arXiv subjects

Yafis Barlas

Publications and source records attributed to Yafis Barlas.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Engineering kekule superconductivity from layer-selective interactions in rhombohedral graphene

At weak coupling, finite-momentum superconductivity is typically associated with broken time-reversal or inversion symmetry of the Fermi surface. Here, we show that lattice-scale pair-density-wave order in rhombohedral multilayer graphene can arise from layer/orbital-dependent pairing interactions, band chirality, and Dirac-point-centered Fermi surface topology while preserving both symmetries. Using mean-field theory and comparing finite momentum sectors $Q = \pm 2 K_{D}$ with the $ Q = 0$ superconducting state, we find that layer-dependent interactions of opposite signs ($V_{1A}=-V_{JB}=-|V|$) favor an intra-valley Kekul\`e state with center-of-mass momentum ($ Q=\pm 2 K_D$). In the presence of a time-reversal and inversion symmetry-preserving Kane-Mele mass ($\lambda$), this state appears only above a critical carrier density ($n^{crit}_{K}(\lambda,J)$). The two superconducting condensates exhibit opposite chirality, $J(-J)$ for $K_D(-K_D) $ valleys, thereby preserving time-reversal and inversion symmetry. We map the phase diagram and analyze the dependence of $T_c$ on the chirality index $J$ and $\lambda$. We also evaluate the superfluid stiffness in the Kekul\`e superconducting state, thereby determining the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition temperature. Our results show that orbital-dependent interactions in the presence of band chirality favor finite-momentum pairing in time-reversal and inversion symmetric Dirac materials.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Finite-momentum coupling of Higgs and Bardasis--Schrieffer modes in superconductors with competing pairing channels

In superconductors with competing pairing channels, two well defined excitations exist below the pair-breaking edge: the Higgs mode of the condensed $s$-wave channel and the Bardasis--Schrieffer (BS) exciton of the subdominant $d$-wave channel. Their mixing is doubly forbidden --- by point-group symmetry at zero momentum and because the two reside in the amplitude and phase sectors of the order parameter respectively, by particle--hole symmetry at every momentum. Working in a Nambu--Keldysh quasiclassical framework extended to leading $1/\varepsilon_F$ corrections and including the self-consistently screened Coulomb potential, we show that finite momentum combined with particle--hole asymmetry generates a direct coupling which we obtain in closed form. Whether this coupling produces an avoided crossing is decided, however, not by its magnitude but by kinematics. In the clean limit the Higgs is not a sub-gap pole but a resonance pinned to the pair-breaking edge, which disperses with coefficient unity in $(v_Fq)^2$, while the bound BS mode disperses more slowly: the two branches therefore separate rather than converge and never become degenerate. The obstruction is specific to the clean limit: exact dirty-limit results show that disorder detaches the amplitude resonance from the edge and reverses its dispersion, which can result in an avoided crossing with the BS mode at intermediate scattering. In that regime, the coupling computed here would set the splitting between the hybridized branches. We discuss the experimental implications of these results.

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arXiv2026

Kohn--Luttinger Superconductivity in Flat Chern Bands

Recent observations of superconductivity near correlated topological phases in flat bands suggest a facile link between flat-band geometry and electron pairing. In this work, we reveal a geometry-driven Kohn--Luttinger mechanism in which Landau-level-like form factors align the attractive lobe of the RPA-screened Coulomb interaction with the form-factor peak, generating an anomalously strong attractive channel near local band extrema. Using the Skyrmion lattice model as a minimal realization, we show that for spin-unpolarized pairing the form-factor magnitude enforces an emergent momentum-space translational symmetry and selects an extended-$s$ instability concentrated at small Fermi pockets, while for spin-polarized pairing the form-factor phase drives chiral $p$- and $f$-wave order without invoking spin fluctuations. The band-extrema enhancement persists in higher Landau-level analogs and survives finite-temperature screening and Berezinskii--Kosterlitz--Thouless phase fluctuations. Our work establishes quantum geometry as a key organizing principle for unconventional pairing in flat Chern bands.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Two-dimensional helical superconductivity and gapless superconducting edge modes in the 1T$^\prime$-WS$_2$/2H-WS$_2$ heterophase bilayer

