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Qiang-Hua Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Qiang-Hua Wang.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

Competing electronic orders on Kagome lattices at van Hove filling

The electronic orders in Hubbard models on a Kagome lattice at van Hove filling are of intense current interest and debate. We study this issue using the singular-mode functional renormalization group theory. We discover a rich variety of electronic instabilities under short range interactions. With increasing on-site repulsion $U$, the system develops successively ferromagnetism, intra unit-cell antiferromagnetism, and charge bond order. With nearest-neighbor Coulomb interaction $V$ alone (U=0), the system develops intra-unit-cell charge density wave order for small $V$, s-wave superconductivity for moderate $V$, and the charge density wave order appears again for even larger $V$. With both $U$ and $V$, we also find spin bond order and chiral $d_{x^2 - y^2} + i d_{xy}$ superconductivity in some particular regimes of the phase diagram. We find that the s-wave superconductivity is a result of charge density wave fluctuations and the squared logarithmic divergence in the pairing susceptibility. On the other hand, the d-wave superconductivity follows from bond order fluctuations that avoid the matrix element effect. The phase diagram is vastly different from that in honeycomb lattices because of the geometrical frustration in the Kagome lattice.

cond-mat.str-el↗

High $T_c$ superconductivity at the FeSe/SrTiO$_3$ Interface

In a recent experiment the superconducting gap of a single unit cell thick FeSe film on SrTiO$_3$ substrate is observed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The value of the superconducting gap is much larger than that of the bulk FeSe under ambient pressure. In this paper we study the effects of screening due to the ferroelectric phonons on Cooper pairing. We conclude it can significantly enhance the energy scale of Cooper pairing and even change the pairing symmetry. Our results also raise some concerns on whether phonons can be completely ignored for bulk iron-based superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Functional renormalization group and variational Monte Carlo studies of the electronic instabilities in graphene near 1/4 doping

We study the electronic instabilities of near 1/4 electron doped graphene using the functional renormalization group (FRG) and variational Monte-Carlo method. A modified FRG implementation is utilized to improve the treatment of the von Hove singularity. At 1/4 doping the system is a chiral spin density wave state exhibiting the anomalous quantized Hall effect, or equivalently a Chern insulator. When the doping deviates from 1/4, the $d_{x^2-y^2}+i d_{xy}$ Cooper pairing becomes the leading instability. Our results suggest near 1/4 electron or hole doped graphene is a fertile playground for the search of Chern insulators and superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Time reversal invariant topological superconductivity in correlated non-centrosymmetric systems

Using functional renormalization group method, we study the favorable condition for electronic correlation driven time reversal invariant topological superconductivity in symmetry class DIII. For non-centrosymmetric systems we argue that the proximity to ferromagnetic (or small wavevector magnetic) instability can be used as a guideline for the search of this type of superconductivity. This is analogous to the appearance of singlet unconventional superconductivity in the neighborhood of antiferromagnetic instability. We show three concrete examples where ferromagnetic-like fluctuation leads to topological pairing.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Quasi-Hamiltonian Method for Computation of Decoherence Rates

For many implementations of quantum computing, 1/f and other types of broad-spectrum noise are an important source of decoherence. An important step forward would be the ability to back out the characteristics of this noise from qubit measurements and to see if it leads to new physical effects. For certain types of qubits, the working point of the qubit can be varied. Using a new mathematical method that is suited to treat all working points, we present theoretical results that show how this degree of freedom can be used to extract noise parameters and to predict a new effect: noise-induced looping on the Bloch sphere. We analyze data on superconducting qubits to show that they are very near the parameter regime where this looping should be observed.

quant-ph↗

Anderson Impurity in Helical Metal

We use a trial wave function to study the spin-1/2 Kondo effect of a helical metal on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator. While the impurity spin is quenched by conduction electrons, the spin-spin correlation of the conduction electron and impurity is strongly anisotropic in both spin and spatial spaces. As a result of strong spin-orbit coupling, the out-of-plane component of the impurity spin is found to be fully screened by the orbital angular momentum of the conduction electrons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Observation of Lattice and Andreev Bound States of Vortices in Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 Single Crystals with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy/Spectroscopy

