arXiv subjects

Jorge I. Facio

Publications and source records attributed to Jorge I. Facio.

44 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Magnetostriction Reveals Orthorhombic Distortion in Tetrahedral Gd-compounds

We report detailed thermal expansion and magnetostriction experiments on GdCoIn$_5$ and GdRhIn$_5$ single crystal samples that show a sudden change in the dilation at a field B$^\ast$ for temperatures below the Néel transition temperature TN. We present a first-principles model including crystal-field effects, dipolar and exchange interactions, and the dependence of the exchange couplings with lattice distortions in order to fully account for the magnetostriction and magnetic susceptibility data. The mean-field solution of the model shows that a transition between metastable states occurs at the field B$^\ast$. It also indicates that two degenerate phases coexist in the sample at temperatures below TN. This allows to explain the lack of observation, in high resolution x-ray experiments, of an orthorhombic distortion at the Néeel transition even though the magnetic structure breaks the tetragonal symmetry and the magnetoelastic coupling is significant. These conclusions could be extended to other tetragonal Gd-based compounds that present the same phenomenology.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Spin-orbit and anisotropic strain effects on the electronic correlations of Sr$_2$RuO$_4$

We present an implementation of the rotationally invariant slave boson technique as an impurity solver for density functional theory plus dynamical mean field theory (DFT+DMFT). Our approach provides explicit relations between quantities in the local correlated subspace treated with DMFT and the Bloch basis used to solve the DFT equations. In particular, we present an expression for the mass enhancement of the quasiparticle states in reciprocal space. We apply the method to the study of the electronic correlations in Sr$_2$RuO$_4$ under anisotropic strain. We find that the spin-orbit coupling plays a crucial role in the mass enhancement differentiation between the quasi-one-dimensional $α$ and $β$ bands, and on its momentum dependence over the Fermi surface. The mass enhancement, however, is only weakly affected by either uniaxial or biaxial strain, even across the Lifshitz transition induced by the strain.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

SU(4) Kondo entanglement in double quantum dot devices

We analyze, from a quantum information theory perspective, the possibility of realizing a SU(4) entangled Kondo regime in semiconductor double quantum dot devices. We focus our analysis on the ground state properties and consider the general experimental situation where the coupling parameters of the two quantum dots differ. We model each quantum dot with an Anderson type Hamiltonian including an interdot Coulomb repulsion and tunnel couplings for each quantum dot to independent fermionic baths. We find that the spin and pseudospin entanglements can be made equal, and the SU(4) symmetry recovered, if the gate voltages are chosen in such a way that the average charge occupancies of the two quantum dots are equal, and the double occupancy on the double quantum dot is suppressed. We present density matrix renormalization group numerical results for the spin and pseudospin entanglement entropies, and analytical results for a simplified model that captures the main physics of the problem.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

On the nature of the Mott transition in multiorbital systems

We analyze the nature of Mott metal-insulator transition in multiorbital systems using dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). The auxiliary multiorbital quantum impurity problem is solved using continuous time quantum Monte Carlo (CTQMC) and the rotationally invariant slave-boson (RISB) mean field approximation. We focus our analysis on the Kanamori Hamiltonian and find that there are two markedly different regimes determined by the nature of the lowest energy excitations of the atomic Hamiltonian. The RISB results at $T\to0$ suggest the following rule of thumb for the order of the transition at zero temperature: a second order transition is to be expected if the lowest lying excitations of the atomic Hamiltonian are charge excitations, while the transition tends to be first order if the lowest lying excitations are in the same charge sector as the atomic ground state. At finite temperatures the transition is first order and its strength, as measured e.g. by the jump in the quasiparticle weight at the transition, is stronger in the parameter regime where the RISB method predicts a first order transition at zero temperature. Interestingly, these results seem to apply to a wide variety of models and parameter regimes.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Lattice specific heat for the RMIn$_5$ (R = Gd, La, Y, M = Co, Rh) compounds: non-magnetic contribution subtraction

