arXiv subjects

Feng Tang

Publications and source records attributed to Feng Tang.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Duality,Hidden Symmetry and Dynamic Isomerism in 2D Hinge Structures

Recently, a new type of duality was reported in some deformable mechanical networks which exhibit Kramers-like degeneracy in phononic spectrum at the self-dual point. In this work, we clarify the origin of this duality and propose a design principle of 2D self-dual structures with arbitrary complexity. We find that this duality originates from the (PCI) symmetry of the hinge, which belongs to a more general end-fixed scaling transformation. This symmetry gives the structure an extra degree of freedom without modifying its dynamics. This results in , i.e., dissimilar 2D mechanical structures, either periodic or aperiodic, having identical dynamic modes, based on which we demonstrate a new type of wave-guide without reflection or loss. Moreover, the PCI symmetry allows us to design various 2D periodic isostatic networks with hinge duality. At last, by further studying a 2D non-mechanical magnonic system, we show that the duality and the associated hidden symmetry should exist in a broad range of Hamiltonian systems.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2022

Magnetic hourglass fermions: from exhaustive symmetry conditions to high-throughput materials predictions

Many topological band crossings (BCs) have been predicted efficiently utilizing the symmetry properties of wave-functions at high-symmetry points. Among various BCs, the so-called hourglass BCs (with the low-energy excitations dubbed as hourglass fermions) are fascinating since they can be guaranteed to exist under specific symmetry conditions even without realistic calculations. Such novel property renders the theoretical prediction on magnetic topological metals with hourglass BC (being Weyl point, Dirac point, lying in nodal loop, and so on) independent on the calculation methods and only determined by the symmetry of crystal and magnetic structure, namely, the magnetic space group (MSG). To date, there have no magnetic material verified with hourglass fermions. Here we first list all symmetry conditions that allow hourglass BCs in the 1651 MSGs and 528 magnetic layer groups (MLGs) with spin-orbital coupling (SOC): Only 331 MSGs and 53 MLGs can host hourglass BCs. Among these results, the essential hourglass BCs are highlighted, whose MSGs are then applied to predict hundreds of magnetic materials from the MAGNDATA magnetic materials database and first-principles calculations in the frame of LDA+SOC+U verify the hourglass BCs for different values of $U$. We take CsMn$_2$F$_6$, synthesized recently with a distorted pyrochlore structure to illustrate the hourglass band structure in detail which is very clear around the Fermi level and the topologically protected surface drumhead states of (100) surface are found to spread over more than one half surface Brillouin zone and only appear in a narrow energy window ($\sim 30$ meV), which could induce intriguing stability by prominent electronic correlation.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Ranking-Based Siamese Visual Tracking

Current Siamese-based trackers mainly formulate the visual tracking into two independent subtasks, including classification and localization. They learn the classification subnetwork by processing each sample separately and neglect the relationship among positive and negative samples. Moreover, such tracking paradigm takes only the classification confidence of proposals for the final prediction, which may yield the misalignment between classification and localization. To resolve these issues, this paper proposes a ranking-based optimization algorithm to explore the relationship among different proposals. To this end, we introduce two ranking losses, including the classification one and the IoU-guided one, as optimization constraints. The classification ranking loss can ensure that positive samples rank higher than hard negative ones, i.e., distractors, so that the trackers can select the foreground samples successfully without being fooled by the distractors. The IoU-guided ranking loss aims to align classification confidence scores with the Intersection over Union(IoU) of the corresponding localization prediction for positive samples, enabling the well-localized prediction to be represented by high classification confidence. Specifically, the proposed two ranking losses are compatible with most Siamese trackers and incur no additional computation for inference. Extensive experiments on seven tracking benchmarks, including OTB100, UAV123, TC128, VOT2016, NFS30, GOT-10k and LaSOT, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed ranking-based optimization algorithm. The code and raw results are available at https://github.com/sansanfree/RBO.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2022

High-throughput Investigations of Topological and Nodal Superconductors

The theory of symmetry indicators has enabled database searches for topological materials in normal conducting phases, which has led to several encyclopedic topological material databases. To date, such a database for topological superconductors is yet to be achieved because of the lack of information about pairing symmetries of realistic materials. In this work, sidestepping this issue, we tackle an alternative problem: the predictions of topological and nodal superconductivity in materials for each single-valued representation of point groups. Based on recently developed symmetry indicators for superconductors, we provide comprehensive mappings from pairing symmetries to topological or nodal superconducting nature for nonmagnetic materials listed in Inorganic Crystal Structure Database. We quantitatively show that around 90\% of computed materials are topological or nodal superconductors when a pairing that belongs to a one-dimensional nontrivial irrep of point groups is assumed. When materials are representation-enforced nodal superconductors, positions and shapes of the nodes are also identified. These data are aggregated at \textit{Database of Topological and Nodal Supercoductors}. We also provide a subroutine \textit{Topological Supercon}, which allows users to examine the topological nature in the superconducting phase of any material themselves by uploading the result of first-principles calculations as an input. Our database and subroutine, when combined with experiments, will help us understand the pairing mechanism and facilitate realizations of the long-sought Majorana fermions promising for topological quantum computations.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2022

