Suppression of superfluid stiffness near Lifshitz-point instability to finite momentum superconductivity

Abstract

We derive the effective Ginzburg-Landau theory for finite momentum (FFLO/PDW) superconductivity without spin population imbalance from a model with local attraction and repulsive pair-hopping. We find that the GL free energy must include up to sixth order derivatives of the order parameter, providing a unified description of the interdependency of zero and finite momentum superconductivity. For weak pair-hopping the phase diagram contains a line of Lifshitz points where vanishing superfluid stiffness induces a continuous change to a long wavelength Fulde-Ferrell (FF) state. For larger pair-hopping there is a bicritical region where the pair-momentum changes discontinuously. Here the FF type state is near degenerate with the Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) or Pair-Density-wave (PDW) type state. At the intersection of these two regimes there is a "Super-Lifshitz" point with extra soft fluctuations. The instability to finite momentum superconductivity occurs for arbitrarily weak pair-hopping for sufficiently large attraction suggesting that even a small repulsive pair-hopping may be significant in a microscopic model of strongly correlated superconductivity. Several generic features of the model may have bearing on the cuprate superconductors, including the suppression of superfluid stiffness in proximity to a Lifshitz point as well as the existence of subleading FFLO order (or vice versa) in the bicritical regime.