arXiv subjects

Rodrigo Soto-Garrido

Publications and source records attributed to Rodrigo Soto-Garrido.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Disorder-tuned crossing of monopole and conventional pairing instabilities in multi-Weyl semimetals

We study how non-magnetic impurity scattering affects the emergence and possible coexistence of pairing instabilities in a two-node multi-Weyl semimetal. Within an explicitly specified projected impurity kernel---valley diagonal and momentum independent across each Fermi pocket, the leading behaviour of non-magnetic disorder in the small-pocket window $q^{\max}_{\rm intra}ξ_{\rm dis}\ll1\ll|2\mathbf Q|ξ_{\rm dis}$, treated at leading order in Born and Abrikosov--Gor'kov theory---quenched disorder tunes the leading pairing instability from a topologically nontrivial monopole channel to a conventional ($s$-wave) one, extending our earlier clean-system analysis into the disordered regime. A Born self-energy calculation in the chiral band basis then gives: (i) a band-isotropic conventional channel that is Anderson protected against intra-node scalar disorder ($η_s=1$), introduced phenomenologically at the projected-band level; solving the competition for arbitrary $η_s$ yields the crossing criterion $(1-η_s)/(1-η_m)<T_{c0}^{(s)}/T_{c0}^{(m)}$, so the mechanism tolerates substantial loss of conventional-channel protection; and (ii) a rank-one monopole sector fixing $f_m$ as the exact eigenfunction with $η_m(J)=1/(J+2)$, exact given that kernel. The crossing location in $Γ_N/T_{c0}^{(m)}$ is set by $η_m(J)$, $η_s$, and $r=T_{c0}^{(s)}/T_{c0}^{(m)}$. From the clean projected BdG Hamiltonian the pure monopole nodes carry Berry charge $\pm J$, distinct from the gapped conventional solution; the clean nodal thermodynamics is charge-dependent, $N_{\rm SC}(E)\propto E^{2/J}$ and $C\propto T^{1+2/J}$, and the residual density of states shows a threshold only for $J=1$. The crossing lies in the moderately metallic regime, $μ/Γ_N\simeq11$--$14$ for the illustrative $T_{c0}^{(m)}/μ=0.133$ used in the figures.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Critical Ripples and Dirac Fermions in Crystalline Membranes

Crystalline membranes hosting Dirac fermions, with graphene as the paradigmatic example, combine two low-energy sectors with sharply different dynamics: nonrelativistic flexural phonons and relativistic-like Dirac quasiparticles. We develop the low-energy field theory of this coupled system at charge neutrality and determine how this dynamical mismatch controls the coupling between the two sectors. In the long-wavelength flat phase, rotational symmetry ties the renormalization of the leading local scalar strain--density coupling to the scale-dependent bending rigidity, causing its dimensionless strength to decrease logarithmically. At the same time, flexural modes become parametrically slower than the Dirac fermions, so the resulting fermionic feedback vanishes as a power law.The flat phase is therefore stable against this perturbation. The physics changes when elastic interactions or electronic softening destabilize the membrane at a finite wavelength, selecting a ripple pattern formed by modes at $\pm\mathbf{Q}$. For an isolated pair of ordering wavevectors, provided that commensurability-induced phase pinning is irrelevant, the transition is governed by the bosonic Wilson--Fisher fixed point, while the Dirac fermions remain spectators. A genuinely hybrid electronic--structural critical point arises instead when symmetry permits a mass-type Dirac bilinear to share the ripple's momentum and quantum numbers, including horizontal-reflection parity. The transition is then described by the chiral-XY Gross--Neveu--Yukawa universality class. Using the known one-loop critical exponents, we characterize this transition, determine the induced secondary elastic distortion, and show that the fermionic and bosonic velocities lock in the isotropic continuum limit.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2026

Anisotropic marginal Fermi liquid for Coulomb interacting generalized Weyl fermions

