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We study the spinful fermionic Haldane-Hubbard model at half filling using a combination of quantum cluster methods: cluster perturbation theory (CPT), the variational cluster approximation (VCA), and cluster dynamical mean-field theory (CDMFT). We explore possible zero-temperature phases of the model as a function of on-site repulsive interaction strength and next-nearest-neighbor hopping amplitude and phase. Our approach allows us to access the regime of intermediate interaction strength, where charge fluctuations are significant and effective spin model descriptions may not be justified. Our approach also improves upon mean-field solutions of the Haldane-Hubbard model by retaining local quantum fluctuations and treating them nonperturbatively. We find a correlated topological Chern insulator for weak interactions and a topologically trivial N\'eel antiferromagnetic insulator for strong interactions. For intermediate interactions, we find that topologically nontrivial N\'eel antiferromagnetic insulating phases and/or a topologically nontrivial nonmagnetic insulating phase may be stabilized., Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures. Published version

The notions of Bloch wave, crystal momentum, and energy bands are commonly regarded as unique features of crystalline materials with commutative translation symmetries. Motivated by the recent realization of hyperbolic lattices in circuit quantum electrodynamics, we exploit ideas from algebraic geometry to construct the first hyperbolic generalization of Bloch theory, despite the absence of commutative translation symmetries. For a quantum particle propagating in a hyperbolic lattice potential, we construct a continuous family of eigenstates that acquire Bloch-like phase factors under a discrete but noncommutative group of hyperbolic translations, the Fuchsian group of the lattice. A hyperbolic analog of crystal momentum arises as the set of Aharonov-Bohm phases threading the cycles of a higher-genus Riemann surface associated with this group. This crystal momentum lives in a higher-dimensional Brillouin zone torus, the Jacobian of the Riemann surface, over which a discrete set of continuous energy bands can be computed., Comment: v2: published version. 27+19 pages, 5+2 figures, 1 table

Domain walls in superfluid 3He-B have gained renewed interest in light of experimental progress on confining helium in nanofabricated geometries. Here, we study the effect of strong-coupling corrections on domain wall width and interfacial tension by determining self-consistent solutions to spatially-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations. We find that the formation of domain walls is generally energetically favored in strong coupling over weak coupling. Calculations were performed over a wide range of temperatures and pressures, showing decreasing interface energy with increasing temperature and pressure. This has implications for the observability of such domain walls in 3He-B, which are of both fundamental interest and form the basis for spatially-modulated pair-density wave states, when stabilized by strong confinement., 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted version, includes appendix with alternative Wiman beta parameters

Recent advances in experiment and theory suggest that superfluid $^3$He under planar confinement may form a pair density wave (PDW) whereby superfluid and crystalline orders coexist. While a natural candidate for this phase is a unidirectional stripe phase predicted by Vorontsov and Sauls in 2007, recent nuclear magnetic resonance measurements of the superfluid order parameter rather suggest a two-dimensional PDW with noncollinear wavevectors, of possibly square or hexagonal symmetry. In this Letter, we present a general mechanism by which a PDW with the symmetry of a triangular lattice can be stabilized, based on a superfluid generalization of Landau's theory of the liquid-solid transition. A soft-mode instability at finite wavevector within the translationally invariant planar-distorted B phase triggers a transition from uniform superfluid to PDW that is first order due to a cubic term generally present in the PDW free-energy functional. This cubic term also lifts the degeneracy of possible PDW states in favor of those for which wavevectors add to zero in triangles, which in two dimensions uniquely selects the triangular lattice., Comment: main text: 6 pages, 4 figures; supplemental material: 17 pages, 1 figure, 9 animated plots (see ancillary files). v2: published version

We study lanthanum mononitride LaN by first-principles calculations. The commonly reported rock-salt structure of Fm 3 ¯ m symmetry for rare-earth monopnictides is found to be dynamically unstable for LaN at zero temperature. Using density functional theory and evolutionary crystal prediction, we discover a new, dynamically stable structure with P 1 symmetry at 0 K. This P 1 -LaN exhibits spontaneous electric polarization. Our ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of finite-temperature phonon spectra further suggest that LaN will undergo ferroelectric and structural transitions from P 1 to Fm 3 ¯ m symmetry, when temperature is increased. Moreover, P 1 -LaN will transform to a tetragonal structure with P 4 / nmm symmetry at a critical pressure P = 18 GPa at 0 K. Electronic structures computed with an advanced hybrid functional show that the high-temperature rock-salt LaN can change from a trivial insulator to a strong topological insulator at P ~ 14 GPa. Together, our results indicate that when P = 14 - 18 GPa, LaN can show simultaneous temperature-induced structural, ferroelectric, and topological transitions. Lanthanum monopnictides thereby provide a rich playground for exploring novel phases and phase transitions driven by temperature and pressure.