Complete classification of band nodal structures

Nodal structures (NSrs) where energy bands meet to be degenerate in the Brillouin zone (BZ) in the form of point, line or surface, received immense research interest in the past decade. However, the nearly NSrs with negligible gaps, can also own many exotic quantum responses and nontrivial topological properties and deserve a systematic investigation. Here, we provide a complete list of all symmetry-diagonalizable strictly and nearly NSrs in the 1651 magnetic space groups (MSGs) and 528 magnetic layer groups (MLGs) in both spinful and spinless settings. We first apply compatibility relations (CRs) which encode how bands split from a band node (BN) (located at a symmetric point of BZ), to obtain all NSrs (emanating from the BN). The NSrs by CRs are definitely strict and are exhaustively enumerated based on all irreducible representations of the little groups for all BNs. We then construct $k\cdot p$ models around BNs and prove that there is a cutoff $k\cdot p$ order (6 at most) for any BN which is sufficient to predict the corresponding strictly NSrs and including higher-order $k\cdot p$ terms cannot gap the NSrs. We provide all $k\cdot p$ models up to the cutoff orders around all the BNs, and comprehensively explore all the nearly NSrs by lowering the $k\cdot p$ order. Our results reveal that the same as BNs, the NSrs, especially the nearly NSrs, are also ubiquitous. For example, while strictly nodal surface can only exist in some nonsymmorphic MSGs, nearly nodal surface can occur even in many low symmetric MSGs. Moreover, we also find that for some BNs, the method of $k\cdot p$ modeling could give more strictly NSrs than CRs. With our complete list, one can conveniently obtain all possible NSrs for any two/three-dimensional and nonmagnetic/magnetic material, and given a target NSr, one can also design/search for materials realizations based on the MSGs/MLGs.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Self-Assembly of Isostatic Self-Dual Colloidal Crystals

Self-dual structures whose dual counterparts are themselves possess unique hidden symmetry, beyond the description of classical spatial symmetry groups. Here we propose a strategy based on { a nematic monolayer of} attractive half-cylindrical colloids to self-assemble these exotic structures. { This system can be seen as a 2D system of semi-disks.} By using Monte Carlo simulations, we discover two isostatic self-dual crystals, i.e., an unreported crystal with pmg {space-group} symmetry and the twisted Kagome crystal. For the pmg crystal approaching the critical point, we find the double degeneracy of the {full} phononic spectrum at the self-dual point, and the merging of two tilted Weyl nodes into one \emph{critically-tilted} Dirac node. The latter is `accidentally' located on the high-symmetry line. The formation of this unconventional Dirac node is due to the emergence of the critical flat bands at the self-dual point, which are linear combinations of \emph{finite-frequency} floppy modes. These modes can be understood as mechanically-coupled self-dual rhomb chains vibrating in some unique uncoupled ways. Our work paves the way for designing and fabricating self-dual materials with exotic mechanical or phononic properties.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2021

Exhaustive constructions of effective models in 1651 magnetic space groups

The $k\cdot p$ effective Hamiltonians have been widely applied to predict a large variety of phenomena in condensed matter systems. Currently, the popular way to construct a $k\cdot p$ Hamiltonian is in a case-by-case manner, which significantly limits its applications especially for magnetic systems. In this work, we first explicitly tabulate all the representation matrices for all single-valued and double-valued irreducible representations (irreps) and co-irreps for the little groups of all special $k$ points in 1651 magnetic space groups (including nonmagnetic 230 space groups). Then through group theory analysis, we obtain 4 857 832 elementary $k\cdot p$ matrix blocks, and directly using these matrix blocks given in this work one can obtain any $k\cdot p$ Hamiltonian for any periodic system, including bulk or boundary. We believe our work will accelerate the studies in various fields in condensed matter physics, such as semiconductors, topological physics, spintronics, etc. We also expect our exhaustive results on $k\cdot p$ models will play vital roles in connecting other fields with condensed matter physics and promote realizations of diverse theoretical models which possess exotic properties but lack practical materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Determining the range of magnetic interactions from the relations between magnon eigenvalues at high-symmetry k points

