arXiv subjects

S. A. Kivelson

Publications and source records attributed to S. A. Kivelson.

86 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv1997

Electronic Liquid Crystal Phases of a Doped Mott Insulator

The character of the ground state of an antiferromagnetic insulator is fundamentally altered upon addition of even a small amount of charge. The added charges agglomerate along domain walls at which the spin correlations, which may or may not remain long-ranged, suffer a $π$ phase shift. In two dimensions, these domain walls are ``stripes'' which are either insulating, or conducting, i.e. metallic rivers with their own low energy degrees of freedom. However, quasi one-dimensional metals typically undergo a transition to an insulating ordered charge density wave (CDW) state at low temperatures. Here it is shown that such a transition is eliminated if the zero-point energy of transverse stripe fluctuations is sufficiently large in comparison to the CDW coupling between stripes. As a consequence, there exist novel, liquid-crystalline low-temperature phases -- an electron smectic, with crystalline order in one direction, but liquid-like correlations in the other, and an electron nematic with orientational order but no long-range positional order. These phases, which constitute new states of matter, can be either high temperature supeconductors or two-dimensional anisotropic ``metallic'' non-Fermi liquids. Evidence for the new phases may already have been obtained by neutron scattering experiments in the cuprate superconductor, La_{1.6-x}Nd_{0.4}Sr_xCuO_{4}.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1997

Pairing and Phase Coherence in High Temperature Superconductors

Mobile holes in an antiferromagnetic insulator form a slowly fluctuating array of quasi one-dimensional metallic stripes, which induce a spin gap or pseudogap in the intervening Mott-insulating regions. The mobile holes on an individual stripe acquire a spin gap via pair hopping between the stripe and its environment; i.e. via a magnetic analog of the usual superconducting proximity effect. This process is the analog of pairing in conventional superconductors. At non-vanishing stripe densities, Josephson coupling between stripes produces a dimensional crossover to a state with long-range superconducting phase coherence. In contrast to conventional superconductors, the superconducting state is characterised by a high density of (spin) pairs, but the phase stiffness, which is determined by the density and mobility of holes on the stripes, is very low.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1997

Landau Theory of Stripe Phases in Cuprates and Nickelates

We consider a Landau theory of coupled charge and spin-density wave order parameters as a simple model for the ordering that has been observed experimentally in the La_2NiO_4 and La_2CuO_4 families of doped antiferromagnets. The period of the charge-density wave is generically half that of the spin-density wave, or equivalently the charges form antiphase domain walls in the antiferromagnetic order. A sharp distinction exists between the case in which the ordering is primarily charge driven (which produces a sequence of transitions in qualitative agreement with experiment) or spin driven (which does not). We also find that stripes with non-collinear spin order (i.e. spiral phases) are possible in a region of the phase diagram where the transition is spin driven; the spiral is circular only when there is no charge order, and is otherwise elliptical with an eccentricity proportional to the magnitude of the charge order.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv1996

Spin-Gap Proximity Effect Mechanism of High Temperature Superconductivity

When holes are doped into an antiferromagnetic insulator they form a slowly fluctuating array of ``topological defects'' (metallic stripes) in which the motion of the holes exhibits a self-organized quasi one-dimensional electronic character. The accompanying lateral confinement of the intervening Mott-insulating regions induces a spin gap or pseudogap in the environment of the stripes. We present a theory of underdoped high temperature superconductors and show that there is a {\it local} separation of spin and charge, and that the mobile holes on an individual stripe acquire a spin gap via pair hopping between the stripe and its environment; i.e. via a magnetic analog of the usual superconducting proximity effect. In this way a high pairing scale without a large mass renormalization is established despite the strong Coulomb repulsion between the holes. Thus the {\it mechanism} of pairing is the generation of a spin gap in spatially-confined {\it Mott-insulating} regions of the material in the proximity of the metallic stripes. At non-vanishing stripe densities, Josephson coupling between stripes produces a dimensional crossover to a state with long-range superconducting phase coherence. This picture is established by obtaining exact and well-controlled approximate solutions of a model of a one-dimensional electron gas in an active environment. An extended discussion of the experimental evidence supporting the relevance of these results to the cuprate superconductors is given.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv1996

Textured Edges in Quantum Hall Systems

We have investigated the formation of spin textures at the edges of quantum Hall systems for several ferromagnetic filling factors. The textures are driven by the same physics that leads to ``skyrmions'' in the bulk. For hard confinement and large Zeeman energies, the edges are narrow and spin polarized. Away from this limit and for $ν=1/3$, $1/5$ and $1$, we find that they widen by developing spin textures. In contrast, for $ν=3$, the edge remains spin polarized, even as it reconstructs. We comment on the mode structure of the reconstructed edges and on possible experimental signatures.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1996