Owing to the power-law anisotropy in the quasiparticle dispersion, yielding an enhanced density of states, the effects of long range Coulomb interaction get amplified in three-dimensional generalized Weyl semimetals, characterized by integer monopole charge $n>1$ of the underlying Weyl nodes. Using a Wilsonian renormalization group approach controlled by a large-$N$ expansion with $N$ as the number of Weyl fermion flavors and a gauge-consistent regularization fixed by the Ward-Takahashi identity, we uncover for $n\ge 2$ an extended interaction-dominated scaling regime with intrinsically anisotropic dynamic Coulomb screening, a finite fermionic anomalous dimension, and a power-law suppression of the quasiparticle residue, yielding an \emph{anisotropic} marginal non-Fermi liquid at intermediate energies. Ultimately, the effective fine structure constant flows to zero, albeit only logarithmically slowly, so the marginal Fermi liquid phenomenology emerges as a broad crossover, controlled by a slowly running coupling. By contrast, for $n=1$ the system retains an isotropic marginal Weyl-liquid character. These predictions can be tested via scaling in thermodynamics (specific heat and compressibility), direction-dependent optical conductivity, and by anisotropic broadening of the single-particle spectral function in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Out-of-bounds hydrodynamics in holographic anisotropic Dirac semimetals

We present a version of a strongly correlated 2+1-dimensional condensed matter system that features a thermal phase transition between a semimetal and an insulator through a semi-Dirac quantum critical region using AdS/CFT holography. We introduce backreaction into the bulk equations of motion to measure transport coefficients in the boundary; specifically the shear viscosity $η$. By explicitly breaking rotational symmetry we find a new instance of violation of the KSS-bound for the $η/s$ ratio in the quantum critical region, as well as a monotone dependence on temperature in the $T\to 0$ regime fixed by a Lifshitz dynamical critical exponent. We find that the Lifshitz critical exponent in the anisotropic direction is approximately equal to $2$ for our choice of backreaction parameters. We find explicit $T=0$ solutions separated by a quantum critical point in parameter space, showing that the thermal critical phase found in previous work comes from a quantum phase transition at zero temperature.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Axionic quantum criticality of generalized Weyl semimetals

We formulate a field-theoretic description for $d$-dimensional interacting nodal semimetals, featuring dispersion that scales with the linear and $n$th power of momentum along $d_L$ and $d_M$ mutually orthogonal directions around a few isolated points in the reciprocal space, respectively, with $d_L+d_M=d$, and residing at the brink of isotropic insulation, described by $N_b$-component bosonic order parameter fields. The resulting renormalization group (RG) procedure, tailored to capture the associated quantum critical phenomena, is controlled by a ``small" parameter $ε=2-d_M$ and $1/N_f$, where $N_f$ is the number of identical fermion copies (flavor number) when in conjunction $d_L=1$. When applied to three-dimensional interacting general Weyl semimetals ($d_L=1$ and $d_M=2$), characterized by the Abelian monopole charge $n>1$, living at the shore of the axionic insulation ($N_b=2$), a leading-order RG analysis suggests the Gaussian nature of the underlying quantum phase transition, around which the critical exponents assume mean-field values. A traditional field-theoretic RG analysis yields the same outcomes for simple Weyl semimetals ($n=1$, $d_L=3$, and $d_M=0$). Consequently, emergent marginal Fermi liquids showcase only logarithmic corrections to physical observables at intermediate scales of measurements.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Topological versus conventional superconductivity in a Weyl semimetal: A microscopic approach

Starting from a microscopic model for the particle-particle interactions in a Weyl semimetal, we analyzed the possibility for conventional as well as monopole Cooper pairing between quasiparticle excitations at the same (intra-nodal) or opposite (inter-nodal) Weyl nodes. We derived a coupled system of self-consistent BCS-like equations, where the angular dependence of the pairings is directly determined from the microscopic interaction symmetries. We studied the competition between conventional and monopole superconducting phases, thus obtaining explicitly the phase diagrams from the microscopic interaction model parameters. We determined the critical temperatures for both phases, and the low temperature critical behavior, including the specific heat, that we suggest as possible experimental probe for topological quantum criticality in Weyl semimetals.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Holographic description of an anisotropic Dirac semimetal

Holographic quantum matter exploits the AdS/CFT correspondence to study systems in condensed matter physics. An example of these systems are strongly correlated semimetals, which feature a rich phase diagram structure. In this work, we present a holographic model for a Dirac semimetal in $2+1$ dimensions that features a topological phase transition. Our construction relies on deforming a relativistic UV fixed point with some relevant operators that explicitly break rotations and some internal symmetries. The phase diagram for different values of the relevant coupling constants is obtained. The different phases are characterized by distinct dispersion relations for probe fermionic modes in the AdS geometry. We find semi-metallic phases characterized by the presence of Dirac cones and an insulating phase featuring a mass gap with a mild anisotropy. Remarkably, we find as well an anisotropic semi-Dirac phase characterized by a massless a fermionic excitation dispersing linearly in one direction while quadratically in the other.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Fragile dislocation modes in obstructed atomic topological phases