We analyze theoretically a common experimental process used to obtain the magnetic contribution to the specific heat of a given magnetic material. In the procedure, the specific heat of a non-magnetic analog is measured and used to subtract the non-magnetic contributions, which are generally dominated by the lattice degrees of freedom in a wide range of temperatures. We calculate the lattice contribution to the specific heat for the magnetic compounds GdMIn$_5$ (M = Co, Rh) and for the non-magnetic YMIn$_5$ and LaMIn$_5$ (M = Co, Rh), using density functional theory based methods. We find that the best non-magnetic analog for the subtraction depends on the magnetic material and on the range of temperatures. While the phonon specific heat contribution of YRhIn$_5$ is an excellent approximation to the one of GdCoIn$_5$ in the full temperature range, for GdRhIn$_5$ we find a better agreement with LaCoIn$_5$, in both cases, as a result of an optimum compensation effect between masses and volumes. We present measurements of the specific heat of the compounds GdMIn$_5$ (M = Co, Rh) up to room temperature where it surpasses the value expected from the Dulong-Petit law. We obtain a good agreement between theory and experiment when we include anharmonic effects in the calculations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

State-of-the-art techniques for calculating spectral functions in models for correlated materials

The dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) has become a standard technique for the study of strongly correlated models and materials overcoming some of the limitations of density functional approaches based on local approximations. An important step in this method involves the calculation of response functions of a multiorbital impurity problem which is related to the original model. Recently there has been considerable progress in the development of techniques based on the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) and related matrix product states (MPS) implying a substantial improvement to previous methods. In this article we review some of the standard algorithms and compare them to the newly developed techniques, showing examples for the particular case of the half-filled two-band Hubbard model.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Why the Co-based 115 compounds are different?: The case study of GdMIn$_5$ (M=Co, Rh, Ir)

The discovery in 2001 of superconductivity in some heavy fermion compounds of the RMIn$_5$ (R=4f or 5f elements, M=Co, Rh, Ir) family, has triggered enormous amount of research pointing to understand the physical origin of superconductivity and its relation with magnetism. Although many properties have been clarified, there are still crutial questions that remain unanswered. One of these questions is the particular role of the transition metal in determining the value of critical superconducting temperature (Tc). In this work, we analyse an interesting regularity that is experimentally observed in this family of compounds, where the lowest Néel temperatures are obtained in the Co-based materials. We focus our analysis on the GdMIn$_5$ compounds and perform density-functional-theory based total-energy calculations to obtain the parameters for the exchange coupling interactions between the magnetic moments located at the Gd$^{3+}$ ions. Our calculations indicate that the ground state of the three compounds is a $C$-type antiferromagnet determined by the competition between the first- and second-neighbor exchange couplings inside GdIn$_3$ planes and stabilized by the couplings across MIn$_2$ planes. We then solve a model with these magnetic interactions using a mean-field approximation and Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The results obtained for the calculated Néel and Curie-Weiss temperatures, the specific heat and the magnetic susceptibility are in very good agreement with the existent experimental data. Remarkably, we show that the first neighbor interplane exchange coupling in the Co-based material is much smaller than in the Rh and Ir analogues due to a more two dimensional behaviour in the former. This result explains the observed lower Néel temperature in Co-115 systems and may shed light on the fact that the Co-based 115 superconductors present the highest Tc.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Vortex kinks in superconducting films with periodically modulated thickness

We report magnetoresistance measurements through Nb films having a periodic thickness modulation. The cylinder shaped large-thickness regions of the sample, which form a square lattice, act as repulsive centers for the superconducting vortices. For low driving currents along one of the axes of the square lattice, the resistivity $ρ$ increases monotonously with increasing magnetic field $B$ and the $ρ$--$B$ characteristics are approximately piecewise linear. The linear $ρ$ vs $B$ segments change their slope at matching fields where the number of vortices is an integer or a half integer times the number of protruding cylinders in the sample. Numerical simulations allow us to associate the different segments of linear magnetoresistance to different vortex-flow regimes, some of which are dominated by the propagation of discommensurations (kinks).

cond-mat.supr-con↗