Compact quantum electrodynamics (CQED$_3$) with Dirac fermionic matter provides an adequate framework for elucidating the universal low-energy physics of a wide variety of (2+1)D strongly correlated systems. Fractionalized states of matter correspond to its deconfined phases, where the gauge field is effectively noncompact, while conventional broken-symmetry phases are associated with confinement triggered by the proliferation of monopole-instantons. While much attention has been devoted lately to the symmetry classification of monopole operators in massless CQED$_3$ and related 3D conformal field theories, explicit derivations of instanton dynamics in parton gauge theories with fermions have been lacking. In this work, we use semiclassical methods analogous to those used by 't Hooft in the solution of the $U(1)$ problem in 4D quantum chromodynamics (QCD) to explicitly demonstrate the symmetry-breaking effect of instantons in CQED$_3$ with massive fermions, motivated by a fermionic parton description of hard-core bosons on a lattice. By contrast with the massless case studied by Marston, we find that massive fermions possess Euclidean zero modes exponentially localized to the center of the instanton. Such Euclidean zero modes produce in turn an effective four-fermion interaction -- known as the 't Hooft vertex in QCD -- which naturally leads to two possible superfluid phases for the original microscopic bosons: a conventional single-particle condensate or an exotic boson pair condensate without single-particle condensation., 15+5 pages, published version

In the presence of certain symmetries, three-dimensional Dirac semimetals can harbor not only surface Fermi arcs, but also surface Dirac cones. Motivated by the experimental observation of rotation-symmetry-protected Dirac semimetal states in iron-based superconductors, we investigate the potential intrinsic topological phases in a $C_{4z}$-rotational invariant superconducting Dirac semimetal with $s_{\pm}$-wave pairing. When the normal state harbors only surface Fermi arcs on the side surfaces, we find that an interesting gapped superconducting state with a quartet of Bogoliubov-Dirac cones on each side surface can be realized, even though the first-order topology of its bulk is trivial. When the normal state simultaneously harbors surface Fermi arcs and surface Dirac cones, we find that a second-order time-reversal invariant topological superconductor with helical Majorana hinge states can be realized. The criteria for these two distinct topological phases have a simple geometric interpretation in terms of three characteristic surfaces in momentum space. By reducing the bulk material to a thin film normal to the axis of rotation symmetry, we further find that a two-dimensional first-order time-reversal invariant topological superconductor can be realized if the inversion symmetry is broken by applying a gate voltage. Our work reveals that diverse topological superconducting phases and types of Majorana modes can be realized in superconducting Dirac semimetals., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

Key to the exact solubility of the unitary minimal models in two-dimensional conformal field theory is the organization of their Hilbert space into Verma modules, whereby all eigenstates of the Hamiltonian are obtained by the repeated action of Virasoro lowering operators onto a finite set of highest-weight states. The usual representation-theoretic approach to removing from all modules zero-norm descendant states generated in such a way is based on the assumption that those states form a nested sequence of Verma submodules built upon singular vectors, i.e., descendant highest-weight states. We show that this fundamental assumption breaks down for the Ramond-sector Verma module with highest weight c/24 in the even series of N=1 superconformal minimal models with central charge c. To resolve this impasse, we conjecture, and prove at low orders, the existence of a nested sequence of linear-dependence relations that enables us to compute the character of the irreducible c/24 module. Based on this character formula, we argue that imposing modular invariance of the torus partition function requires the introduction of a non-null odd-parity Ramond-sector ground state. This symmetrization of the ground-state manifold allows us to uncover a set of conformally invariant boundary conditions not previously discussed and absent in the odd series of superconformal minimal models, and to derive for the first time a complete set of fusion rules for the even series of those models.

An important yet largely unsolved problem in the statistical mechanics of disordered quantum systems is to understand how quenched disorder affects quantum phase transitions in systems of itinerant fermions. In the clean limit, continuous quantum phase transitions of the symmetry-breaking type in Dirac materials such as graphene and the surfaces of topological insulators are described by relativistic (2+1)-dimensional quantum field theories of the Gross-Neveu-Yukawa (GNY) type. We study the universal critical properties of the chiral Ising, XY, and Heisenberg GNY models perturbed by quenched random-mass disorder, both uncorrelated or with long-range power-law correlations. Using the replica method combined with a controlled triple epsilon expansion below four dimensions, we find a variety of new finite-randomness critical and multicritical points with nonzero Yukawa coupling between low-energy Dirac fields and bosonic order parameter fluctuations, and compute their universal critical exponents. Analyzing bifurcations of the renormalization-group flow, we find instances of the fixed-point annihilation scenario---continuously tuned by the power-law exponent of long-range disorder correlations and associated with an exponentially large crossover length---as well as the transcritical bifurcation and the supercritical Hopf bifurcation. The latter is accompanied by the birth of a stable limit cycle on the critical hypersurface, which represents the first instance of fermionic quantum criticality with emergent discrete scale invariance., Comment: 50 pages, 15 figures, 1 table; v2: published version

We use determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) simulations to study the role of electron-electron interactions on three-dimensional (3D) Dirac fermions based on the $\pi$-flux model on a cubic lattice. We show that the Hubbard interaction drives the 3D Dirac semimetal to an antiferromagnetic (AF) insulator only above a finite critical interaction strength and the long-ranged AF order persists up to a finite temperature. We evaluate the critical interaction strength and temperatures using finite-size scaling of the spin structure factor. The critical behaviors are consistent with the (3+1)d Gross-Neveu universality class for the quantum critical point and 3D Heisenberg universality class for the thermal phase transitions. We further investigate correlation effects in birefringent Dirac fermion system. It is found that the critical interaction strength $U_c$ is decreased by reducing the velocity of the Dirac cone, quantifying the effect of velocity on the critical interaction strength in 3D Dirac fermion systems. Our findings unambiguously uncover correlation effects in 3D Dirac fermions, and may be observed using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