We propose a material platform comprised of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) heterostructures to realize the two-dimensional (2D) helical superconductivity with an intrinsic gap. By van der Waals stacking a 2D superconductor (1T$^\prime$-WS$_2$ with inversion symmetry) on top of a 2D topological insulator (2H-WS$_2$ with mirror symmetry), the resulting TMDC bilayer exhibits Rashba superconductivity. Under an external in-plane magnetic field, the system can host finite-momentum Cooper pairing, evidenced by the divergence in the particle-particle susceptibility of a $k\cdot p$ Hamiltonian fitted to the \textit{ab initio} theory band structure. The resulting 2D helical superconducting phase can induce superconductivity in the edge states with its spatially varying order parameter. By varying the strength of the in-plane magnetic field, we demonstrate that the helical edge state can undergo a phase transition to a one-dimensional gapless phase with narrow Fermi segments corresponding to zero-energy Bogoliubov quasi-particles. The controllable one-dimensional gapless phase serves as a clear experimental fingerprint of 2D helical superconductivity. The proposed 2D TMDC heterostructure is promising for intrinsic nonreciprocal superconducting transport and the development of Majorana-based quantum devices.

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arXiv2025

Quantum Geometry Induced Kekul\'{e} Superconductivity in Haldane phases

Chiral two-dimensional electron gases, which capture the electronic properties of graphene and rhombohedral graphene systems, exhibit singular momentum-space vortices and are susceptible to interaction-induced topological Haldane phases. Here, we investigate pairing interactions in these inversion-symmetric Haldane phases of chiral two-dimensional electron gases. We demonstrate that the nontrivial band topology of the Haldane phases enhances intra-valley (${\bf Q} = \pm 2 {\bf K_D}$) pair susceptibility relative to inter-valley (${\bf Q} = 0$) pair susceptibility, favoring the emergence of a lattice-scale pair-density wave order. When longitudinal acoustic phonons mediate the pairing interaction, the system supports a chiral Kekul\`{e} superconducting order. Our findings are relevant to superconductivity in rhombohedral graphene and Kagome metals.

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arXiv2025

Effects of Coupling Between Chiral Vibrations and Spins in Molecular Magnets

In single molecular magnets, chiral vibrations carrying vibrational angular momentum ($\hat{L}^{\text{vib}}$) emerge due to the splitting of a doubly degenerate vibrational mode. Here, we identify a new type of effective spin-vibrational coupling responsible for lifting this degeneracy, which can facilitate optically selective excitations. In the presence of an external Zeeman field, this coupling breaks both inversion (in-plane parity) $\mathcal{P}$ and time-reversal $\mathcal{T}$ symmetries, imparting distinct geometric phases to the resulting dressed spin-vibronic states. The wave function of the spin-vibronic state is characterized by a $\pi$-Berry phase, which results in magneto-optical circular dichroism. This framework is validated using density functional theory and multi-reference \emph{ab initio} calculations on the Ce(trenovan) molecular magnet.

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arXiv2025

Quarter Metal Superconductivity

We investigate the recently discovered multiple superconducting states in rhombohedral graphene quarter metal. We demonstrate that one of these states features a single-spin, single-valley, single-band, single-Fermi-pocket parent state and is most likely a chiral topological pair-density wave, marked by a threefold symmetry that may not be spontaneously broken, unpaired Majorana zero modes at edges, vortices, and dislocations, and an anomalous intrinsic superconducting diode effect.

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arXiv2024

Superfluid weight cross-over and critical temperature enhancement in singular flat bands

Non-analytic Bloch eigenstates at isolated band degeneracy points exhibit singular behavior in the quantum metric. Here, a description of superfluid weight for zero-energy flat bands in proximity to other high-energy bands is presented, where they together form a singular band gap system. When the singular band gap closes, the geometric and conventional contributions to the superfluid weight as a function of the superconducting gap exhibit different crossover behaviors. The scaling behavior of superfluid weight with the band gap is studied in detail, and the effect on the Berezinskii-KosterlitzThouless (BKT) transition temperature is explored. It is discovered that tuning the singular band gap provides a unique mechanism for enhancing the supercurrent and critical temperature of two-dimensional (2D) superconductors.