We here introduce the concept of fragile topological dislocation modes, which are localized only in a fraction of a topological phase, while otherwise leak into the bulk continuum. We show that such dislocation modes are hosted in an obstructed atomic topological phase in the two-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, but only in a finite region with an indirect gap at high energy. These dislocation modes are realized as chiral pairs at finite energies with protection stemming from a combination of the chiral (unitary particle-hole) and the point group (C$_{4v}$) symmetries, but only when the indirect gap is open. In this regime, we corroborate the stability of the defect modes by following their localization and also by explicitly adding a weak chemical potential disorder. Our findings, therefore, should be consequential for the experimental observation of such modes in designer topological crystals and classical metamaterials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Probing holographic flat bands at finite density

Flat band electronic systems exhibit a rich landscape of correlation-driven phases. Motivated by these developments, in this paper, we explicitly include the effects of the chemical potential in a holographic model featuring approximately flat bands. In particular, we explore the phase diagram of this holographic flat band system as a function of the chemical potential. We find that at low temperatures and densities, the system features a nematic phase, transitioning into the Lifshitz phase as the chemical potential or temperature increases. To further characterize the ensuing phases, we investigate the optical conductivity and find that this observable shows strong anisotropies in the nematic phase.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Optical conductivity as a probe of the interaction-driven metal in rhombohedral trilayer graphene

Study of the strongly correlated states in van der Waals heterostructures is one of the central topics in modern condensed matter physics. Among these, the rhombohedral trilayer graphene (RTG) occupies a prominent place since it hosts a variety of interaction-driven phases, with the metallic ones yielding exotic superconducting orders upon doping. Motivated by these experimental findings, we show within the framework of the low-energy Dirac theory that the optical conductivity can distinguish different candidates for a paramagnetic metallic ground state in this system. In particular, this observable shows a single peak in the fully gapped valence-bond state. On the other hand, the bond-current state features two pronounced peaks in the optical conductivity as the probing frequency increases. Finally, the rotational symmetry breaking charge-density wave exhibits a minimal conductivity with the value independent of the amplitude of the order parameter, which corresponds precisely to the splitting of the two cubic nodal points at the two valleys into two triplets of the band touching points featuring linearly dispersing quasiparticles. These features represent the smoking gun signatures of different candidate order parameters for the paramagnetic metallic ground state, which should motivate further experimental studies of the RTG.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Engineering holographic flat fermionic bands

In electronic systems with flat bands, such as twisted bilayer graphene, interaction effects govern the structure of the phase diagram. In this paper, we show that a strongly interacting system featuring fermionic flat bands can be engineered using the holographic duality. In particular, we find that in the holographic nematic phase, two bulk Dirac cones separated in momentum space at low temperature, approach each other as the temperature increases. They eventually collide at a critical temperature yielding a flattened band with a quadratic dispersion. On the other hand, in the symmetric (Lifshitz) phase, this quadratic dispersion relation holds for any finite temperature. We therefore obtain a first holographic, strong-coupling realization of a topological phase transition where two Berry monopoles of charge one merge into a single one with charge two, which may be relevant for two- and three-dimensional topological semimetals.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Thermo-magneto-electric transport through a torsion dislocation in a type I Weyl Semimetal

We study electronic and thermoelectric transport in a type I Weyl semimetal nanojunction, with a torsional dislocation defect, in the presence of an external magnetic field parallel to the dislocation axis. The defect is modeled in a cylindrical geometry, as a combination of a gauge field accounting for torsional strain, and a delta-potential barrier for the lattice mismatch effect. In the Landauer formalism, we find that due to the combination of strain and magnetic field, the electric current exhibits chiral valley-polarization, and the conductance displays the signature of Landau levels. We also compute the thermal transport coefficients, where a high thermopower and a large figure of merit are predicted for the junction.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Towards holographic flat bands

Motivated by the phenomenology in the condensed-matter flat-band Dirac systems, we here construct a holographic model that imprints the symmetry breaking pattern of a rather simple Dirac fermion model at zero chemical potential.In the bulk we explicitly include the backreaction to the corresponding Lifshitz geometry and compute the dynamical critical exponent. Most importantly, we find that such a geometry is unstable towards a nematic phase, exhibiting an anomalous Hall effect and featuring a Drude-like shift of its spectral weight. Our findings should motivate further studies of the quantum phases emerging from such holographic models.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Monopole versus spherical harmonic superconductors: Topological repulsion, coexistence and stability