Magnetic exchange interactions (MEIs) define networks of coupled magnetic moments and lead to a surprisingly rich variety of their magnetic properties. Typically MEIs can be estimated by fitting experimental results. But how many MEIs need to be included in the fitting process for a material is not clear a priori, which limits the quality of results obtained by these conventional methods. In this paper, based on linear spin-wave theory but without performing matrix diagonalization, we show that for a general quadratic spin Hamiltonian, there is a simple relation between the Fourier transform of MEIs and the sum of square of magnon energies (SSME). We further show that according to the real-space distance range within which MEIs are considered relevant, one can obtain the corresponding relationships between SSME in momentum space. We also develop a theoretical tool for tabulating the rule about SSME. By directly utilizing these characteristics and the experimental magnon energies at only a few high-symmetry k points in the Brillouin zone, one can obtain strong constraints about the range of exchange path beyond which MEIs can be safely neglected. Our methodology is also general applicable for other Hamiltonian with quadratic Fermi or Boson operators.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Symmetry-enforced Band Nodes in 230 Space Groups

Crystallographic symmetries enforcing band touchings (BTs) in the Brillouin zone (BZ) have been utilized to classify and predict the topological semimetals. Though the early proposed topological semimetals contain isolated nodal points in the BZ, the proposed nodal line semimetals later could host various structures of several nodal lines/loops: nodal chains, nodal nets or Hopf-links, etc. In this work, using compatibility relations, we first list all possible high symmetry lines (HSLs) that can be nodal lines itself, high symmetry planes (HSPLs) that can host nodal loops, high symmetry planes (HSPLs) that are nodal surfaces for all 230 SGs, with spin-orbit coupling and time-reversal symmetry considered or not. We then show how to diagnose a nodal loop from the band crossing in an HSL, or nodal line/surface from irreducible representation (irrep) of an high-symmetry point (HSP), while the rest cases correspond to nodal points. Among our results, those essential cases, for which the nodal points/lines/loops/surfaces must exist, are highlighted since they are promising for the realizations of (nearly) ideal nodal point/line/loop/surface semimetals, as well as systems with flexible tunability owning fixed structure of topological nodal points/lines/loops/surfaces. Based on our results, SGs allowing Hopf-link structure with one straight nodal line threading a nodal loop, or two nesting nodal loops lying in two respective high symmetry planes, are highlighted, with the predicted materials being B$_5$Pb$_2$IO$_9$ in SG 34 and SrAl$_2$Au$_3$ in SG 62, respectively. Our exhaustive results could serve as a useful guide for efficiently predicting and designing materials or artificial systems owning exotic geometric nodal structures of energy bands simply based on structure symmetries.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Exhaustive List of Topological Hourglass Band Crossings in 230 Space Groups

Topological semimetals with band crossings (BCs) near the Fermi level have attracted intense research activities in the past several years. Among various BCs, those enforced by an hourglass-like connectivity pattern, which are just located at the vertex in the neck of an hourglass and thus called hourglass BCs (HBCs), show interesting topological properties and are intimately related with the space group symmetry. Through checking compatibility relations in the Brillouin zone (BZ), we list all possible HBCs for all 230 space groups by identifying positions of HBCs as well as the compatibility relations related with the HBCs.The HBCs can be coexisting with conventional topological BCs such as Dirac andWeyl fermions and based on our exhaustive list, the dimensionality and degeneracy of the HBCs can be quickly identified. It is also found that the HBCs can be classified into two categories: one contains essential HBCs which are guaranteed to exist, while the HBCs in the other category may be tuned to disappear. Our results can help in efficiently predicting hourglass semimetals combined with first-principles calculations as well as studying transitions among various topological crystalline phases.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

XFe4Ge2 (X = Y, Lu) and Mn3Pt: Filling-enforced magnetic topological metals

Magnetism, coupled with nontrivial band topology, can bring about many interesting and exotic phenomena, so that magnetic topological materials have attracted persistent research interest. However, compared with non-magnetic topological materials (TMs), the magnetic TMs are less studied, since their magnetic structures and topological phase transitions are usually complex and the first-principles predictions are usually sensitive on the effect of Coulomb interaction. In this work, we present a comprehensive investigation of XFe4Ge2 (X = Y, Lu) and Mn3Pt, and find these materials to be filling-enforced magnetic topological metals. Our first-principles calculations show that XFe4Ge2 (X = Y, Lu) host Dirac points near the Fermi level at high symmetry point S. These Dirac points are protected by PT symmetry (P and T are inversion and time-reversal transformations, respectively) and a 2-fold screw rotation symmetry. Moreover, through breaking PT symmetry, the Dirac points would split into Weyl nodes. Mn3Pt is found to host 4-fold degenerate band crossings in the whole high symmetry path of A-Z. We also utilize the GGA+U scheme to take into account the effect of Coulomb repulsion and find that the filling-enforced topological properties are naturally insensitive on U.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Two-dimensional topological materials discovery by symmetry-indicator method

