arXiv subjects

Jiabin Yu

Publications and source records attributed to Jiabin Yu.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Reply to "Comment on 'Nontrivial Quantum Geometry and the Strength of Electron-Phonon Coupling', arXiv:2305.02340, J. Yu, C. J. Ciccarino, R. Bianco, I. Errea, P. Narang, B. A. Bernevig"

This is our reply to "Comment on 'Nontrivial Quantum Geometry and the Strength of Electron-Phonon Coupling', arXiv:2305.02340, J. Yu, C. J. Ciccarino, R. Bianco, I. Errea, P. Narang, B. A. Bernevig" by Prof. Pickett, which focuses on the MgB$_2$ part of our work. We show that the entirety of the criticism in Prof. Pickett's comment pertaining to our work (arXiv:2305.02340) is invalid.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2022

Classification of Interacting Dirac Semimetals

Topological band theory predicts a $\mathbb{Z}$ classification of three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetals (DSMs) at the single-particle level. Namely, an arbitrary number of identical bulk Dirac nodes will always remain locally stable and gapless in the single-particle band spectrum, as long as the protecting symmetry is preserved. In this work, we find that this single-particle classification for $C_n$-symmetric DSMs will break down to $\mathbb{Z}_{n/\text{gcd}(2,n)}$ in the presence of symmetry-preserving electron interactions. Our theory is based on a dimensional reduction strategy which reduces a 3D Dirac fermions to 1D building blocks, i.e., vortex-line modes, while respecting all the key symmetries. Using bosonization technique, we find that there exists a minimal number $N=n/\text{gcd}(2,n)$ such that the collection of vortex-line modes in $N$ copies of DSMs can be symmetrically eliminated via four-fermion interactions. While this gapping mechanism does not have any free-fermion counterpart, it yields an intuitive ``electron-trion coupling" picture. By developing a topological field theory for DSMs and further checking the anomaly-free condition, we independently arrive at the same classification results. Our theory paves the way for understanding topological crystalline semimetallic phases in the strongly correlated regime.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Effective field theories of topological crystalline insulators and topological crystals

We present a general approach to obtain effective field theories for topological crystalline insulators whose low-energy theories are described by massive Dirac fermions. We show that these phases are characterized by the responses to spatially dependent mass parameters with interfaces. These mass interfaces implement the dimensional reduction procedure such that the state of interest is smoothly deformed into a topological crystal, which serves as a representative state of a phase in the general classification. Effective field theories are obtained by integrating out the massive Dirac fermions, and various quantized topological terms are uncovered. Our approach can be generalized to other crystalline symmetry protected topological phases and provides a general strategy to derive effective field theories for such crystalline topological phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Euler Obstructed Cooper Pairing: Nodal Superconductivity and Hinge Majorana Zero Modes

Since the proposal of monopole Cooper pairing in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 067003 (2018)], considerable research efforts have been dedicated to the study of Cooper pairing order parameters constrained (or obstructed) by the nontrivial normal-state band topology at Fermi surfaces in 3D systems. In the current work, we generalize the topologically obstructed pairings between Chern states (like the monopole Cooper pairing) by proposing Euler obstructed Cooper pairing in 3D systems. The Euler obstructed Cooper pairing widely exists between two Fermi surfaces with nontrivial band topology characterized by nonzero Euler numbers; such Fermi surfaces can exist in 3D PT-protected spinless-Dirac/nodal-line semimetals with negligible spin-orbit coupling, where PT is the space-time inversion symmetry. An Euler obstructed pairing channel must have pairing nodes on the pairing-relevant Fermi surfaces, and the total winding number of the pairing nodes is determined by the sum or difference of the Euler numbers on the Fermi surfaces. In particular, we find that when the normal state is time-reversal invariant and the pairing is weak, a sufficiently-dominant Euler obstructed pairing channel with zero total momentum leads to nodal superconductivity. If the Fermi surface splitting is small, the resultant nodal superconductor hosts hinge Majorana zero modes. The possible dominance of the Euler obstructed pairing channel near the superconducting transition and the robustness of the hinge Majorana zero modes against disorder are explicitly demonstrated using effective or tight-binding models. Our work presents the first class of higher-order nodal superconductivity originating from the topologically obstructed Cooper pairing.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2022