For a type-II superconductor, when the applied magnetic field is higher than the lower critical value Hc1, the magnetic flux will penetrate into the superconductor and form quantized vortices, which usually are arranged in an Abrikosov lattice. For the newly discovered iron pnictide superconductors, previous measurements have shown that, in electron-doped BaFe2As2, the vortices form a highly disordered structure. In addition, the density of states (DOS) within the vortex cores1 do not exhibit the Andreev bound states in conventional superconductors. In this Letter, we report the observation of a triangular vortex lattice and the Andreev bound states in hole-doped BaFe2As2 by using a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Detailed study of the vortex cores reveals that the spectrum of the Andreev bound states inside the vortex core exhibits a distinct spatial evolution: at the center of the vortex core, it appears as a single peak at 0.5 mV below the Fermi-energy; away from the core center, it gradually evolves into two sub-peaks and they eventually fade out. The drastic differences between the vortex cores of the electron-doped and hole-doped counterparts are illusive to the pairing mechanism of the iron pnictide superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Electronic structure near an impurity and terrace on the surface of a 3-dimensional topological insulator

Motivated by recent scanning tunneling microscopy experiments on surfaces of Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_{x'}$\cite{yazdanistm,gomesstm} and Bi$_2$Te$_3$,\cite{kaptunikstm,xuestm} we theoretically study the electronic structure of a 3-dimensional (3D) topological insulator in the presence of a local impurity or a domain wall on its surface using a 3D lattice model. While the local density of states (LDOS) oscillates significantly in space at energies above the bulk gap, the oscillation due to the in-gap surface Dirac fermions are very weak. The extracted modulation wave number as a function of energy satisfies the Dirac dispersion for in-gap energies and follows the border of the bulk continuum above the bulk gap. We have also examined analytically the effects of the defects by using a pure Dirac fermion model for the surface states and found that the LDOS decays asymptotically faster at least by a factor of 1/r than that in normal metals, consistent with the results obtained from our lattice model.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Theory of tunnelling into a multi-band superconductor: decoherence and interference

By an exact formulation of tunnelling into a multi-band superconductor in terms of Green's functions, we demonstrate that the multi-band feature of the iron-based superconductors can lead to novel interference between Andreev reflections and decoherence effect of quasi-particles to Andreev reflections in a tunnelling junction. These effects depend on the relative sign of the gaps for s-wave pairing, and the sign of the Fermi velocities also matters for tunnelling along the nodal direction of d-wave gaps. Experimental probe of such effects could determine both the pairing symmetry and the relative sign of the gaps on different bands.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Variational Monte-Carlo studies of Gossamer Superconductivity

We use a partially Gutzwiller projected BCS d-wave wavefunction with an antiferromagentic weighting factor to study the ground state phase diagram of a half filled Hubbard-Heisenberg model in a square lattice with nearest neighbor hopping $t$ and a diagonal hopping $t'$. The calculations are carried out by using variational Monte Carlo method which treats the Gutzwiller projection explicitly. At large on-site Coulomb interaction $U$, the ground state is antiferromagnetic. As $U$ decreases, the ground state becomes superconducting and eventually metallic. The phase diagram is obtained by extensive calculations. As compared to the strong effect of $U/t$, the phase boundaries turn out to be less sensitive to $t'/t$. The result is consistent with the phase diagram in layered organic conductors, and is compared to the earlier mean field result based on the Gutzwiller approximation.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Pairing symmetry and properties of iron-based high temperature superconductors

Pairing symmetry is important to indentify the pairing mechanism. The analysis becomes particularly timely and important for the newly discovered iron-based multi-orbital superconductors. From group theory point of view we classified all pairing matrices (in the orbital space) that carry irreducible representations of the system. The quasiparticle gap falls into three categories: full, nodal and gapless. The nodal-gap states show conventional Volovik effect even for on-site pairing. The gapless states are odd in orbital space, have a negative superfluid density and are therefore unstable. In connection to experiments we proposed possible pairing states and implications for the pairing mechanism.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Exact solution of a model of qubit dephasing due to telegraph noise

We present a general and exact formalism for finding the evolution of a quantum system subject to external telegraph noise. The various qubit decoherence rates are determined by the eigenvalues of a transfer matrix. The formalism can be applied to a qubit subject to an arbitrary combination of dephasing and relaxational telegraph noise, in contrast to existing non-perturbative methods that treat only one or the other of these limits. We present 3 applications: 1) We obtain the full qubit dynamics on time scales short compared with the enviromental correlation times. In the strong coupling cases this reveals unexpected oscillations and induced magnetization components; 2) We find in strong coupling case strong violations of the widely used relation 1/T$_2$ = 1/2T$_1$ + 1/T$_ϕ$, which is a result of perturbation theory; 3) We discuss the effects of bang-bang and spin-echo controls of the qubit dynamics in general settings of the telegraph noises. %The result shows that these methods are not very effective in %reducing decoherence arising from a single telegraph noise. Finally, we discuss the extension of the method to the cases of many telegraph noise sources and multiple qubits. The method still works when white noise is also present.