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arXiv2024

Geometric superfluid weight of composite bands in multiorbital superconductors

The superfluid weight of an isolated flat band in multi-orbital superconductors contains contributions from the band's quantum metric and a lattice geometric term that depends on the orbital positions in the lattice. Since the superfluid weight is a measure of the superconductor's energy fluctuation, it is independent of the lattice geometry, leading to the minimal quantum metric of a band [Phys. Rev. B 106, 014518 (2022)]. Here, a perturbation approach is developed to study the superfluid weight and its lattice geometric dependence for composite bands. When all orbitals exhibit uniform pairing, the quantum geometric term contains each band's contribution and an inter-band contribution between every pair of bands in the composite. Based on a band representation analysis, they provide a topological lower bound for the superfluid weight of an isolated composite of flat bands. Using this perturbation approach, an analytical expression of the lattice geometric contribution is obtained. It is expressed in terms of Bloch functions, providing a convenient formula to calculate the superfluid weight for multi-orbital superconductors.

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arXiv2023

Infrared spectroscopy of phase transitions in the lowest Landau levels of bilayer graphene

We perform infrared magneto-spectroscopy of Landau level (LL) transitions in dual-gated bilayer graphene. At $\nu=4$ when the zeroth LL (octet) is filled, two resonances are observed indicating the opening of a gap. At $\nu=0$ when the octet is half-filled, multiple resonances disperse non-monotonically with increasing displacement field, $D$, perpendicular to the sheet, showing a phase transition at modest displacement fields from a canted anti-ferromagnet (CAFM) to the layer-polarized state, with a gap that opens linearly in $D$. When $D=0$ and $\nu$ is varied, resonances at $\pm\nu$ show an electron-hole asymmetry with multiple line splittings as the octet is progressively filled. The $\nu=4$ data show good agreement with predictions from a mean-field Hartree-Fock calculation when accounting for multiple tight-binding terms in a four-band model of bilayer graphene. However even by incorporating a valley interaction anisotropy tuned to the CAFM ground state, only partial agreement is found at $\nu=0$. Our results suggest additional physics is required to understand bilayer graphene at half-filling.

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arXiv2023

Pair Density Waves from Local Band Geometry

A band-projection formalism is developed for calculating the superfluid weight in two-dimensional multi-orbital superconductors with an orbital-dependent pairing. It is discovered that, in this case, the band geometric superfluid stiffness tensor can be locally non-positive-definite in some regions of the Brillouin zone. When these regions are large enough or include nodal singularities, the total superfluid weight becomes non-positive-definite due to pairing fluctuations, resulting in the transition of a BCS state to a pair-density wave (PDW). This geometric BCS-PDW transition is studied in the context of two-orbital superconductors, and proof of the existence of a geometric BCS-PDW transition in a generic topological flat band is established.

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arXiv2023

Effect of Inversion Asymmetry on Bilayer Graphene's Superconducting and Exciton Condensates

Inversion asymmetry in bilayer graphene can be tuned by the displacement field. As a result, the band dispersion in biased bilayer graphene acquires flat band regions near the Dirac points along with a non-trivial band geometry. We analyze the effect of inversion symmetry on the critical temperature and superfluid stiffness of the superconducting state of AB-stacked graphene bilayer and on the exciton condensate in double layers formed by two AB-stacked graphene bilayers. The geometric superfluid stiffness in bilayer graphene superconductors is found to be negligible due to the small superconducting gap. Furthermore, we show that the geometric superfluid stiffness is maximized for a constant order parameter. Therefore, it can be neglected in biased bilayer graphene superconductors with any pairing symmetry. However, the displacement field enhances the geometric superfluid stiffness in exciton condensates. It is most prominent at low densities and high displacement fields. A consequence of the geometric superfluid stiffness is a modest enhancement of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature in bilayer graphene's exciton condensate.

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arXiv2022

Hofstadter-Moir\'{e} Butterfly in Twisted Trilayer Graphene

Mirror symmetric twisted trilayer graphene (tTLG) is composed of even parity twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG)-like bands and odd parity Dirac-like bands. Here, we study the mirror-symmetric and mirror-asymmetric Hofstadter-Moir\'{e} (HM) fractal bands of tTLG. A novel quantum parity Hall state is identified in mirror-symmetric tTLG at experimentally accessible charge densities. This mirror symmetry-protected topological phase exhibits simultaneous quantized Hall and longitudinal resistances. The effects of the displacement field on the HM fractal bands of tTLG and topological phase transitions are also studied. The application of an electric displacement field results in an emergent weakly dispersive band at the charge neutrality point for a range of twist angles. This zero-energy state resides in the middle layer. It is isolated from the HM spectrum by an energy gap that scales proportional to the applied displacement field, making it a prime candidate to host correlated topological states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Tuning Spin Transport in a Graphene Antiferromagnetic Insulator

