arXiv subjects

Ronny Thomale

Publications and source records attributed to Ronny Thomale.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Rashba spin orbit coupling in the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model

Spin-orbit (SO) coupling is the crucial parameter to drive topological insulating phases in electronic band models. In particular, the generic emergence of SO coupling involves the Rashba term which fully breaks the SU(2) spin symmetry. As soon as interactions are taken into account, however, many theoretical studies have to content themselves with the analysis of a simplified U(1) conserving SO term without Rashba coupling. We intend to fill this gap by studying the Kane-Mele-Hubbard (KMH) model in the presence of Rashba SO coupling and present the first systematic analysis of the effect of Rashba SO coupling in a correlated two-dimensional topological insulator. We apply the variational cluster approach (VCA) to determine the interacting phase diagram by computing local density of states, magnetization, single particle spectral function, and edge states. Preceded by a detailed VCA analysis of the KMH model in the presence of U(1) conserving SO coupling, we find that the additional Rashba SO coupling drives new electronic phases such as a metallic regime and a direct-gap only topological insulating phase which persist in the presence of interactions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Chiral $d$-wave Superconductivity in SrPtAs

Recent $μ$SR measurements on SrPtAs revealed time-reversal-symmetry breaking with the onset of superconductivity [Biswas et al., Phys. Rev. B 87, 180503(R) (2013)], suggesting an unconventional superconducting state. We investigate this possibility via functional renormalization group and find a chiral $(d+\mathrm{i}d)$-wave order parameter favored by the multiband fermiology and hexagonal symmetry of SrPtAs. This $(d+\mathrm{i}d)$-wave state exhibits significant gap anisotropies as well as gap differences on the different bands, but only has point nodes on one of the bands at the Brillouin zone corners. We study the topological characteristics of this superconducting phase, which features Majorana-Weyl nodes in the bulk, protected surface states, and an associated thermal Hall response. The lack of extended nodes and the spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry of the $(d+\mathrm{i}d)$-wave state are in agreement with the $μ$SR experiments. Our theoretical findings together with the experimental evidence thus suggests that SrPtAs is the first example of chiral $d$-wave superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2014

Spiral order in the honeycomb iridate Li2IrO3

The honeycomb iridates A2IrO3 (A=Na, Li) constitute promising candidate materials to realize the Heisenberg-Kitaev model (HKM) in nature, hosting unconventional magnetic as well as spin liquid phases. Recent experiments suggest, however, that Li2IrO3 exhibits a magnetically ordered state of incommensurate spiral type which has not been identified in the HKM. We show that these findings can be understood in the context of an extended Heisenberg-Kitaev scenario satisfying all tentative experimental evidence: (i) the maximum of the magnetic susceptibility is located inside the first Brillouin zone, (ii) the Curie-Weiss temperature is negative relating to dominant antiferromagnetic fluctuations, and (iii) significant second-neighbor spin-exchange is involved.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Generalized Kitaev Models and Slave Genons

We present a wide class of partially integrable lattice models with two-spin interactions, which generalize the Kitaev honeycomb model. These models have an infinite number of conserved quantities associated with each plaquette of the lattice, conserved large loop operators on the torus, and protected topological degeneracy. We introduce a `slave-genon' approach, which generalizes the Majorana fermion approach in the Kitaev honeycomb model. The Hilbert space of our spin model can be embedded into an enlarged Hilbert space of non-Abelian twist defects, referred to as genons. In the enlarged Hilbert space, the spin model is exactly reformulated as a model of non-Abelian genons coupled to a discrete gauge field. We discuss in detail a particular $Z_3$ generalization, and show that in a certain limit the model is analytically tractable and may produce a non-Abelian topological phase with chiral parafermion edge states.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Theoretical prediction of a strongly correlated Dirac metal

Recently, the most intensely studied objects in the electronic theory of solids have been strongly correlated systems and graphene. However, the fact that the Dirac bands in graphene are made up of $sp^{2}$-electrons, which are subject to neither strong Hubbard repulsion $U$ nor strong Hund's rule coupling $J$ creates certain limitations in terms of novel, interaction-induced physics that could be derived from Dirac points. Here we propose GaCu$_{3}$(OH)$_{6}$Cl$_{2}$ (Ga-substituted herbertsmithite) as a correlated Dirac-Kagome metal combining Dirac electrons, strong interactions and frustrated magnetism. Using density functional theory (DFT), we calculate its crystallographic and electronic properties, and observe that it has symmetry-protected Dirac points at the Fermi level. Its many-body physics is excitingly rich, with possible charge, magnetic and superconducting instabilities. Through a combination of various many-body methods we study possible symmetry-lowering phase transitions such as Mott-Hubbard, charge or magnetic ordering, and unconventional superconductivity, which in this compound assumes an $f$-wave symmetry.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