Euler Obstructed Cooper Pairing in Twisted Bilayer Graphene: Nematic Nodal Superconductivity and Bounded Superfluid Weight

Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) hosts normal-state nearly-flat bands with nonzero Euler numbers and shows superconductivity. In this work, we study the effects of the nontrivial normal-state band topology on the intervalley $C_{2z}\mathcal{T}$-invariant mean-field Cooper pairing order parameter in MATBG. We show that the pairing order parameter can always be split into a trivial channel and an Euler obstructed channel in all gauges for the normal-state basis, generalizing the previously-studied channel splitting in the Chern gauge. The nonzero normal-state Euler numbers require the pairing gap function of the Euler obstructed channel to have zeros, while the trivial channel can have a nonvanishing pairing gap function. When the pairing is spontaneously nematic, we find that a sufficiently-dominant Euler obstructed channel with two zeros typically leads to nodal superconductivity. Under the approximation of exactly-flat bands, we find that the mean-field zero-temperature superfluid weight is generally bounded from below, no matter whether the Euler obstructed channel is dominant or not, generalizing the previously-derived bound for the uniform s-wave pairing. We numerically verify these statements for pairings derived from a local attractive interaction. Our work suggests that Euler obstructed Cooper pairing may play an essential role in the superconducting MATBG.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2022

Pseudo-gauge Fields in Dirac and Weyl Materials

Electrons in low-temperature solids are governed by the non-relativistic Schr$\ddot{o}$dinger equation, since the electron velocities are much slower than the speed of light. Remarkably, the low-energy quasi-particles given by electrons in various materials can behave as relativistic Dirac/Weyl fermions that obey the relativistic Dirac/Weyl equation. These materials are called "Dirac/Weyl materials", which provide a tunable platform to test relativistic quantum phenomena in table-top experiments. More interestingly, different types of physical fields in these Weyl/Dirac materials, such as magnetic fluctuations, lattice vibration, strain, and material inhomogeneity, can couple to the "relativistic" quasi-particles in a similar way as the $U(1)$ gauge coupling. As these fields do not have gauge-invariant dynamics in general, we refer to them as "pseudo-gauge fields". In this chapter, we overview the concept and the physical consequences of pseudo-gauge fields in Weyl/Dirac materials. In particular, we will demonstrate that pseudo-gauge fields can provide a unified understanding of a variety of physical phenomena, including chiral zero modes inside a magnetic vortex core of magnetic Weyl semimetals, a giant current response at magnetic resonance in magnetic topological insulators, and piezo-electromagnetic response in time-reversal invariant systems. These phenomena are deeply related to various concepts in high-energy physics, such as chiral anomaly and axion electrodynamics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Dynamical Piezomagnetic Effect in Time-Reversal Invariant Weyl Semimetals with Axionic Charge-Density Waves

Charge-density waves (CDWs) in Weyl semimetals (WSMs) have been shown to induce an exotic axionic insulating phase in which the sliding mode (phason) of the CDW acts as a dynamical axion field, giving rise to a large positive magneto-conductance [Wang et al., Phys. Rev. B 87, 161107(R) (2013); Roy et al., Phys. Rev. B 92, 125141 (2015); J. Gooth et al., Nature 575, 315 (2019)]. In this work, we predict that dynamical strain can induce a bulk orbital magnetization in time-reversal- (TR-) invariant WSMs that are gapped by a CDW. We term this effect the "dynamical piezomagnetic effect" (DPME). Unlike in [J. Gooth et al., Nature 575, 315 (2019)], the DPME introduced in this work occurs in a bulk-constant (i.e., static and spatially homogeneous in the bulk) CDW, and does not rely on fluctuations, such as a phason. By studying the low-energy effective theory and a minimal tight-binding (TB) model, we find that the DPME originates from an effective valley axion field that couples the electromagnetic gauge field with a strain-induced pseudo-gauge field. In particular, whereas the piezoelectric effects studied in previous works are characterized by 2D Berry curvature, the DPME represents the first example of a fundamentally 3D strain effect originating from the Chern-Simons 3-form. We further find that the DPME has a discontinuous change at a critical value of the phase of the CDW order parameter. We demonstrate that, when there is a jump in the DPME, the surface of the system undergoes a topological quantum phase transition (TQPT), while the bulk remains gapped. Hence, the DPME provides a bulk signature of the boundary TQPT in a TR-invariant Weyl-CDW.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Dynamical Fragile Topology in Floquet Crystals

