New Type of Quantum Criticality in the Pyrochlore Iridates
Abstract
Magnetic fluctuations and electrons couple in intriguing ways in the vicinity of zero-temperature phase transitions—quantum critical points—in conducting materials. Quantum criticality is implicated in non-Fermi liquid behavior of diverse materials and in the formation of unconventional superconductors. Here, we uncover an entirely new type of quantum critical point describing the onset of antiferromagnetism in a nodal semimetal engendered by the combination of strong spin-orbit coupling and electron correlations, and which is predicted to occur in the iridium oxide pyrochlores. We formulate and solve a field theory for this quantum critical point by renormalization group techniques and show that electrons and antiferromagnetic fluctuations are strongly coupled and that both these excitations are modified in an essential way. This quantum critical point has many novel features, including strong emergent spatial anisotropy, a vital role for Coulomb interactions, and highly unconventional critical exponents. Our theory motivates and informs experiments on pyrochlore iridates and constitutes a singular realistic example of a nontrivial quantum critical point with gapless fermions in three dimensions.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1180837
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1214712
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-08ER46524
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review. X
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review. X Journal Volume: 4 Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2160-3308
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Citation Formats
Savary, Lucile, Moon, Eun-Gook, and Balents, Leon. New Type of Quantum Criticality in the Pyrochlore Iridates. United States: N. p., 2014.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041027.
Savary, Lucile, Moon, Eun-Gook, & Balents, Leon. New Type of Quantum Criticality in the Pyrochlore Iridates. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041027
Savary, Lucile, Moon, Eun-Gook, and Balents, Leon. Thu .
"New Type of Quantum Criticality in the Pyrochlore Iridates". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041027.
@article{osti_1180837,
title = {New Type of Quantum Criticality in the Pyrochlore Iridates},
author = {Savary, Lucile and Moon, Eun-Gook and Balents, Leon},
abstractNote = {Magnetic fluctuations and electrons couple in intriguing ways in the vicinity of zero-temperature phase transitions—quantum critical points—in conducting materials. Quantum criticality is implicated in non-Fermi liquid behavior of diverse materials and in the formation of unconventional superconductors. Here, we uncover an entirely new type of quantum critical point describing the onset of antiferromagnetism in a nodal semimetal engendered by the combination of strong spin-orbit coupling and electron correlations, and which is predicted to occur in the iridium oxide pyrochlores. We formulate and solve a field theory for this quantum critical point by renormalization group techniques and show that electrons and antiferromagnetic fluctuations are strongly coupled and that both these excitations are modified in an essential way. This quantum critical point has many novel features, including strong emergent spatial anisotropy, a vital role for Coulomb interactions, and highly unconventional critical exponents. Our theory motivates and informs experiments on pyrochlore iridates and constitutes a singular realistic example of a nontrivial quantum critical point with gapless fermions in three dimensions.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041027},
journal = {Physical Review. X},
number = 4,
volume = 4,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Nov 13 00:00:00 EST 2014},
month = {Thu Nov 13 00:00:00 EST 2014}
}
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041027
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
Determination of long-range all-in-all-out ordering of Ir moments in a pyrochlore iridate Eu Ir O by resonant x-ray diffraction
journal, March 2013
- Sagayama, H.; Uematsu, D.; Arima, T.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 87, Issue 10
Dimensionality Driven Spin-Flop Transition in Layered Iridates
journal, July 2012
- Kim, J. W.; Choi, Y.; Kim, Jungho
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 3
Phase diagram structure of topological Mott transition for zero-gap semiconductors beyond conventional Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson scenario
journal, September 2013
- Kurita, Moyuru; Yamaji, Youhei; Imada, Masatoshi
- Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 11
Emergence of Magnetic Long-range Order in Frustrated Pyrochlore Nd 2 Ir 2 O 7 with Metal–Insulator Transition
journal, March 2012
- Tomiyasu, Keisuke; Matsuhira, Kazuyuki; Iwasa, Kazuaki
- Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, Vol. 81, Issue 3
Magnetic order in the pyrochlore iridates Ir O ( = Y, Yb)
journal, July 2012
- Disseler, S. M.; Dhital, Chetan; Amato, A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 1
Chiral RKKY interaction in Pr Ir O
journal, March 2013
- Flint, Rebecca; Senthil, T.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 87, Issue 12
RKKY Interactions and the Anomalous Hall Effect in Metallic Rare-Earth Pyrochlores
journal, November 2013
- Lee, SungBin; Paramekanti, Arun; Kim, Yong Baek
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 19
Cuba—a library for multidimensional numerical integration
journal, June 2005
- Hahn, T.