The 1D Ising model and topological order in the Kitaev chain

We elaborate on the topological order in the Kitaev chain, a p-wave superconductor with nearest-neighbor pairing amplitude equal to the hopping term Delta=t, and chemical potential mu=0. In particular, we write out the explicit eigenstates of the open chain in terms of fermion operators, and show that the states as well as their energy eigenvalues are formally equivalent to those of an Ising chain. The models are physically different, as the topological order in the Kitaev chain corresponds to conventional order in the Ising model.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Superconductivity from weak repulsion in hexagonal lattice systems

We analyze the pairing instabilities for fermions on hexagonal lattices (both honeycomb and triangular ones) in a wide range of fermionic densities. We argue that for a generic doping in this range, superconductivity at weak coupling is of Kohn-Luttinger type, and, due to the presence of electronic interactions beyond on-site repulsion, is a threshold phenomenon, with superconductivity emerging only if the attraction generated by the Kohn-Luttinger mechanism exceeds the bare repulsion in some channel. For disconnected Fermi pockets, we predict that Kohn-Luttinger superconductivity, if it occurs, is likely to be $f$-wave. While the Kohn-Luttinger analysis is adequate over most of the doping range, a more sophisticated analysis is needed near Van Hove doping. We treat Van Hove doping using a parquet renormalization group, the equations for which we derive and analyze. Near this doping level, superconductivity is a universal phenomenon, arising from any choice of bare repulsive interactions. The strongest pairing instability is into a chiral $d-$wave state ($d+id$). At a truly weak coupling, the strongest competitor is a spin-density-wave instability, however, $d-$wave superconductivity still wins. Moreover, the feedback of the spin density fluctuations into the Cooper channel significantly enhances the critical temperature over the estimates of the Kohn Luttinger theory. We analyze renormalization group equations at stronger couplings and find that the main competitor to $d-$wave supoerconductivity away from weak coupling is actually ferromagnetism. We also discuss the effect of the edge fermions and show that they are unimportant in the asymptotic weak coupling limit, but may give rise to, e.g., a charge-density-wave order at moderate coupling strengths.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2013

Non-integer optical modes in a Möbius-ring resonator

In-plane polarized light experiences a non-trivial topological evolution as it propagates resonantly in a Möbius ring resonator. The resultant geometric phase varies continuously when changing the light ellipticity, which leads to constructive interference for a non-integer number of wavelengths, and therefore to the occurrence of an arbitrary fractional number of optical modes. The geometric phase in Möbius-ring resonators is topologically robust and implies excellent intrinsic fault-tolerance.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2013

Particle-hole condensates of higher angular momentum in hexagonal systems

Hexagonal lattice systems (e.g. triangular, honeycomb, kagome) possess a multidimensional irreducible representation corresponding to $d_{x^2-y^2}$ and $d_{xy}$ symmetry. Consequently, various unconventional phases that combine these $d$-wave representations can occur, and in so doing may break time-reversal and spin rotation symmetries. We show that hexagonal lattice systems with extended repulsive interactions can exhibit instabilities in the particle-hole channel to phases with either $d_{x^2-y^2}+d_{xy}$ or $d+id$ symmetry. When lattice translational symmetry is preserved, the phase corresponds to nematic order in the spin-channel with broken time-reversal symmetry, known as the $β$ phase. On the other hand, lattice translation symmetry can be broken, resulting in various $d_{x^2-y^2}+d_{xy}$ density wave orders. In the weak-coupling limit, when the Fermi surface lies close to a van Hove singularity, instabilities of both types are obtained in a controlled fashion.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Functional Renormalization Group for multi-orbital Fermi Surface Instabilities