Although fragile topology has been intensely studied in static crystals in terms of Wannier obstruction, it is not clear how to generalize the concept to dynamical systems. In this work, we generalize the concept of fragile topology, and provide a definition of fragile topology for noninteracting Floquet crystals, which we refer to as dynamical fragile topology. In contrast to the static fragile topology defined by Wannier obstruction, dynamical fragile topology is defined for the nontrivial quantum dynamics characterized by the obstruction to static limits (OTSL). Specifically, the OTSL of a Floquet crystal is fragile if and only if it disappears after adding a symmetry-preserving static Hamiltonian in a direct-sum way preserving the relevant gaps (RGs). We further present a concrete 2+1D example for dynamical fragile topology, based on a model that is qualitatively the same as the dynamical model with anomalous chiral edge modes in [Rudner et al., Phys. Rev. X 3, 031005 (2013)]. The fragile OTSL in the 2+1D example exhibits anomalous chiral edge modes for a natural open boundary condition, and does not require any crystalline symmetries besides lattice translations. Our work paves the way to study fragile topology for general quantum dynamics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Dynamical Symmetry Indicators for Floquet Crystals

Various exotic topological phases of Floquet systems have been shown to arise from crystalline symmetries. Yet, a general theory for Floquet topology that is applicable to all crystalline symmetry groups is still in need. In this work, we propose such a theory for (effectively) non-interacting Floquet crystals. We first introduce quotient winding data to classify the dynamics of the Floquet crystals with equivalent symmetry data, and then construct dynamical symmetry indicators (DSIs) to sufficiently indicate the "inherently dynamical" Floquet crystals. The DSI and quotient winding data, as well as the symmetry data, are all computationally efficient since they only involve a small number of Bloch momenta. We demonstrate the high efficiency by computing all elementary DSI sets for all spinless and spinful plane groups using the mathematical theory of monoid, and find a large number of different nontrivial classifications, which contain both first-order and higher-order 2+1D anomalous Floquet topological phases. Using the framework, we further find a new 3+1D anomalous Floquet second-order topological insulator (AFSOTI) phase with anomalous chiral hinge modes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Phonon helicity induced by electronic Berry curvature in Dirac materials

In two-dimensional insulators with time-reversal (TR) symmetry, a nonzero local Berry curvature of low-energy massive Dirac fermions can give rise to nontrivial spin and charge responses, even though the integral of the Berry curvature over all occupied states is zero. In this work, we present a new effect induced by the electronic Berry curvature. By studying electron-phonon interactions in BaMnSb$_2$, a prototype two-dimensional Dirac material possessing two TR-related massive Dirac cones, we find that the nonzero local Berry curvature of electrons can induce a phonon angular momentum. The direction of this phonon angular momentum is locked to the phonon propagation direction, and thus we refer it as "phonon helicity", in a way that is reminiscent of electron helicity in spin-orbit-coupled electronic systems. We discuss possible experimental probes of such phonon helicity.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Presence versus absence of Two-Dimensional Fermi Surface Anomalies