- Computer Physics Communications, Vol. 168, Issue 2
Topological and magnetic phases of interacting electrons in the pyrochlore iridates
journal, January 2012
- Witczak-Krempa, William; Kim, Yong Baek
- Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 4
Strong Correlations and Magnetic Frustration in the High Iron Pnictides
journal, August 2008
- Si, Qimiao; Abrahams, Elihu
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 7
Controlled expansion for certain non-Fermi-liquid metals
journal, July 2010
- Mross, David F.; McGreevy, John; Liu, Hong
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 4
Quantum Excitations in Quantum Spin Ice
journal, October 2011
- Ross, Kate A.; Savary, Lucile; Gaulin, Bruce D.
- Physical Review X, Vol. 1, Issue 2
Pseudogap state near a quantum critical point
journal, June 2013
- Efetov, K. B.; Meier, H.; Pépin, C.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 9, Issue 7
JaxoDraw: A graphical user interface for drawing Feynman diagrams
journal, August 2004
- Binosi, D.; Theußl, L.
- Computer Physics Communications, Vol. 161, Issue 1-2
Fermi-liquid instabilities at magnetic quantum phase transitions
journal, August 2007
- Löhneysen, Hilbert v.; Rosch, Achim; Vojta, Matthias
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 79, Issue 3
Quantum Theory of Cyclotron Resonance in Semiconductors: General Theory
journal, May 1956
- Luttinger, J. M.
- Physical Review, Vol. 102, Issue 4
Renormalization group theory of nematic ordering in -wave superconductors
journal, August 2008
- Huh, Yejin; Sachdev, Subir
- Physical Review B, Vol. 78, Issue 6
Quantum phase transitions of metals in two spatial dimensions. II. Spin density wave order
journal, August 2010
- Metlitski, Max A.; Sachdev, Subir
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 7
Metal–Insulator Transitions in Pyrochlore Oxides Ln 2 Ir 2 O 7
journal, September 2011
- Matsuhira, Kazuyuki; Wakeshima, Makoto; Hinatsu, Yukio
- Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, Vol. 80, Issue 9
non-Abelian holonomy and dissipationless spin current in semiconductors
journal, June 2004
- Murakami, Shuichi; Nagosa, Naoto; Zhang, Shou-Cheng
- Physical Review B, Vol. 69, Issue 23
Non-Fermi-Liquid and Topological States with Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling
journal, November 2013
- Moon, Eun-Gook; Xu, Cenke; Kim, Yong Baek
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 20
RENORMALIZATION GROUP ANALYSIS OF QUANTUM CRITICAL POINTS IN d-WAVE SUPERCONDUCTORS
journal, December 2000
- Vojta, Matthias; Zhang, Ying; Sachdev, Subir
- International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 14, Issue 29n31
Dirac Fermions in Solids: From High-T c Cuprates and Graphene to Topological Insulators and Weyl Semimetals
journal, March 2014
- Vafek, Oskar; Vishwanath, Ashvin
- Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Magnetic orders and topological phases from - exchange in pyrochlore iridates
journal, December 2012
- Chen, Gang; Hermele, Michael
- Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 23
Pyrochlore electrons under pressure, heat, and field: Shedding light on the iridates
journal, April 2013
- Witczak-Krempa, William; Go, Ara; Kim, Yong Baek
- Physical Review B, Vol. 87, Issue 15
Low-energy effective theory of Fermi surface coupled with U(1) gauge field in dimensions
journal, October 2009
- Lee, Sung-Sik
- Physical Review B, Vol. 80, Issue 16
Large Spin-Wave Energy Gap in the Bilayer Iridate : Evidence for Enhanced Dipolar Interactions Near the Mott Metal-Insulator Transition
journal, October 2012
- Kim, Jungho; Said, A. H.; Casa, D.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 15
Effect of a nonzero temperature on quantum critical points in itinerant fermion systems
journal, September 1993
- Millis, A. J.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 48, Issue 10
Topological semimetal and Fermi-arc surface states in the electronic structure of pyrochlore iridates
journal, May 2011
- Wan, Xiangang; Turner, Ari M.; Vishwanath, Ashvin
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 20