Technological progress in material synthesis, as well as artificial realization of condensed matter scenarios via ultra-cold atomic gases in optical lattices or epitaxial growth of thin films, is opening the gate to investigate a plethora of unprecedented strongly correlated electron systems. In a large subclass thereof, a metallic state of layered electrons undergoes an ordering transition below some temperature into unconventional states of matter driven by electronic correlations, such as magnetism, superconductivity, or other Fermi surface instabilities. While this type of phenomena has been a well-established direction of research in condensed matter for decades, the variety of today's accessible scenarios pose fundamental new challenges to describe them. A core complication is the multi-orbital nature of the low-energy electronic structure of these systems, such as the multi-d orbital nature of electrons in iron pnictides and transition-metal oxides in general, but also electronic states of matter on lattices with multiple sites per unit cell such as the honeycomb or kagome lattice. In this review, we propagate the functional renormalization group (FRG) as a suited approach to investigate multi-orbital Fermi surface instabilities. The primary goal of the review is to describe the FRG in explicit detail and render it accessible to everyone both at a technical and intuitive level. Summarizing recent progress in the field of multi-orbital Fermi surface instabilities, we illustrate how the unbiased fashion by which the FRG treats all kinds of ordering tendencies guarantees an adequate description of electronic phase diagrams and often allows to obtain parameter trends of sufficient accuracy to make qualitative predictions for experiments. This review includes detailed and illustrative illustrations of magnetism and, in particular, superconductivity for the iron pnictides from the viewpoint of FRG. Furthermore, it discusses candidate scenarios for topological bulk singlet superconductivity and exotic particle-hole condensates on hexagonal lattices such as sodium-doped cobaltates, graphene doped to van Hove Filling, and the kagome Hubbard model. In total, the FRG promises to be one of the most versatile and revealing numerical approaches to address unconventional Fermi surface instabilities in future fields of condensed matter research.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2013

Cluster Functional Renormalization Group

Functional renormalization group (FRG) has become a diverse and powerful tool to derive effective low-energy scattering vertices of interacting many-body systems. Starting from a non-interacting expansion point of the action, the flow of the RG parameter Lambda allows to trace the evolution of the effective one-particle and two-particle vertices towards low energies by taking into account the vertex corrections between all parquet channels in an unbiased fashion. In this work, we generalize the expansion point at which the diagrammatic resummation procedure is initiated from a free UV limit to a cluster product state. We formulate a cluster FRG scheme where the non-interacting building blocks (i.e., decoupled spin clusters) are treated exactly, and the inter-cluster couplings are addressed via RG. As a benchmark study, we apply our cluster FRG scheme to the spin-1/2 bilayer Heisenberg model (BHM) on a square lattice where the neighboring sites in the two layers form the individual 2-site clusters. Comparing with existing numerical evidence for the BHM, we obtain reasonable findings for the spin susceptibility, magnon dispersion, and magnon quasiparticle weight even in coupling regimes close to antiferromagnetic order. The concept of cluster FRG promises applications to a large class of interacting electron systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Pseudopotential Formalism for Fractional Chern Insulators

Recently, generalizations of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states known as fractional quantum anomalous Hall or, equivalently, fractional Chern insulators states have been realized in lattice models. Ideal wavefunctions such as the Laughlin wavefunction, as well as the corresponding trial Hamiltonians for which the former are exact ground states, have been vital to characterizing FQH phases. The Wannier function representation of fractional Chern insulators proposed in [X.-L. Qi, Phys. Rev. Lett., 126803] defines an approach to generalize these concepts to fractional Chern insulators. In this paper, we apply the Wannier function representation to develop a systematic pseudopotential formalism for fractional Chern insulators. The family of pseudopotential Hamiltonians is defined as the set of projectors onto asymptotic relative angular momentum components which forms an orthogonal basis of two-body Hamiltonians with magnetic translation symmetry. This approach serves both as an expansion tool for interactions and as a definition of positive semidefinite Hamiltonians for which the ideal fractional Chern insulator wavefunctions are exact nullspace modes. We compare the short-range two-body pseudopotential expansion of various fractional Chern insulator models at one-third filling in phase regimes where a Laughlin-type ground state is expected to be realized. We also discuss the effect of inhomogeneous Berry curvature which leads to components of the Hamiltonian that cannot be expanded into pseudopotentials, and elaborate on their role in determining low energy theories for fractional Chern insulators. Finally, we generalize our Chern pseudopotential approach to interactions involving more than two bodies with the goal of facilitating the identification of non-Abelian fractional Chern insulators.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Tunneling spectra simulation of interacting Majorana wires

Recent tunneling experiments on InSb hybrid superconductor-semiconductor devices have provided hope for a stabilization of Majorana edge modes in a spin-orbit quantum wire subject to a magnetic field and superconducting proximity effect. Connecting the experimental scenario with a microscopic description poses challenges of different kind, such as accounting for the effect of interactions on the tunneling properties of the wire. We develop a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) analysis of the tunneling spectra of interacting Majorana chains, which we explicate for the Kitaev chain model. Our DMRG approach allows us to calculate the spectral function down to zero frequency, where we analyze how the Majorana zero-bias peak is affected by interactions. From the study of topological phase transitions between the topological and trivial superconducting phase in the wire, we argue that the bulk gap closure generically affects both the proximity peaks and the Majorana peak, which should be observable in the transport signal.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Renormalization group analysis of competing quantum phases in the J1-J2 Heisenberg model on the kagome lattice