Elucidating the phase diagram of lattice gauge theories with fermionic matter in 2+1 dimensions has become a problem of considerable interest in recent years, motivated by physical problems ranging from chiral symmetry breaking in high-energy physics to fractionalized phases of strongly correlated materials in condensed matter physics. For a sufficiently large number $N_f$ of flavors of four-component Dirac fermions, recent sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo studies of lattice quantum electrodynamics (QED$_3$) on the square lattice have found evidence for a continuous quantum phase transition between a power-law correlated conformal QED$_3$ phase and a confining valence-bond-solid phase with spontaneously broken point-group symmetries. The critical continuum theory of this transition was shown to be the $O(2)$ QED$_3$-Gross-Neveu model, equivalent to the gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model, and critical exponents were computed to first order in the large-$N_f$ expansion and the $\epsilon$ expansion. We extend these studies by computing critical exponents to second order in the large-$N_f$ expansion and to four-loop order in the $\epsilon$ expansion below four spacetime dimensions. In the latter context, we also explicitly demonstrate that the discrete $\mathbb{Z}_4$ symmetry of the valence-bond-solid order parameter is dynamically enlarged to a continuous $O(2)$ symmetry at criticality for all values of $N_f$., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 8 tables; v2: published version

A key problem in the field of quantum criticality is to understand the nature of quantum phase transitions in systems of interacting itinerant fermions, motivated by experiments on a variety of strongly correlated materials. Much attention has been paid in recent years to two-dimensional (2D) materials in which itinerant fermions acquire a pseudo-relativistic Dirac dispersion, such as graphene, topological insulator surfaces, and certain spin liquids. This article reviews the phenomenology and theoretical description of quantum phase transitions in systems of 2D Dirac fermions., 15 pp. + references, 1 figure; mini-review submitted to issue of Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics dedicated to proceedings of FQMT'19 conference (Prague, July 14-20, 2019). v2: published version

Superfluid ^{3}He under nanoscale confinement has generated significant interest due to the rich spectrum of phases with complex order parameters that may be stabilized. Experiments have uncovered a variety of interesting phenomena, but a complete picture of superfluid ^{3}He under confinement has remained elusive. Here, we present phase diagrams of superfluid ^{3}He under varying degrees of uniaxial confinement, over a wide range of pressures, which elucidate the progressive stability of both the A phase, as well as a growing region of stable pair density wave state.

Motivated by recent experimental progress in the realization of hybrid structures with a topologically superconducting nanowire coupled to a quantum dot, viewed through the lens of the emerging field of correlated Majorana fermions, we introduce a class of interacting Majorana-Anderson impurity models which admit an exact solution for a wide range of parameters, including on-site repulsive interactions of arbitrary strength. The model is solved by mapping it via the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ slave-spin method to a noninteracting resonant level model for auxiliary Majorana degrees of freedom. The resulting gauge constraint is eliminated by exploiting the transformation properties of the Hamiltonian under a special local particle-hole transformation. For a spin-polarized Kitaev chain coupled to a quantum dot, we obtain exact expressions for the dot spectral functions at both zero and finite temperature. We study how the interaction strength and localization length of the end Majorana zero mode affect physical properties of the dot, such as quasiparticle weight, double occupancy, and odd-frequency pairing correlations, as well as the local electronic density of states in the superconducting chain., 4.5 pages main text and 3 pages supplemental material

The critical properties of the ${\mathrm{QED}}_{3}$ Gross-Neveu-Yukawa (GNY) model in 2 + 1 dimensions with $N$ flavors of two-component Dirac fermions are computed to first order in the $1/N$ expansion. For the specific case of $N=2$, the critical point is conjectured to be dual to the N\'eel-to-valence-bond-solid (VBS) deconfined critical point of quantum antiferromagnets on the square lattice. It is found that Aslamazov-Larkin diagrams, missed by previous $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$- and $1/N$-expansion studies with four-component fermions, give important contributions to the scaling dimensions of various operators. With the inclusion of these diagrams, the resummed scaling dimensions of the adjoint fermion bilinear and scalar field at the ${\mathrm{QED}}_{3}$ GNY critical point are in reasonable agreement with numerical studies of the N\'eel-to-VBS transition, in support of the duality conjecture.

We study the effect of quenched disorder on the semimetal-superconductor quantum phase transition in a model of two-dimensional Dirac semimetal with $N$ flavors of two-component Dirac fermions, using perturbative renormalization group methods at one-loop order in a double epsilon expansion. For $N\geq 2$ we find that the Harris-stable clean critical behavior gives way, past a certain critical disorder strength, to a finite-disorder critical point characterized by non-Gaussian critical exponents, a noninteger dynamic critical exponent $z>1$, and a finite Yukawa coupling between Dirac fermions and bosonic order parameter fluctuations. For $N\geq 7$ the disordered quantum critical point is described by a renormalization group fixed point of stable-focus type and exhibits oscillatory corrections to scaling., 18 pages, 15 figures