We theoretically consider Fermi surface anomalies manifesting in the temperature dependent quasiparticle properties of two-dimensional (2D) interacting electron systems, comparing and contrasting with the corresponding 3D Fermi liquid situation. In particular, employing microscopic many body perturbative techniques, we obtain analytically the leading-order and the next-to-leading-order interaction corrections to the renormalized effective mass for three distinct physical interaction models: electron-phonon, electron-paramagnon, and electron-electron Coulomb coupling. We find that the 2D renormalized effective mass does not develop any Fermi surface anomaly due to electron-phonon interaction, manifesting $\mathcal{O}(T^2)$ temperature correction and thus remaining consistent with the Sommerfeld expansion of the non-interacting Fermi function, in contrast to the corresponding 3D situation where the temperature correction to the renormalized effective mass has the anomalous $T^2 \log T$ behavior. By contrast, both electron-paramagnon and electron-electron interactions lead to the anomalous $\mathcal{O}(T)$ corrections to the 2D effective mass renormalization in contrast to $T^2 \log T$ behavior in the corresponding 3D interacting systems. We provide detailed analytical results, and comment on the conditions under which a $T^2 \log T$ term could possibly arise in the 2D quasiparticle effective mass from electron-phonon interactions. We also compare results for the temperature dependent specific heat in the interacting 2D and 3D Fermi systems, using the close connection between the effective mass and specific heat.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2020

Tuning Chern Number in Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulators

The quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) state is a two-dimensional topological insulating state that has quantized Hall resistance of h/Ce2 and vanishing longitudinal resistance under zero magnetic field, where C is called the Chern number. The QAH effect has been realized in magnetic topological insulators (TIs) and magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene. Despite considerable experimental efforts, the zero magnetic field QAH effect has so far been realized only for C = 1. Here we used molecular beam epitaxy to fabricate magnetic TI multilayers and realized the QAH effect with tunable Chern number C up to 5. The Chern number of these QAH insulators is tuned by varying the magnetic doping concentration or the thickness of the interior magnetic TI layers in the multilayer samples. A theoretical model is developed to understand our experimental observations and establish phase diagrams for QAH insulators with tunable Chern numbers. The realization of QAH insulators with high tunable Chern numbers facilitates the potential applications of dissipationless chiral edge currents in energy-efficient electronic devices and opens opportunities for developing multi-channel quantum computing and higher-capacity chiral circuit interconnects.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Gapless Criterion for Crystals from Effective Axion Field

Gapless criteria that can efficiently determine whether a crystal is gapless or not are particularly useful for identifying topological semimetals. In this work, we propose a sufficient gapless criterion for three-dimensional non-interacting crystals, based on the simplified expressions for the bulk average value of the static axion field. The brief logic is that two different simplified expressions give the same value in an insulator, and thus the gapless phase can be detected by the mismatch of them. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the gapless criterion in the magnetic systems with space groups 26 and 13, where mirror, glide, and inversion symmetries provide the simplified expressions. In particular, the gapless criterion can identify gapless phases that are missed by the symmetry representation approach, as illustrated by space group 26. Our proposal serves as a guiding principle for future discovery of topological semimetals.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Piezoelectricity and Topological Quantum Phase Transitions in Two-Dimensional Spin-Orbit Coupled Crystals with Time-Reversal Symmetry

Finding new physical responses that signal topological quantum phase transitions is of both theoretical and experimental importance. Here, we demonstrate that the piezoelectric response can change discontinuously across a topological quantum phase transition in two-dimensional time-reversal invariant systems with spin-orbit coupling, thus serving as a direct probe of the transition. We study all gap closing cases for all 7 plane groups that allow non-vanishing piezoelectricity and find that any gap closing with 1 fine-tuning parameter between two gapped states changes either the $Z_2$ invariant or the locally stable valley Chern number. The jump of the piezoelectric response is found to exist for all these transitions, and we propose the HgTe/CdTe quantum well and BaMnSb$_2$ as two potential experimental platforms. Our work provides a general theoretical framework to classify topological quantum phase transitions and reveals their ubiquitous relation to the piezoelectric response.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Quantum anomalous Hall effect in two-dimensional magnetic insulator heterojunctions