Two-dimensional (2D) topological materials (TMs) have attracted tremendous attention due to the promise of revolutionary devices with non-dissipative electric or spin currents. Unfortunately, the scarcity of 2D TMs holds back the experimental realization of such devices. In this work, based on our recently developed, highly efficient TM discovery algorithm using symmetry indicators, we explore the possible 2D TMs in all non-magnetic compounds in four recently proposed materials databases for possible 2D materials. We identify hundreds of 2D TM candidates, including 205 topological (crystalline) insulators and 299 topological semimetals. In particular, we highlight MoS, with a mirror Chern number of -4, as a possible experimental platform for studying the interaction-induced modification to the topological classification of materials. Our results winnow out the topologically interesting 2D materials from these databases and provide a TM gene pool which for further experimental studies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Towards ideal topological materials: Comprehensive database searches using symmetry indicators

Topological materials (TMs) showcase intriguing physical properties defying expectations based on conventional materials, and hold promise for the development of devices with new functionalities. While several theoretically proposed TMs have been experimentally confirmed, extensive experimental exploration of topological properties as well as applications in realistic devices have been held back due to the lack of excellent TMs in which interference from trivial Fermi surface states is minimized. We tackle this problem in the present work by applying our recently developed method of symmetry indicators to all non-magnetic compounds in the 230 space groups. An exhaustive database search reveals thousands of TM candidates. Of these, we highlight the excellent TMs, the 258 topological insulators and 165 topological crystalline insulators which have either noticeable full band gap or a considerable direct gap together with small trivial Fermi pockets. We also give a list of 489 topological semimetals with the band crossing points located near the Fermi level. All predictions obtained through standard generalized gradient approximation (GGA) calculations were cross-checked with the modified Becke-Johnson (MBJ) potential calculations, appropriate for narrow gap materials. With the electronic and optical behavior around the Fermi level dominated by the topologically non-trivial bands, these newly found TMs candidates open wide possibilities for realizing the promise of TMs in next-generation electronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Calculated magnetic exchange interactions in Dirac magnon material Cu3TeO6

Recently topological aspects of magnon band structure have attracted much interest, and especially, the Dirac magnons in Cu3TeO6 have been observed experimentally. In this work, we calculate the magnetic exchange interactions J's using the first-principles linear-response approach and find that these J's are short-range and negligible for the Cu-Cu atomic pair apart by longer than 7 Angstrom. Moreover there are only 5 sizable magnetic exchange interactions, and according to their signs and strengths, modest magnetic frustration is expected. Based on the obtained magnetic exchange couplings, we successfully reproduce the experimental spin-wave dispersions. The calculated neutron scattering cross section also agrees very well with the experiments. We also calculate Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMIs) and estimate the canting angle (about 1.3°) of the magnetic non-collinearity based on the competition between DMIs and J's, which is consistent with the experiment. The small canting angle agrees with that the current experiments cannot distinguish the DMI induced nodal line from a Dirac point in the spin-wave spectrum. Finally we analytically prove that the "sum rule" conjectured in [Nat. Phys. 14, 1011 (2018)] holds but only up to the 11th nearest neighbour.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Topological Materials Discovery By Large-order symmetry indicators

Crystalline symmetries play an important role in the classification of band structures, and the rich variety of spatial symmetries in solids leads to various topological crystalline phases (TCPs). However, compared with topological insulators and Dirac/Weyl semimetals, relatively few realistic materials candidates have been proposed for TCPs. Based on our recently developed method for the efficient discovery of topological materials using symmetry indicators, we explore topological materials in five space groups (i.e. SGs87,140,221,191,194), which are indexed by large order strong symmetry based indicators (Z8 and Z12) allowing for the realization of several kinds of gapless boundary states in a single compound. We predict many TCPs, and the representative materials include: Pt3Ge(SG140), graphite(SG194), XPt3 (SG221,X=Sn,Pb), Au4Ti (SG87) and Ti2Sn (SG194). As by-products, we also find that AgXF3 (SG140,X=Rb,Cs) and AgAsX (SG194,X=Sr,Ba) are good Dirac semimetals with clean Fermi surface. The proposed materials provide a good platform to study the novel properties emerging from the interplay between different types of boundary states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Efficient Topological Materials Discovery Using Symmetry Indicators