Two point-contact interferometer for quantum Hall systems

We propose a device, consisting of a Hall bar with two weak barriers, that can be used to study quantum interference effects in a strongly correlated system. We show how the device provides a way of measuring the fractional charge and fractional statistics of quasiparticles in the quantum Hall effect through an anomalous Aharanov-Bohm period. We discuss how this disentangling of the charge and statistics can be accomplished by measurements at fixed filling factor and at fixed density. We also discuss a another type of interference effect that occurs in the nonlinear regime as the source-drain voltage is varied. The period of these oscillations can also be used to measure the fractional charge, and details of the oscillations patterns, in particular the position of the nodes, can be used to distinguish between Fermi-liquid and Luttinger-liquid behavior. We illustrate these ideas by computing the conductance of the device in the framework of edge state theory and use it to estimate parameters for the experimental realization of this device.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1996

Composite Fermion Hall Conductance at $ν=1/2$

We show that in the limit of vanishing bare electron effective mass, and in the presence of particle-hole symmetric disorder (which can be of vanishing strength), the composite fermion Hall conductance is constrained to be $-{1\over 2}\frac{e^2}{h}$. We discuss the implications of this results for the existence and nature of a composite Fermi liquid in the lowest Landau level.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1996

The Universal Composite Fermion Hall Conductance at $ν=1/2$

We show that at electronic filling factor $ν=1/2$, the lowest Landau level constraint implies that at any temperature, and in the presence of {\it any} amount of particle-hole symmetric disorder, the {\it composite fermion} Hall conductivity is precisely $-e^2/2h$. (The electronic Hall conductivity is $e^2/2h$.) This is inconsistent with the response of a composite Fermi liquid in {\it zero} effective magnetic field. We also examine perturbatively the nature of the putative composite Fermi liquid in the case in which the bare particles are anyons with ``nearly'' Fermi statistics.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1996

Topological Doping of Correlated Insulators

A material which is an insulator entirely because of interaction effects is called a correlated insulator. Examples are trans-polyacetylene and the cuprate high temperature superconductors. Whereas doping of a band insulator results in a shift of the chemical potential into the conduction or valence band, doping of a correlated insulator produces fundamental changes in the electronic density of states itself. We have found that a general feature of doping a correlated insulator is the generation of topological defects; solitons in one-dimension and anti-phase domain walls in higher dimensions. We review the well known features of this process in polyacetylene, and describe the experimental evidence that the analogous features are seen in the cuprate superconductors. We also distinguish the case in which the doping-induced features can be viewed as a Fermi surface instability, as in polyacetylene, and the more usual case in which they are a consequence of a Coulomb frustrated electronic tendency to phase separation. Paper presented at the Sixtieth Birthday Symposium for Alan J. Heeger, January 20, 1996

cond-mat↗

arXiv1996

Implications of Charge Ordering for Single-Particle Properties of High-Tc Superconductors

The consequences of disordered charge stripes and antiphase spin domains for the properties of the high-temperature superconductors are studied. We focus on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and optical conductivity, and show that the many unusual features of the experimentally observed spectra can be understood naturally in this way. This interpretation of the data, when combined with evidence from neutron scattering and NMR, suggests that disordered and fluctuating stripe phases are a common feature of high-temperature superconductors.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1995

Exact Results for 1D Kondo Lattice from Bosonization

We find a solvable limit to the problem of the 1D electron gas interacting with a lattice of Kondo scattering centers. In this limit, we present exact results for the problems of incommensurate filling, commensurate filling, impurity vacancy states, and the commensurate-incommensurate transition.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1995

Avoided Critical Behavior in a Uniformly Frustrated System

We study the effects of weak long-ranged antiferromagnetic interactions of strength $Q$ on a spin model with predominant short-ranged ferromagnetic interactions. In three dimensions, this model exhibits an avoided critical point in the sense that the critical temperature $T_c(Q=0)$ is strictly greater than $\lim_{Q\to 0} T_c(Q)$. The behavior of this system at temperatures less than $T_c(Q=0)$ is controlled by the proximity to the avoided critical point. We also quantize the model in a novel way to study the interplay between charge-density wave and superconducting order.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1995

Paired States in the Even Integer Quantum Hall Effect

We argue that a new type of quantum Hall state requiring non-perturbative Landau level mixing arises at low electron density. In these states, up and down spin electrons pair to form spinless bosons that condense into a bosonic quantum Hall state. We describe a wavefunction for a paired quantum Hall state at $ν=2$ and argue that it is stabilized by a BCS instability arising in flux attachment calculations. Based on this state, we derive a new global phase diagram for the integral quantum Hall effect with spin. Additional experimental implications are discussed.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1993

Proposed Measurement of an Effective Flux Quantum in the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect

We consider a channel of an incompressible fractional-quantum-Hall-effect (FQHE) liquid containing an island of another FQHE liquid. It is predicted that the resistance of this channel will be periodic in the flux through the island, with the period equal to an odd integer multiple of the fundamental flux quantum, $ϕ_{0}=hc/e$. The multiplicity depends on the quasiparticle charges of the two FQHE liquids.

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