Recent years have witnessed tremendous success in the discovery of topological states of matter. Particularly, sophisticated theoretical methods in time-reversal-invariant topological phases have been developed, leading to the comprehensive search of crystal database and the prediction of thousands of new topological materials. In contrast, the discovery of magnetic topological phases that break time reversal is still limited to several exemplary materials because the coexistence of magnetism and topological electronic band structure is rare in a single compound. To overcome this challenge, we propose an alternative approach to realize the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, a typical example of magnetic topological phase, via engineering two-dimensional (2D) magnetic van der Waals heterojunctions. Instead of a single magnetic topological material, we search for the combinations of two 2D (typically trivial) magnetic insulator compounds with specific band alignment so that they can together form a type-III heterojunction with topologically non-trivial band structure. By combining the data-driven materials search, first principles calculations, and the symmetry-based analytical models, we identify 8 type-III heterojunctions consisting of 2D ferromagnetic insulator materials from a family of 2D monolayer MXY compounds (M = metal atoms, X = S, Se, Te, Y = F, Cl, Br, I) as a set of candidates for the QAH effect. In particular, we directly calculate the topological invariant (Chern number) and chiral edge states in the MnNF/MnNCl heterojunction with ferromagnetic stacking. This work illustrates how data-driven material science can be combined with symmetry-based physical principles to guide the search for novel heterojunction-based quantum materials hosting the QAH effect and other exotic quantum states in general.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Surface Majorana Flat Bands in $j=\frac{3}{2}$ Superconductors with Singlet-Quintet Mixing

Recent experiments have revealed the evidence of nodal-line superconductivity in half-Heusler superconductors, e.g. YPtBi. Theories have suggested the topological nature of such nodal-line superconductivity and proposed the existence of surface Majorana flat bands on the (111) surface of half-Heusler superconductors. Due to the divergent density of states of the surface Majorana flat bands, the surface order parameter and the surface impurity play essential roles in determining the surface properties. In this work, we studied the effect of the surface order parameter and the surface impurity on the surface Majorana flat bands of half-Heusler superconductors based on the Luttinger model. To be specific, we consider the topological nodal-line superconducting phase induced by the singlet-quintet pairing mixing, classify all the possible translationally invariant order parameters for the surface states according to irreducible representations of $C_{3v}$ point group, and demonstrate that any energetically favorable order parameter needs to break time-reversal symmetry. We further discuss the energy splitting in the energy spectrum of surface Majorana flat bands induced by different order parameters and non-magnetic or magnetic impurities. We proposed that the splitting in the energy spectrum can serve as the fingerprint of the pairing symmetry and mean-field order parameters. Our theoretical prediction can be examined in the future scanning tunneling microscopy experiments.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2019

Finite-Scale Emergence of 2+1D Supersymmetry at First-Order Quantum Phase Transition

Supersymmetry, a symmetry between fermions and bosons, provides a promising extension of the standard model but is still lack of experimental evidence. Recently, the interest in supersymmetry arises in the condensed matter community owing to its potential emergence at the continuous quantum phase transition. In this work, we demonstrate that 2+1D supersymmetry, relating massive Majorana and Ising fields, might emerge at the first-order quantum phase transition of the Ising magnetization by tuning a single parameter. Although the emergence of the SUSY is only allowed in a finite range of scales due to the existence of relevant masses, the scale range can be large when the masses before scaling are small. We show that the emergence of supersymmetry is accompanied by a topological phase transition for the Majorana field, where its non-zero mass changes the sign but keeps the magnitude. An experimental realization of this scenario is proposed using the surface state of a 3+1D time-reversal invariant topological superconductor with surface magnetic doping.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Magnetic-Resonance-Induced Pseudo-electric Field and Giant Current Response in Axion Insulators

A quantized version of the magnetoelectric effect, known as the topological magnetoelectric effect, can exist in a time-reversal invariant topological insulator with all its surface states gapped out by magnetism. This topological phase, called the axion insulator phase, has been theoretically proposed but is still lack of conclusive experimental evidence due to the small signal of topological magnetoelectric effect. In this work, we propose that the dynamical in-plane magnetization in an axion insulator can generate a "pseudo-electric field", which acts on the surface state of topological insulator films and leads to the non-zero response current. Strikingly, we find that the current at magnetic resonance (either ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic) is larger than that of topological magnetoelectric effect by several orders of magnitude, and thereby serves as a feasible smoking gun to confirm the axion insulator phase in the candidate materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