The monopole harmonic superconductor (SC), proposed in doped Weyl semimetals as a pairing between the Fermi surfaces enclosing the Weyl points, is rather unusual, as it features the monopole charge inherited from the parent metallic phase. However, this state can compete with more conventional spherical harmonic pairings, such as an $s$-wave. We here demonstrate, within the framework of the weak coupling mean-field BCS theory, that the monopole and a conventional spherical harmonic SC quite generically coexist, while the repulsion can take place when the absolute value of the monopole charge matches the angular momentum quantum number of the spherical harmonic. As we show, this feature is a direct consequence of the topological nature of the monopole SC, and we dub it \emph{topological repulsion}. We illustrate the above principle with the example of the conventional $s-$ and $(p_x\pm ip_y)-$wave pairings competing with the monopole SC $Y_{-1,1,0}(θ,ϕ)$, which coexist in a finite region of the parameter space, and repel, respectively. Furthermore, the s-wave pairing is more stable both when the chemical potentials at the nodes are unequal, and in the presence of point-like charged impurities. Since the phase transition is discontinuous, close to the phase boundary, we predict that the Majorana surface modes at the interfaces between domains featuring the monopole and the trivial phases, such as an $s-$wave, will be the experimental signature of the monopole SC.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2020

Phase transitions in a holographic multi-Weyl semimetal

Topological phases of matter have recently attracted a rather notable attention in the community dealing with the holographic methods applied to strongly interacting condensed matter systems. In particular, holographic models for gapless Weyl and multi-Weyl semimetals, characterized on a lattice by the monopole-antimonopole defects of the Berry curvature in momentum space, were recently formulated. In this paper, motivated by the quest for finding topological holographic phases, we show that holographic model for multi-Weyl semimetals features a rather rich landscape of phases. In particular, it includes a novel phase which we dub $xy$ nematic, stable at strong coupling, as we explicitly show by the free energy and the quasi-normal mode analyses. Furthermore, we provide its characterization through the anomalous transport coefficients. We hope that our findings will motivate future works exploring the holographic realizations of the topological phases.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Dislocation defect as a bulk probe of monopole charge of multi-Weyl semimetals

Multi-Weyl semimetals feature band crossings with the dispersion that is, in general, linear in only one direction, and as a consequence their band structure is characterized by the monopole charge $n$ which can be greater than one. We show that a single screw dislocation defect oriented in the direction connecting the nodal points, which acts as an effective pseudo-magnetic flux tube, can serve as a direct probe of the monopole charge $n\geq1$ characterizing the bulk band structure of a multi-Weyl semimetal. To this end, as a proof of principle, we propose a rather simple mesoscopic setup in which the monopole charge leaves a direct imprint on the conductance measured in the plane perpendicular to the dislocation. In particular, the ratio of the positions of the neighboring maxima in the conductance as a function of the gate voltage can serve to deduce the monopole charge, while the value of the effective pseudo-magnetic flux can be extracted from the position of a conductance maximum. We expect that these findings will prompt further studies on the role of multiple dislocations, as well as other topological lattice defects, such as grain boundaries and disclinations, in topological nodal materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Topology and the one-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg model

The Kondo-Heinsberg chain is an interesting model of a strongly correlated system which has a broad superconducting state with pair-density wave (PDW) order. Some of us have recently proposed that this PDW state is a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) state, and the gapped spin sector of the model supports Majorana zero modes. In this work, we reexamine this problem using a combination of numeric and analytic methods. In extensive density matrix renormalization group calculations, we find no evidence of a topological ground state degeneracy or the previously proposed Majorana zero modes in the PDW phase of this model. This result motivated us to reexamine the original arguments for the existence of the Majorana zero modes. A careful analysis of the effective continuum field theory of the model shows that the Hilbert space of the spin sector of the theory does not contain any single Majorana fermion excitations. This analysis shows that the PDW state of the doped 1D Kondo-Heisenberg model is not an SPT with Majorana zero modes.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Strange metal crossover in the doped holographic superconductor

In a recent paper, Kiritsis and Li presented a holographic model to study the competition between different orders at finite doping in holographic superconductors. In the present work, we introduce fermions into such model and study the fermionic spectral functions in the normal phase at zero and finite temperatures. Combining analytic and numerical methods, we found that there is a crossover from a strange metal with short lived excitations at small doping, into a Fermi liquid with well defined quasiparticles at large doping. The critical doping at which excitations becomes long lived increases with temperature. The emerging phase diagram is qualitatively similar to that of High Temperature Superconductors.

hep-th↗