Rashba spin-orbit coupling appears in 2D systems lacking inversion symmetry, and causes the spin-splitting of otherwise degenerate energy bands into an upper and lower helicity band. In this paper, we explore how impurity scattering affects transport in the ultra-low-density regime where electrons are confined to the lower helicity band. A previous study has investigated the conductivity in this regime using a treatment in the first Born approximation. In this work, we use the full T-matrix to uncover new features of the conductivity. We first compute the conductivity within a semiclassical Boltzmann framework and show that it exhibits an unconventional density dependence due to the unusual features of the group velocity in the single particle dispersion, as well as quantized plateaus as a function of the logarithm of the electron density. We support this with a calculation using the Kubo formula and find that these plateaus persist in the full quantum theory. We suggest that this quantization may be seen in a pump-probe experiment., Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures

We study the universal critical properties of the QED$_3$-Gross-Neveu-Yukawa model with $N$ flavors of four-component Dirac fermions coupled to a real scalar order parameter at four-loop order in the $\epsilon$ expansion below four dimensions. For $N=1$, the model is conjectured to be infrared dual to the $SU(2)$-symmetric noncompact $\mathbb{C}$P$^1$ model, which describes the deconfined quantum critical point of the N\'eel-valence-bond-solid transition of spin-1/2 quantum antiferromagnets on the two-dimensional square lattice. For $N=2$, the model describes a quantum phase transition between an algebraic spin liquid and a chiral spin liquid in the spin-1/2 kagom\'e antiferromagnet. For general $N$ we determine the order parameter anomalous dimension, the correlation length exponent, the stability critical exponent, as well as the scaling dimensions of $SU(N)$ singlet and adjoint fermion mass bilinears at the critical point. We use Pad\'e approximants to obtain estimates of critical properties in 2+1 dimensions., Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables

Highly tunable platforms for realizing topological phases of matter are emerging from atomic and photonic systems, and offer the prospect of designing interactions between particles. The shape of the potential, besides playing an important role in the competition between different fractional quantum Hall phases, can also trigger the transition to symmetry-broken phases, or even to phases where topological and symmetry-breaking order coexist. Here, we explore the phase diagram of an interacting bosonic model in the lowest Landau level at half-filling as two-body interactions are tuned. Apart from the well-known Laughlin liquid, Wigner crystal phase, stripe, and bubble phases, we also find evidence of a phase that exhibits crystalline order at fractional filling per crystal site. The Laughlin liquid transits into this phase when pairs of bosons strongly repel each other at relative angular momentum $4\hbar$. We show that such interactions can be achieved by dressing ground-state cold atoms with multiple different-parity Rydberg states., 5 pages, 5 figures, plus Supplemental Material

We present a field theory description of a quantum phase transition in two spatial dimensions between a $\text{U}(1)$ algebraic spin liquid with $N$ flavors of gapless two-component Dirac fermionic spinons and a gapped ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ spin liquid. This transition is driven by spinon pairing and concomitant Higgsing of the emergent U(1) gauge field. For sufficiently large $N$, we find a quantum critical point with non-Gaussian exponents that is stable against instanton proliferation. We compute critical exponents using either $1/N$ or $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ expansions, and give estimates of the critical value of $N$ below which the quantum critical point disappears.

Lattice gauge theories are a powerful language to theoretically describe a variety of strongly correlated systems, including frustrated magnets, high-${T}_{c}$ superconductors, and topological phases. However, in many cases gauge fields couple to gapless matter degrees of freedom, and such theories become notoriously difficult to analyze quantitatively. In this paper we study several examples of ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ lattice gauge theories with gapless fermions at finite density, in one and two spatial dimensions, that are either exactly soluble or whose solution reduces to that of a known problem. We consider complex fermions (spinless and spinful) as well as Majorana fermions and study both theories where Gauss' law is strictly imposed and those where all background charge sectors are kept in the physical Hilbert space. We use a combination of duality mappings and the ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ slave-spin representation to map our gauge theories to models of gauge-invariant fermions that are either free, or with on-site interactions of the Hubbard or Falicov-Kimball type that are amenable to further analysis. In 1D, the phase diagrams of these theories include free-fermion metals, insulators, and superconductors, Luttinger liquids, and correlated insulators. In 2D, we find a variety of gapped and gapless phases, the latter including uniform and spatially modulated flux phases featuring emergent Dirac fermions, some violating Luttinger's theorem.

We investigate the scattering of a quantum particle with a two-dimensional (2D) Rashba spin-orbit coupled dispersion off of circularly symmetric potentials. As the energy of the particle approaches the bottom of the lowest spin-split band, i.e., the van Hove singularity, earlier work has shown that scattering off of an infinite circular barrier exhibits a number of features unusual from the point of view of conventional 2D scattering theory: the low-energy S-matrix is independent of the range of the potential, all partial waves contribute equally, the differential cross section becomes increasingly anisotropic and 1D-like, and the total cross section exhibits quantized plateaus. Via a nonperturbative determination of the T-matrix and an optical theorem which we prove here, we show that this behavior is universal for Rashba scattering off of any circularly symmetric, spin independent, finite-range potential. This is relevant both for impurity scattering in the noninteracting limit as well as for short-range two-particle scattering in the interacting problem., Editors' Suggestion. 13 pages, 6 figures

Nonuniform strain distributions in a graphene lattice can give rise to uniform pseudomagnetic fields and associated pseudo-Landau levels without breaking time-reversal symmetry. We demonstrate that by inducing superconductivity in a nonuniformly strained graphene sheet, the lowest pseudo-Landau levels split by a pairing gap can be inverted by changing the sign of the pairing potential. As a consequence of this inversion, we predict that a Josephson $\pi$ junction deposited on top of a strained graphene sheet exhibits one-dimensional gapless modes propagating along the junction. These gapless modes mediate single electron tunneling across the junction, giving rise to the $4\pi$-periodic fractional Josephson effect., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