Recent discoveries in neutron scattering experiments for Kapellasite and Herbertsmithite as well as theoretical calculations of possible spin liquid phases have revived interest in magnetic phenomena on the kagome lattice. We study the quantum phase diagram of the S=1/2 Heisenberg kagome model as a function of nearest neighbor coupling J1 and second neighbor coupling J2. Employing the pseudofermion functional renormalization group, we find four types of magnetic quantum order (q=0 order, cuboc order, ferromagnetic order, and Sqrt{3}x\Sqrt{3} order) as well as extended magnetically disordered regions by which we specify the possible parameter regime for Kapellasite. In the disordered regime J2/J1<<1, the flatness of the magnetic susceptibility at the zone boundary which is observed for Herbertsmithite can be reconciled with the presence of small J2>0 coupling. In particular, we analyze the dimer susceptibilities related to different valence bond crystal (VBC) patterns, which are strongly inhomogeneous indicating the rejection of VBC order in the RG flow.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Anisotropic chiral d+id superconductivity in NaxCoO2 yH2O

Since its discovery, the superconducting phase in water-intercalated sodium cobaltates NaxCoO2 yH2O (x~0.3, y~1.3) has posed fundamental challenges in terms of experimental investigation and theoretical understanding. By a combined dynamical mean-field and renormalization group approach, we find an anisotropic chiral d+id wave state as a consequence of multi-orbital effects, Fermi surface topology, and magnetic fluctuations. It naturally explains the singlet property and close-to-nodal gap features of the superconducting phase as indicated by experiments.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2012

Fluctuation-induced Topological Quantum Phase Transitions in Quantum Spin Hall and Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulators

We investigate the role of quantum fluctuations in topological quantum phase transitions of quantum spin Hall insulators and quantum anomalous Hall insulators. Employing the variational cluster approximation to obtain the single-particle Green's function of the interacting many-body system, we characterize different phases by direct calculation of the recently proposed topological order parameter for interacting systems. We pinpoint the influence of quantum fluctuations on the quantum spin Hall to Mott insulator transition in several models. Furthermore, we propose a general mechanism by which a topological quantum phase transition can be driven by the divergence of the self energy induced by interactions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Magnetic ordering phenomena of interacting quantum spin Hall models

The two-dimensional Hubbard model defined for topological band structures exhibiting a quantum spin Hall effect poses fundamental challenges in terms of phenomenological characterization and microscopic classification. In the limit of infinite coupling U at half filling, the spin model Hamiltonians resulting from a strong coupling expansion show various forms of magnetic ordering phenomena depending on the underlying spin-orbit coupling terms. We investigate the infinite U limit of the Kane-Mele Hubbard model with z-axis intrinsic spin-orbit coupling as well as its generalization to a generically multi-directional spin orbit term which has been claimed to account for the physical scenario in monolayer Na2IrO3. We find that the axial spin symmetry which is kept in the former but broken in the latter has a fundamental impact on the magnetic phase diagram as we vary the spin orbit coupling strength. While the Kane-Mele spin model shows a continuous evolution from conventional honeycomb Neel to XY antiferromagnetism which avoids the frustration imposed by the increased spin-orbit coupling, the multi-directional spin-orbit term induces a commensurate to incommensurate transition at intermediate coupling strength, and yields a complex spiral state with a 72 site unit cell in the limit of infinite spin-orbit coupling. From our findings, we conjecture that in the case of broken axial spin symmetry there is a large propensity for an additional phase at sufficiently large spin-orbit coupling and intermediate U.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Unconventional Fermi surface instabilities in the Kagome Hubbard Model

We investigate the competing Fermi surface instabilities in the Kagome tight-binding model. Specifically, we consider onsite and short-range Hubbard interactions in the vicinity of van Hove filling of the dispersive Kagome bands where the Fermiology promotes the joint effect of enlarged density of states and nesting. The sublattice interference mechanism [Kiesel and Thomale, Phys. Rev. B Rapid Comm., in press.] allows us to explain the intricate interplay between ferromagnetic fluctuations and other ordering tendencies. On the basis of functional renormalization group used to obtain an adequate low-energy theory description, we discover finite angular momentum spin and charge density wave order, a two-fold degenerate d-wave Pomeranchuk instability, and f-wave superconductivity away from van Hove filling. Together, this makes the Kagome Hubbard model the prototypical scenario for several unconventional Fermi surface instabilities.

cond-mat.str-el↗