Long-distance spin transport through anti-ferromagnetic insulators (AFMIs) is a long-standing goal of spintronics research. Unlike conventional spintronics systems, monolayer graphene in quantum Hall regime (QH) offers an unprecedented tuneability of spin-polarization and charge carrier density in QH edge states. Here, using gate-controlled QH edges as spin-dependent injectors and detectors in an all-graphene electrical circuit, for the first time we demonstrate a selective tuning of ambipolar spin transport through graphene $ν$=0 AFMIs. By modulating polarities of the excitation bias, magnetic fields, and charge carriers that host opposite chiralities, we show that the difference between spin chemical potentials of adjacent edge channels in the spin-injector region is crucial in tuning spin-transport observed across graphene AFMI. We demonstrate that non-local response vanishes upon reversing directions of the co-propagating edge channels when the spin-filters in our devices are no longer selective for a particular spin-polarization. Our results establish a versatile set of methods to tune pure spin transport via an anti-ferromagnetic media and open a pathway to explore their applications for a broad field of antiferromagnetic spintronics research.

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arXiv2020

Topological braiding of non-Abelian mid-gap defects in classical meta-materials

Non-trivial braid-group representations appear as non-Abelian quantum statistics of emergent Majorana zero modes in one and two-dimensional topological superconductors. Here, we generate such representations with topologically protected domain-wall modes in a classical analogue of the Kitaev superconducting chain, with a particle-hole like symmetry and a Z2 topological invariant. The mid-gap modes are found to exhibit distinct fusion channels and rich non-Abelian braiding properties, which are investigated using a T-junction setup. We employ the adiabatic theorem to explicitly calculate the braiding matrices for one and two pairs of these mid-gap topological defects.

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arXiv2019

Topological Spin Hall Effect due to Magnetic Skyrmions

The intrinsic spin Hall effect (SHE) originates from the topology of the Bloch bands in momentum space. The duality between real space and momentum space calls for a spin Hall effect induced from a real space topology in analogy to the topological Hall effect (THE) of skyrmions. We theoretically demonstrate the topological spin Hall effect (TSHE) in which a pure transverse spin current is generated from a skyrmion spin texture.

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arXiv2019

Valley-Chern Effect with LC-Resonators: A Modular Platform

The valley Chern-effect is theoretically demonstrated with a novel alternating current circuitry, where closed-loop LC-resonators sitting at the nodes of a honeycomb lattice are inductively coupled along the bonds. This enables us to generate a dynamical matrix which copies identically the Hamiltonian driving the electrons in graphene. The valley-Chern effect is generated by splitting the inversion symmetry of the lattice. After a detailed study of the Berry curvature landscape and of the localization of the interface modes, we derive an optimal configuration of the circuit. Furthermore, we show that Q-factors as high as $10^4$ can be achieved with reasonable materials and configurations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Quantum Parity Hall effect in ABA Graphene

The celebrated phenomenon of quantum Hall effect has recently been generalized from transport of conserved charges to that of other approximately conserved state variables, including spin and valley, which are characterized by spin- or valley-polarized boundary states with different chiralities. Here, we report a new class of quantum Hall effect in ABA-stacked graphene trilayers (TLG), the quantum parity Hall (QPH) effect, in which boundary channels are distinguished by even or odd parity under the systems mirror reflection symmetry. At the charge neutrality point and a small perpendicular magnetic field $B_{\perp}$, the longitudinal conductance $σ_{xx}$ is first quantized to $4e^2/h$, establishing the presence of four edge channels. As $B_{\perp}$ increases, $σ_{xx}$ first decreases to $2e^2/h$, indicating spin-polarized counter-propagating edge states, and then to approximately $0$. These behaviors arise from level crossings between even and odd parity bulk Landau levels, driven by exchange interactions with the underlying Fermi sea, which favor an ordinary insulator ground state in the strong $B_{\perp}$ limit, and a spin-polarized state at intermediate fields. The transitions between spin-polarized and unpolarized states can be tuned by varying Zeeman energy. Our findings demonstrate a topological phase that is protected by a gate-controllable symmetry and sensitive to Coulomb interactions.

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