At small momenta, the Girvin-MacDonald-Platzman (GMP) mode in the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effect can be identified with gapped nematic fluctuations in the isotropic FQH liquid. This correspondence would be exact as the GMP mode softens upon approach to the putative point of a quantum phase transition to a FQH nematic. Motivated by these considerations as well as by suggestive evidence of an FQH nematic in tilted field experiments, we have sought evidence of such a nematic FQHE in a microscopic model of interacting electrons in the lowest Landau level at filling factor 1/3. Using a family of anisotropic Laughlin states as trial wave functions, we find a continuous quantum phase transition between the isotropic Laughlin liquid and the FQH nematic. Results of numerical exact diagonalization also suggest that rotational symmetry is spontaneously broken, and that the phase diagram of the model contains both a nematic and a stripe phase., Comment: v2: 15 pages, 9 figures (includes new Appendix with additional numerical results); published version [Editors' Suggestion]

We study the spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry in the helical surface state of three-dimensional topological insulators due to strong electron-electron interactions, focusing on time-reversal invariant nematic order. Owing to the strongly spin-orbit coupled nature of the surface state, the nematic order parameter is linear in the electron momentum and necessarily involves the electron spin, in contrast with spin-degenerate nematic Fermi liquids. For a chemical potential at the Dirac point (zero doping), we find a first-order phase transition at zero temperature between isotropic and nematic Dirac semimetals. This extends to a thermal phase transition that changes from first to second order at a finite-temperature tricritical point. At finite doping, we find a transition between isotropic and nematic helical Fermi liquids that is second order even at zero temperature. Focusing on finite doping, we discuss various observable consequences of nematic order, such as anisotropies in transport and the spin susceptibility, the partial breakdown of spin-momentum locking, collective modes and induced spin fluctuations, and non-Fermi liquid behavior at the quantum critical point and in the nematic phase., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Corrected minor error in the definition of nematic order parameter

The semimetal-superconductor quantum phase transition on the two-dimensional (2D) surface of a 3D topological insulator is conjectured to exhibit an emergent $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetry, based on a renormalization group (RG) analysis at one-loop order in the $\epsilon$ expansion. We provide additional support for this conjecture by performing a three-loop RG analysis and showing that the supersymmetric fixed point found at this order survives the extrapolation to 2D. We compute critical exponents to order $\epsilon^3$, obtaining the more accurate value $\nu\approx 0.985$ for the correlation length exponent and confirming that the fermion and boson anomalous dimensions remain unchanged beyond one loop, as expected from non-renormalization theorems in supersymmetric theories. We further couple the system to a dynamical $U(1)$ gauge field, and argue that the transition becomes fluctuation-induced first order. We discuss implications of this result for quantum phase transitions between certain symmetry-preserving correlated surface states of 3D topological insulators., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures; v2: published version [Editors' Suggestion]

Negative differential resistance remains an attractive but elusive functionality, so far only finding niche applications. Atom scale entities have shown promising properties, but the viability of device fabrication requires a fuller understanding of electron dynamics than has been possible to date. Using an all-electronic time-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy technique and a Green's function transport model, we study an isolated dangling bond on a hydrogen terminated silicon surface. A robust negative differential resistance feature is identified as a many body phenomenon related to occupation dependent electron capture by a single atomic level. We measure all the time constants involved in this process and present atomically resolved, nanosecond time scale images to simultaneously capture the spatial and temporal variation of the observed feature.

Odd-frequency superconductivity, originally proposed by Berezinskii in 1974, is an exotic phase of matter in which Cooper pairing between electrons is entirely dynamical in nature. The pair potential is an odd function of frequency, leading to a vanishing static superconducting order parameter and exotic types of pairing seemingly inconsistent with Fermi statistics. Motivated by recent experimental progress in the realization of Majorana zero modes in semiconducting nanowires, we show that odd-frequency superconductivity generically appears in a spin-polarized nanowire coupled to Majorana zero modes. We explicitly calculate the superfluid response and show that it is characterized by a paramagnetic Meissner effect., 12 pages, 6 figures

We study the two-dimensional (2D) Hubbard model using exact diagonalization for spin-1/2 fermions on the triangular and honeycomb lattices decorated with a single hexagon per site. In certain parameter ranges, the Hubbard model maps to a quantum compass model on those lattices. On the triangular lattice, the compass model exhibits collinear stripe antiferromagnetism, implying $d$-density wave charge order in the original Hubbard model. On the honeycomb lattice, the compass model has a unique, quantum disordered ground state that transforms nontrivially under lattice reflection. The ground state of the Hubbard model on the decorated honeycomb lattice is thus a 2D fermionic symmetry-protected topological phase. This state -- protected by time-reversal and reflection symmetries -- cannot be connected adiabatically to a free-fermion topological phase., Original: 5+3 pages, 4+2 figures, including the supplemental material. Revised: updated title, content, and references in version 2

