arXiv subjects

Lingxian Kong

Publications and source records attributed to Lingxian Kong.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Fate of transient order parameter domain walls in ultrafast experiments

In ultrafast experiments, an optical pump pulse often generates transient domain walls of the order parameter in materials with spontaneous symmetry breaking, due to either a finite penetration depth of light on a three-dimensional (3D) material, or a finite spot size on a two-dimensional (2D) material. We show that the domain wall decays due to unstable order parameter fluctuations. We study a generic system with $U(1)$-symmetric order, and those with an additional weak $Z_2$ ($U(1)$-symmetry-breaking) term, representing the charge-density-wave (CDW) orders in recent experiments. During the first stage of the decay dynamics, exponentially growing thermal fluctuations convert the domain wall into an interface with randomly distributed topological defects. In the second stage, the topological defects undergo a coarsening dynamics within the interface. For a 2D interface in a 3D system, the coarsening dynamics leads to a diffusive growth of the correlation length. For a one-dimensional (1D) interface in a 2D system with the weak $Z_2$ term, the correlation-length growth shows a crossover from diffusive to sub-diffusive behavior.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Symmetry-dependent antiferromagnetic proximity effects on valley splitting

Various physical phenomena have been discovered by tuning degrees of freedom, among which there is the degree of freedom (DOF) -- "valley". The typical valley materials are characterized by two degenerate valley states protected by time-reversal symmetry (TS). These states indexed by valley DOF have been measured and manipulated for emergent valley-contrasting physics with the broken valley degeneracy. To achieve the valley splitting resulted from TS breaking, previous studies mainly focused on magnetic proximity effect provided by ferromagnetic (FM) layer. Nevertheless, the anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) proximity effect on the valley degeneracy has never been investigated systematically. In this work, we construct the composites consisting of a transitionmetal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayer and a proximity layer with specific intra-plane AFM configurations. We extend the three-band model to describe the valley states of such systems. It is shown that either "time-reversal + fractional translation" or "mirror" symmetry has been proved to protect valley degeneracy. Additionally, first-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) have been performed to verify the results obtained from the extended tight-binding (TB) model. The TB method introduced in the present work can properly describe the low-energy physics of valley materials that couple to the proximity with complex magnetic configurations. The results expand the range of qualified proximity layers for valley splitting, enabling more flexible manipulation of valley degree.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Antiparticle of exciton in semimetals

An emergent quantized field enriches quantum many-body systems. We propose an antiparticle analog of the exciton in semimetals as an emergent collective mode in interacting electron systems. We show that inter-band excitations in semimetals are generally comprised of both excitons and antiparticles of excitons. These two stand for two distinct inter-band collective modes in semimetals, having different energies and opposite conserved charges. The conserved charge here is a quantity conjugate to a joint U(1) symmetry of two electron's bands associated with the inter-band excitations. The opposite charges foster fertile scattering processes among the inter-band collective modes. In spin-polarized systems, they also suggest possible experimental detections of the antiparticles. We clarify that the effective theory of the inter-band excitations is given by a generalized Klein-Gordon theory. Our theory provides a comprehensive understanding of excitonic spectra in generic semimetals, bringing a new insight into electronic collective phenomena in solids.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