quant-ph↗

Two-mode variational Monte Carlo study of Quasiparticle excitations in cuprates

Recent measurements of quasiparticles in hole-doped cuprates reveal highly unusual features: 1) the doping-independent Fermi velocity, 2) two energy scales in the quasiparticle spectral function, and 3) a suppression of the low energy spectral weight near the zone center. The underlying mechanism is under hot debate. We addressed these important issues by a novel two-mode variational Monte Carlo (VMC) study of the t-J model. We obtained results in agreement with the experiments but without invoking extrinsic effects. Besides, we resolved a long standing issue of the sum rule for quasiparticle spectral weights in VMC studies. The electron doped case was also discussed.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Impurity resonance states in electron-doped high T_c superconductors

Two scenarios, i.e., the anisotropic s-wave pairing (the s-wave scenario) and the d-wave pairing coexisting with antiferromagnetism (the coexisting scenario) have been introduced to understand some of seemingly s-wave like behaviors in electron doped cuprates. We considered the electronic structure in the presence of a nonmagnetic impurity in the coexistence scenario. We found that even if the AF order opens a full gap in quasi-particle excitation spectra, the mid-gap resonant peaks in local density of states (LDoS) around an impurity can still be observed in the presence of a d-wave pairing gap. The features of the impurity states in the coexisting phase are markedly different from the pure AF or pure d-wave pairing phases, showing the unique role of the coexisting AF and d-wave pairing orders. On the other hand, it is known that in the pure s-wave case no mid-gap states can be induced by a nonmagnetic impurity. Therefore we proposed that the response to a nonmagnetic impurity can be used to differentiate the two scenarios.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Disentangling single-particle gap by electronic Raman absorption in electron-doped cuprates

In the under- to optimal-doping regimes of electron-doped cuprates, it was theoretically suspected that there is a coexistence of superconducting (SC) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) orders. The quasi-particle excitations could be gapped by both orders, and the effective gap is non-monotonic d-wave-like in the momentum space. Alternatively the gap was also speculated as a pure pairing gap. Using an effective microscopic model, we consider the manifestation of the quasi-particle gap in the electronic Raman spectra in a range of doping levels, where the relative strength of the SC and AFM order parameters varies. We demonstrate that from the electronic Raman spectra the effective single-particle gap can be disentangled into contributions from the two distinctive orders. This would help to tell whether the non-monotonic gap is due to the coexistence of SC and AFM orders.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Theory of high energy features in angle-resolved photo-emission spectra of hole-doped cuprates

The recent angle-resolved photoemission measurements performed up to binding energies of the order of 1eV reveals a very robust feature: the nodal quasi-particle dispersion breaks up around 0.3-0.4eV and reappears around 0.6-0.8eV. The intensity map in the energy-momentum space shows a waterfall like feature between these two energy scales. We argue and numerically demonstrate that these experimental features follow naturally from the strong correlation effects built in the familiar t-J model, and reflect the connection between the fermi level and the lower Hubbard band. The results were obtained by a mean field theory that effectively projects electrons by quantum interference between two bands of fermions instead of binding slave particles.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Unrestricted renormalized mean field theory of strongly correlated electron systems

We generalized systematically the renormalized mean field theory in the case of uniform states to the unrestricted case of general inhomogeneous states with competing spin-, charge- and superconducting orders. Applying the theory to high-$T_c$ superconductors, we discuss the issues of electronic inhomogeneity, the superfluid density, and in particular the local electron density of states. The results account for many intriguing aspects of the phenomenology.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

Why a local moment induces an antiferromagnetic ordering: An RVB picture

Based on a Gutzwiller projected BCS wavefunction, it is shown that a local S=1/2 moment is present around a vacancy site (zinc impurity) in a form of staggered magnetic moments, which is a direct consequence of the short-ranged resonating-valence-bond (RVB) pairing in the spin background.

cond-mat.str-el↗