Recent angle-resolved photoemission experiments have observed a proximity-induced superconducting gap in the helical surface states of a thin film of the 3D topological insulator Bi$_2$Se$_3$ grown on a superconducting NbSe$_2$ substrate. The superconducting coherence peaks in the electronic density of states are strongly suppressed when the topological insulator is doped with magnetic Mn impurities, which was interpreted as the complete destruction of helical superconductivity in the topological surface states. Motivated by these experiments, we explore a different possibility: gapless helical superconductivity, where a gapless electronic density of states coexists with a nonzero helical superconducting order parameter. We study a model of superconducting Dirac fermions coupled to random magnetic impurities within the Abrikosov-Gor'kov framework, and find finite regions of gapless helical superconductivity in the phase diagram of the system for both proximity-induced and intrinsic superconductivity. For the latter, we derive universal rates of supression of the superconducting transition temperature due to magnetic scattering and, for a Fermi level at the Dirac point, a universal rate of increase of the quantum critical attraction strength., Comment: v2: 13 pages, 9 figures (added Fig. 5 and Appendix); published version

Topological phases of matter are usually realized in deconfined phases of gauge theories. In this context, confined phases with strongly fluctuating gauge fields seem to be irrelevant to the physics of topological phases. For example, the low-energy theory of the two-dimensional (2D) toric code model (i.e. the deconfined phase of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory) is a $U(1)\times U(1)$ Chern-Simons theory in which gauge charges (i.e., $e$ and $m$ particles) are deconfined and the gauge fields are gapped, while the confined phase is topologically trivial. In this paper, we point out a new route to constructing exotic 3D gapped fermionic phases in a confining phase of a gauge theory. Starting from a parton construction with strongly fluctuating compact $U(1)\times U(1)$ gauge fields, we construct gapped phases of interacting fermions by condensing two linearly independent bosonic composite particles consisting of partons and $U(1)\times U(1)$ magnetic monopoles. This can be regarded as a 3D generalization of the 2D Bais-Slingerland condensation mechanism. Charge fractionalization results from a Debye-H\"uckel-like screening cloud formed by the condensed composite particles. Within our general framework, we explore two aspects of symmetry-enriched 3D Abelian topological phases. First, we construct a new fermionic state of matter with time-reversal symmetry and $\Theta\neq \pi$, the fractional topological insulator. Second, we generalize the notion of anyonic symmetry of 2D Abelian topological phases to the charge-loop excitation symmetry ($\mathsf{Charles}$) of 3D Abelian topological phases. We show that line twist defects, which realize $\mathsf{Charles}$ transformations, exhibit non-Abelian fusion properties., Comment: Published version

Supersymmetric (SUSY) gauge theories such as the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model play a fundamental role in modern particle physics, but have not been verified so far in nature. Here, we show that a SUSY gauge theory with dynamical gauge bosons and fermionic gauginos emerges naturally at the pair-density-wave (PDW) quantum phase transition on the surface of a correlated topological insulator (TI) hosting three Dirac cones, such as the topological Kondo insulator SmB$_6$. At the quantum tricritical point between the surface Dirac semimetal and nematic PDW phases, three massless bosonic Cooper pair fields emerge as the superpartners of three massless surface Dirac fermions. The resulting low-energy effective theory is the supersymmetric XYZ model, which is dual by mirror symmetry to $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric quantum electrodynamics (SQED) in 2+1 dimensions, providing a first example of emergent supersymmetric gauge theory in condensed matter systems. Supersymmetry allows us to determine exactly certain critical exponents and the optical conductivity of the surface states at the strongly coupled tricritical point, which may be measured in future experiments., Comment: Published version in Phys. Rev. Lett; More discussions about broader impact of our results to general SUSY theories are added

Topological states of electrons present new avenues to explore the rich phenomenology of correlated quantum matter. Topological insulators (TIs) in particular offer an experimental setting to study novel quantum critical points (QCPs) of massless Dirac fermions, which exist on the sample's surface. Here, we obtain exact results for the zero- and finite-temperature optical conductivity at the semimetal-superconductor QCP for these topological surface states. This strongly interacting QCP is described by a scale invariant theory with emergent supersymmetry, which is a unique symmetry mixing bosons and fermions. We show that supersymmetry implies exact relations between the optical conductivity and two otherwise unrelated properties: the shear viscosity and the entanglement entropy. We discuss experimental considerations for the observation of these signatures in TIs., 5 pages, 1 figure; 12 pages of supplemental material. v2: presentation substantially simplified; published version. v3: included missing supplemental material

Landau's phenomenological theory of Fermi liquids is a fundamental paradigm in many-body physics that has been remarkably successful in explaining the properties of a wide range of interacting fermion systems, such as liquid helium-3, nuclear matter, and electrons in metals. The d-dimensional boundaries of (d+1)-dimensional topological phases of matter such as quantum Hall systems and topological insulators provide new types of many-fermion systems that are topologically distinct from conventional d-dimensional many-fermion systems. We construct a phenomenological Landau theory for the two-dimensional helical Fermi liquid found on the surface of a three-dimensional time-reversal invariant topological insulator. In the presence of rotation symmetry, interactions between quasiparticles are described by ten independent Landau parameters per angular momentum channel, by contrast with the two (symmetric and antisymmetric) Landau parameters for a conventional spin-degenerate Fermi liquid. We then project quasiparticle states onto the Fermi surface and obtain an effectively spinless, projected Landau theory with a single projected Landau parameter per angular momentum channel that captures the spin-momentum locking or nontrivial Berry phase of the Fermi surface. As a result of this nontrivial Berry phase, projection to the Fermi surface can increase or lower the angular momentum of the quasiparticle interactions. We derive equilibrium properties, criteria for Fermi surface instabilities, and collective mode dispersions in terms of the projected Landau parameters. We briefly discuss experimental means of measuring projected Landau parameters., 6 pages + 20 pages of supplementary information

