensions journal July 2011
Preemptive nematic order, pseudogap, and orbital order in the iron pnictides journal January 2012
Skyrmions with quadratic band touching fermions: A way to achieve charge 4 e superconductivity journal June 2012
Broken translational symmetry in an emergent paramagnetic phase of graphene journal September 2012
s + i s state with broken time-reversal symmetry in Fe-based superconductors journal April 2013
Bulk evidence for a time-reversal symmetry broken superconducting state in URu 2 Si 2 journal October 2013
Time reversal symmetry breakdown in normal and superconducting states in frustrated three-band systems journal December 2013
Phase transitions and anomalous normal state in superconductors with broken time-reversal symmetry journal March 2014
Charge-density-wave order with momentum ( 2 Q , 0 ) and ( 0 , 2 Q ) within the spin-fermion model: Continuous and discrete symmetry breaking, preemptive composite order, and relation to pseudogap in hole-doped cuprates journal July 2014
Odd-parity topological superconductor with nematic order: Application to Cu x Bi 2 Se 3 journal September 2014
Evidence for broken time-reversal symmetry in the superconducting phase of URu 2 Si 2 journal April 2015
Excitonic and nematic instabilities on the surface of topological Kondo insulators journal December 2015
Vestigial chiral and charge orders from bidirectional spin-density waves: Application to the iron-based superconductors journal January 2016
Fluctuation and strain effects in a chiral p -wave superconductor journal February 2016
Magnetic and Ising quantum phase transitions in a model for isoelectronically tuned iron pnictides journal March 2016
Odd-parity superconductors with two-component order parameters: Nematic and chiral, full gap, and Majorana node journal November 2016
Double-stage nematic bond ordering above double stripe magnetism: Application to BaTi 2 Sb 2 O journal May 2017
Charge- 4 e superconductors: A Majorana quantum Monte Carlo study journal June 2017
Vestigial nematicity from spin and/or charge order in the cuprates journal August 2017
Chiral liquid phase of simple quantum magnets journal November 2017
Pairing symmetry and spontaneous vortex-antivortex lattice in superconducting twisted-bilayer graphene: Bogoliubov-de Gennes approach journal November 2018
Correlations and electronic order in a two-orbital honeycomb lattice model for twisted bilayer graphene journal December 2018
Nematic superconductivity stabilized by density wave fluctuations: Possible application to twisted bilayer graphene journal April 2019
Order and disorder in gauge systems and magnets journal May 1978
Unusual States of Vortex Matter in Mixtures of Bose-Einstein Condensates on Rotating Optical Lattices journal December 2008
Quantum Liquid Crystals in an Imbalanced Fermi Gas: Fluctuations and Fractional Vortices in Larkin-Ovchinnikov States journal July 2009
How Many Quantum Phase Transitions Exist Inside the Superconducting Dome of the Iron Pnictides? journal July 2013
Emergent Power-Law Phase in the 2D Heisenberg Windmill Antiferromagnet: A Computational Experiment journal October 2015
Emergent Magnetic Degeneracy in Iron Pnictides due to the Interplay between Spin-Orbit Coupling and Quantum Fluctuations journal July 2018
Strong Coupling Phases of Partially Filled Twisted Bilayer Graphene Narrow Bands journal June 2019
Quasiparticle Evidence for the Nematic State above T c in Sr x Bi 2 Se 3 journal July 2019
Evolution from B 2 g Nematics to B 1 g Nematics in Heavily Hole-Doped Iron-Based Superconductors journal September 2019
Charge- 4 e Superconductivity from Multicomponent Nematic Pairing: Application to Twisted Bilayer Graphene journal July 2021
Charge- 4e Superconductivity from Nematic Superconductors in Two and Three Dimensions journal November 2021
Phase Coherence of Pairs of Cooper Pairs as Quasi-Long-Range Order of Half-Vortex Pairs in a Two-Dimensional Bilayer System journal May 2022
SU(4) Symmetry in Twisted Bilayer Graphene: An Itinerant Perspective journal June 2022
Topologically Enabled Superconductivity journal August 2022
Nodal and Nematic Superconducting Phases in NbSe2 Monolayers from Competing Superconducting Channels journal August 2022
First-Order Phase Transitions in Superconductors and Smectic- A Liquid Crystals journal February 1974
Phase Transition in a Lattice Model of Superconductivity journal November 1981
Ordering due to disorder in a frustrated vector antiferromagnet journal April 1989
Ising transition in frustrated Heisenberg models journal January 1990
Four-Particle Condensate in Strongly Coupled Fermion Systems journal April 1998
Quartet Formation at ( 100 ) / ( 110 ) Interfaces of d -Wave Superconductors journal June 2005
Competing Orders in One-Dimensional Spin- 3 / 2 Fermionic Systems journal December 2005
High Resolution Polar Kerr Effect Measurements of Sr 2 RuO 4 : Evidence for Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry in the Superconducting State journal October 2006
Pairing in graphene-based moiré superlattices journal July 2020
Valence-bond solids, vestigial order, and emergent SO(5) symmetry in a two-dimensional quantum magnet journal September 2020
Nematic State in CeAuSb 2 journal February 2020
Ground State and Hidden Symmetry of Magic-Angle Graphene at Even Integer Filling journal August 2020
Emergent Potts Order in a Coupled Hexatic-Nematic XY model journal March 2022
Rotational Symmetry Breaking in a Trigonal Superconductor Nb-doped Bi 2 Se 3 journal January 2017
Phenomenological theory of unconventional superconductivity journal April 1991
Colloquium : Theory of intertwined orders in high temperature superconductors journal May 2015
Chiral superconductivity in the alternate stacking compound 4Hb-TaS 2 journal March 2020
Observation of broken time-reversal symmetry in the heavy-fermion superconductor UPt3 journal July 2014
Multicomponent superconducting order parameter in UTe 2 journal August 2021
Nematicity and competing orders in superconducting magic-angle graphene journal April 2021
Effect of Fluctuations on the Properties of a Superconductor above the Critical Temperature book August 1996
The Physics of Pair-Density Waves: Cuprate Superconductors and Beyond journal March 2020
Intertwined Vestigial Order in Quantum Materials: Nematicity and Beyond journal March 2019
Disorder in Quantum Many-Body Systems journal March 2019
Vortex origin of tricritical point in Ginzburg-Landau theory journal June 2006