Although the richness of spatial symmetries has led to a rapidly expanding inventory of possible topological crystalline (TC) phases of electrons, physical realizations have been slow to materialize due to the practical difficulty to ascertaining band topology in realistic calculations. Here, we integrate the recently established theory of symmetry indicators of band topology into first-principle band-structure calculations, and test it on a databases of previously synthesized crystals. The combined algorithm is found to efficiently unearth topological materials and predict topological properties like protected surface states. On applying our algorithm to just 8 out of the 230 space groups, we already discover numerous materials candidates displaying a diversity of topological phenomena, which are simultaneously captured in a single sweep. The list includes recently proposed classes of TC insulators that had no previous materials realization as well as other topological phases, including: (i) a screw-protected 3D TC insulator, \b{eta}-MoTe2, with gapped surfaces except for 1D helical "hinge" states; (ii) a rotation-protected TC insulator BiBr with coexisting surface Dirac cones and hinge states; (iii) non-centrosymmetric Z2 topological insulators undetectable using the well-established parity criterion, AgXO (X=Na,K,Rb); (iv) a Dirac semimetal MgBi2O6; (v) a Dirac nodal-line semimetal AgF2; and (vi) a metal with three-fold degenerate band crossing near the Fermi energy, AuLiMgSn. Our work showcases how the recent theoretical insights on the fundamentals of band structures can aid in the practical goal of discovering new topological materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Majorana fermions in three dimensions and realization in critical Weyl semimetals

We present two band models for free fermion with charge conjugation symmetry in three dimensions. Without time reversal symmetry (TRS), the weak pairing gapless $A$-phase is a Majorana fermion $p_x+ip_y$ wave FFLO state while the strong pairing gapped $B$-phase belongs to topologically trivial Class $D$. With TRS, there is a Majorana fermion $B$-phase belonging to Class $DIII$ with a non-zero Hopf invariant. The TRS $A$-phase is also a Majorana fermion FFLO state with TRS. The surface states of the TRS $B$-phase are either a valley-momentum locked Majorana-Dirac cone or a linear-quadratic mixed cone for a specific surface. The surface states of the $A$-phase on one surface are topologically nontrivial, either having $\mathbb{Z}$ or $\mathbb{Z}_2$ invariant depending on whether the system is TRS or not. The edge states of that surface are gapless Majorana modes. The Majorana fermion gapless FFLO states can be realized in critical Weyl semimetals (WSM) in which dual single Weyl nodes form dipoles and are nearly annihilated. The gapped $B$-phase emerges when Weyl node dipoles are about to be created. The WSM TaAs-family, a type-II WSM series Mo$_x$W$_{1-x}$Te$_2$-family, possible WSM La/LuBi$_{1-x}$ Sb$_x$Te$_3$ and topological crystalline insulators Sn$_{1-x}$Pb$_x$(Te,Se) are candidates to be manipulated into these critical states based on Majorana fermion models.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Realization of Massive Relativistic Spin-3/2 Rarita-Schwinger Quasiparticle in Condensed Matter Systems

The spin-3/2 elementary particle, known as Rarita-Schwinger (RS) fermion, is described by a vector-spinor field ψ_{μα}, whose number of components is larger than its independent degrees of freedom (DOF). Thus the RS equations contain nontrivial constraints to eliminate the redundant DOF. Consequently the standard procedure adopted in realizing relativistic spin-1/2 quasi-particle is not capable of creating the RS fermion in condensed matter systems. In this work, we propose a generic method to construct a Hamiltonian which implicitly contains the RS constraints, thus includes the eigenstates and energy dispersions being exactly the same as those of RS equations. By implementing our 16X16 or 6X6 Hamiltonian, one can realize the 3 dimensional or 2 dimensional (2D) massive RS quasiparticles, respectively. In the non-relativistic limit, the 2D 6X6 Hamiltonian can be reduced to two 3X3 Hamiltonians which describe the positive and negative energy parts respectively. Due to the nontrivial constraints, this simplified 2D massive RS quasiparticle has an exotic property: it has vanishing orbital magnetic moment while its orbital magnetization is finite. Finally, we discuss the material realization of RS quasiparticle. Our study provides an opportunity to realize higher spin elementary fermions with constraints in condensed matter systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