In this paper, we discuss a general procedure by which nonlinear power spectral densities (PSDs) of the harmonic oscillator can be calculated in both the quantum and classical regimes. We begin with an introduction of the damped and undamped classical harmonic oscillator, followed by an overview of the quantum mechanical description of this system. A brief review of both the classical and quantum autocorrelation functions (ACFs) and PSDs follow. We then introduce a general method by which the kth-order PSD for the harmonic oscillator can be calculated, where $k$ is any positive integer. This formulation is verified by first reproducing the known results for the $k = 1$ case of the linear PSD. It is then extended to calculate the second-order PSD, useful in the field of quantum measurement, corresponding to the $k = 2$ case of the generalized method. In this process, damping is included into each of the quantum linear and quadratic PSDs, producing realistic models for the PSDs found in experiment. These quantum PSDs are shown to obey the correspondence principle by matching with what was calculated for their classical counterparts in the high temperature, high-Q limit. Finally, we demonstrate that our results can be reproduced using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, providing an independent check of our resultant PSDs., 27 pages, 5 figures

Motivated by experimental progress in the growth of heavy transition metal oxides, we theoretically study a class of lattice models of interacting fermions with strong spin-orbit coupling. Focusing on interactions of intermediate strength, we derive a low-energy effective field theory for a fully gapped, topologically ordered, fractionalized state with an eight-fold ground-state degeneracy. This state is a fermionic symmetry-enriched topological phase with particle-number conservation and time-reversal symmetry. The topological terms in the effective field theory describe a quantized magnetoelectric response and nontrivial mutual braiding statistics of dynamical extended vortex loops with emergent fermions in the bulk. We explicitly compute the expected mutual statistics in a specific model on the pyrochlore lattice within a slave-particle mean-field theory. We argue that our model also provides a possible condensed-matter realization of oblique confinement., 14 pages including 9 pages of supplementary information; 2 figures. Version published in Phys. Rev. Lett

The topological physics of quantum Hall states is efficiently encoded in purely topological quantum field theories of the Chern-Simons type. The reliable inclusion of low-energy dynamical properties in a continuum description however typically requires proximity to a quantum critical point. We construct a field theory that describes the quantum transition from an isotropic to a nematic Laughlin liquid. The soft mode associated with this transition approached from the isotropic side is identified as the familiar intra-Landau level Girvin-MacDonald-Platzman mode. We obtain z=2 dynamic scaling at the critical point and a description of Goldstone and defect physics on the nematic side. Despite the very different physical motivation, our field theory is essentially identical to a recent "geometric" field theory for a Laughlin liquid proposed by Haldane., Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure; for a short summary, see http://www.princeton.edu/~jmaciejk/fqhn/. v2: added references and comment on Hall viscosity (Sec. IV.B), v3: published version

We study the effect of electron-electron interactions in a spinful Chern insulator. For weak on-site repulsive interactions at half-filling, the system is a weakly correlated Chern insulator adiabatically connected to the noninteracting ground state, while in the limit of infinitely strong repulsion the system is described by an effective spin model recently predicted to exhibit a chiral spin liquid ground state. In the regime of large but finite repulsion, we find an exotic gapped phase with characteristics partaking of both the noninteracting Chern insulator and the chiral spin liquid. This phase has an integer quantized Hall conductivity $2e^2/h$ and quasiparticles with electric charges that are integer multiples of the electron charge $e$, but the ground state on the torus is four-fold degenerate and quasiparticles have fractional statistics. We discuss how these unusual properties affect the outcome of a charge pumping experiment and, by deriving the topological field theory, elucidate that the topological order is of the exotic $\mathbb{Z}_2$ double-semion type., Comment: Published version. Main text: 5+ pages, 2 figures; supplementary material: 5 pages, 1 figure

Time-reversal invariant three-dimensional topological insulators can be defined fundamentally by a topological field theory with a quantized axion angle theta of zero or pi. It was recently shown that fractional quantized values of theta are consistent with time-reversal invariance if deconfined, gapped, fractionally charged bulk excitations appear in the low-energy spectrum due to strong correlation effects, leading to the concept of a fractional topological insulator. These fractionally charged excitations are coupled to emergent gauge fields which ensure that the microscopic degrees of freedom, the original electrons, are gauge-invariant objects. A first step towards the construction of microscopic models of fractional topological insulators is to understand the nature of these emergent gauge theories and their corresponding phases. In this work, we show that low-energy effective gauge theories of both Abelian or non-Abelian type are consistent with a fractional quantized axion angle if they admit a Coulomb phase or a Higgs phase with gauge group broken down to a discrete subgroup. The Coulomb phases support gapless but electrically neutral bulk excitations while the Higgs phases are fully gapped. The Higgs and non-Abelian Coulomb phases exhibit multiple ground states on boundaryless spatial 3-manifolds with nontrivial first homology, while the Abelian Coulomb phase has a unique ground state. The ground state degeneracy receives an additional contribution on manifolds with boundary due to the induced boundary Chern-Simons term., Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure; published version

Topological insulators can be generally defined by a topological field theory with an axion angle theta of 0 or pi. In this work, we introduce the concept of fractional topological insulator defined by a fractional axion angle and show that it can be consistent with time reversal (T) invariance if ground state degeneracies are present. The fractional axion angle can be measured experimentally by the quantized fractional bulk magnetoelectric polarization P_3, and a `halved' fractional quantum Hall effect on the surface with Hall conductance of the form (p/q)(e^2/2h) with p,q odd. In the simplest of these states the electron behaves as a bound state of three fractionally charged `quarks' coupled to a deconfined non-Abelian SU(3) `color' gauge field, where the fractional charge of the quarks changes the quantization condition of P_3 and allows fractional values consistent with T-invariance., 4+epsilon pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett

Fundamental topological phenomena in condensed matter physics are associated with a quantized electromagnetic response in units of fundamental constants. Recently, it has been predicted theoretically that the time-reversal invariant topological insulator in three dimensions exhibits a topological magnetoelectric effect quantized in units of the fine structure constant $\alpha=e^2/\hbar c$. In this work, we propose an optical experiment to directly measure this topological quantization phenomenon, independent of material details. Our proposal also provides a way to measure the half-quantized Hall conductances on the two surfaces of the topological insulator independently of each other., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; v3: published version

We propose a conductance measurement to detect the backscattering of chiral Majorana edge states. Because normal and Andreev processes have equal probability for backscattering of a single chiral Majorana edge state, there is qualitative difference from backscattering of a chiral Dirac edge state, giving rise to half-integer Hall conductivity and decoupling of fluctuation in incoming and outgoing modes. The latter can be detected through thermal noise measurement. These experimental signatures of Majorana fermions are robust at finite temperature and do not require the size of the backscattering region to be mesoscopic., Comment: 4.1 pages, 4 figures

Ever since its discovery, the electron spin has only been measured or manipulated through the application of an electromagnetic force acting on the associated magnetic moment. In this work, we propose a spin Aharonov-Bohm effect in which the electron spin is controlled by a magnetic flux while no electromagnetic field is acting on the electron. Such a nonlocal spin manipulation is realized in an Aharonov-Bohm ring made from the recently discovered quantum spin Hall insulator, by taking advantage of the defining property of the quantum spin Hall edge states: the one-to-one correspondence between spin polarization and direction of propagation. The proposed setup can be used to realize a new spintronics device, the topological spin transistor, in which the spin rotation is completely controlled by a magnetic flux of hc/2e, independently of the details of the sample., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Following the recent observation of the quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect in HgTe quantum wells, an important issue is to understand the effect of impurities on transport in the QSH regime. Using linear response and renormalization group methods, we calculate the edge conductance of a QSH insulator as a function of temperature in the presence of a magnetic impurity. At high temperatures, Kondo and/or two-particle scattering give rise to a logarithmic temperature dependence. At low temperatures, for weak Coulomb interactions in the edge liquid the conductance is restored to unitarity with unusual power-laws characteristic of a `local helical liquid', while for strong interactions transport proceeds by weak tunneling through the impurity where only half an electron charge is transferred in each tunneling event., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett

In this work, we present a theory to calculate the time-dependent current flowing through an arbitrary noninteracting nanoscale phase-coherent device connected to arbitrary noninteracting external leads, in response to sharp step- and square-shaped voltage pulses. Our analysis is based on the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green's-functions formalism, and provides an exact analytical solution to the transport equations in the far from equilibrium, nonlinear response regime. However, the essential feature of our solution is that it does not rely on the commonly used wideband approximation where the coupling between device scattering region and leads is taken to be independent of energy, and as such provides a way to perform transient transport calculations from first principles on realistic systems, taking into account the detailed electronic structure of the device scattering region and the leads. We then perform a model calculation for a quantum dot with Lorentzian linewidth and show how interesting finite-bandwidth effects arise in the time-dependent current dynamics.

The algebraic spin liquid is a long-sought-after phase of matter characterized by the absence of quasiparticle excitations, a low-energy description in terms of emergent Dirac fermions and gauge fields interacting according to (2+1)D quantum electrodynamics (QED$_3$), and power-law correlations with universal exponents. The prototypical algebraic spin liquid is the Affleck-Marston $\pi$-flux phase, originally proposed as a possible ground state of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the 2D square lattice. While the latter model is now known to order antiferromagnetically at zero temperature, recent sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations of spin-1/2 fermions coupled to a compact U(1) gauge field on the square lattice have shown that quantum fluctuations can destroy N\'eel order and drive a direct quantum phase transition to the $\pi$-flux phase. We show this transition is in the universality class of the chiral Heisenberg QED$_3$-Gross-Neveu-Yukawa model with a single SU(2) doublet of four-component Dirac fermions (i.e., $N_f=1$), pointing out important differences with the corresponding putative transition on the kagome lattice. Using an $\epsilon$ expansion below four spacetime dimensions to four-loop order, and a large-$N_f$ expansion up to second order, we show the transition is continuous and compute various thermodynamic and susceptibility critical exponents at this transition, setting the stage for future numerical determinations of these quantities. As a byproduct of our analysis, we also obtain charge-density-wave and valence-bond-solid susceptibility exponents at the semimetal-N\'eel transition for interacting fermions on the honeycomb lattice., Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables; published version