Topological Scenario for High-Temperature Superconductivity in Cuprates

The structure of the joint phase diagram of high-temperature superconducting cuprates has been studied within the theory of fermion condensation. Prerequisites of the topological rearrangement of the Landau state with the formation of a flat band adjacent to the nominal Fermi surface have been established. The related non-Fermi-liquid behavior of cuprates in the normal phase has been studied with focus on the non-Fermi-liquid behavior of the resistivity ρ(T), including the observed crossover from the linear temperature behavior ρ(T, x) = A₁(x)T at doping levels x below the critical value x _c ^h corresponding to the boundary of the superconducting region to the quadratic temperature behavior at x > x _c ^h , which is incompatible with predictions of the conventional quantum-critical-point scenario. It has been demonstrated that the slope of the coefficient A₁(x) is universal and is the same on both boundaries of the joint phase diagram of cuprates in agreement with available experimental data. It has also been shown that the fermion condensate is responsible for pairing in the D-wave state in cuprates. The effective Coulomb repulsion in the Cooper channel, which prevents the existence of superconductivity in normal metals in the S channel, leads to high-temperature superconductivity in the D channel.     

Fermion superfluid with hybridized <Emphasis Type="Italic">s</Emphasis>- and <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-wave pairings

Ever since the pioneering work of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer in the 1950s, exploring novel pairing mechanisms for fermion superfluids has become one of the central tasks in modern physics. Here, we investigate a new type of fermion superfluid with hybridized s- and p-wave pairings in an ultracold spin-1/2 Fermi gas. Its occurrence is facilitated by the co-existence of comparable s- and p-wave interactions, which is realizable in a two-component ⁴⁰K Fermi gas with close-by s- and p-wave Feshbach resonances. The hybridized superfluid state is stable over a considerable parameter region on the phase diagram, and can lead to intriguing patterns of spin densities and pairing fields in momentum space. In particular, it can induce a phase-locked p-wave pairing in the fermion species that has no p-wave interactions. The hybridized nature of this novel superfluid can also be confirmed by measuring the s- and p-wave contacts, which can be extracted from the high-momentum tail of the momentum distribution of each spin component. These results enrich our knowledge of pairing superfluidity in Fermi systems, and open the avenue for achieving novel fermion superfluids with multiple partial-wave scatterings in cold atomic gases.     

Extended s-wave pairing symmetry on the triangular lattice heavy fermion system

We investigate the pairing symmetry of the Kondo-Heisenberg model on triangular lattice, which is believed to capture the core competition of Kondo screening and local magnetic exchange interaction in heavy electron compounds. On the dominant background of the heavy fermion state, the introduction of the Heisenberg antiferromagnetic interaction (J _H ) leads to superconducting pairing instability. Depending on the strength of the interactions, it is found that the pairing symmetry favours an extended s-wave for small J _H and high conduction electron density but a chiral \(d_{x^2 - y^2 } + id_{xy}\)-wave for large J _H and low conduction electron density, which provides a phase diagram of pairing symmetry from the calculations of the ground-state energy. The transition between these two pairing symmetries is found to be first-order. Furthermore, we also analyze the phase diagram from the pairing strengths and find that the phase diagram obtained is qualitatively consistent with that based on the ground-state energy. In addition, we propose an effective single-band BCS Hamiltonian, which is able to describe the low-energy thermodynamic behaviors of the heavy fermion superconducting states. These results further deepen the understanding of the antiferromagnetic interaction which results in a geometric frustration for the model studied. Our work may provide a possible scenario to understand the pairing symmetry of the heavy fermion superconductivity, which is one of active issues in very recent years.     

Cascade of Quantum Transitions and Magnetocaloric Anomalies in an Open Nanowire

A sequence of magnetocaloric anomalies occurring with the change in a magnetic field H is predicted for an open nanowire with the Rashba spin–orbit coupling and the induced superconducting pairing potential. The nature of such anomalies is due to the cascade of quantum transitions related to the successive changes in the fermion parity of the nanowire ground state with the growth of the magnetic field. It is shown that the critical H_c values fall within the parameter range corresponding to the nontrivial values of the Z₂ topological invariant of the corresponding 1D band Hamiltonian characteristic of the D symmetry class. It is demonstrated that such features in the behavior of the open nanowire are retained even in the presence of Coulomb interactions.     

Coulomb repul sion of hole s and competition between $${d_{{x^2} - {y^2}}}$$ -wave and s-wave paring s in cuprate superconductor s

The effect of the Coulomb repulsion of holes on the Cooper instability in an ensemble of spin–polaron quasiparticles has been analyzed, taking into account the peculiarities of the crystallographic structure of the CuO₂ plane, which are associated with the presence of two oxygen ions and one copper ion in the unit cell, as well as the strong spin–fermion coupling. The investigation of the possibility of implementation of superconducting phases with d-wave and s-wave of the order parameter symmetry has shown that in the entire doping region only the d-wave pairing satisfies the self-consistency equations, while there is no solution for the s-wave pairing. This result completely corresponds to the experimental data on cuprate HTSC. It has been demonstrated analytically that the intersite Coulomb interaction does not affect the superconducting d-wave pairing, because its Fourier transform V _q does not appear in the kernel of the corresponding integral equation.     

Superfluid response in heavy fermion superconductors

Motivated by a recent London penetration depth measurement [H. Kim, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 027003 (2015)] and novel composite pairing scenario [O. Erten, R. Flint, and P. Coleman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 027002 (2015)] of the Yb-doped heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn₅, we revisit the issue of superfluid response in the microscopic heavy fermion lattice model. However, from the literature, an explicit expression for the superfluid response function in heavy fermion superconductors is rare. In this paper, we investigate the superfluid density response function in the celebrated Kondo–Heisenberg model. To be specific, we derive the corresponding formalism from an effective fermionic large-N mean-field pairing Hamiltonian whose pairing interaction is assumed to originate from the effective local antiferromagnetic exchange interaction. Interestingly, we find that the physically correct, temperature-dependent superfluid density formula can only be obtained if the external electromagnetic field is directly coupled to the heavy fermion quasi-particle rather than the bare conduction electron or local moment. Such a unique feature emphasizes the key role of the Kondo-screening-renormalized heavy quasi-particle for low-temperature/energy thermodynamics and transport behaviors. As an important application, the theoretical result is compared to an experimental measurement in heavy fermion superconductors CeCoIn5 and Yb-doped Ce_1?xYb_xCoIn₅ with fairly good agreement and the transition of the pairing symmetry in the latter material is explained as a simple doping effect. In addition, the requisite formalism for the commonly encountered nonmagnetic impurity and non-local electrodynamic effect are developed. Inspired by the success in explaining classic 115-series heavy fermion superconductors, we expect the present theory will be applied to understand other heavy fermion superconductors such as CeCu₂Si₂ and more generic multi-band superconductors.     

Fermi Surface Topology in the Case of Spontaneously Broken Rotational Symmetry

The relation between the broken rotational symmetry of a system and the topology of its Fermi surface is studied for the two-dimensional system with the quasiparticle interaction f(p, p') having a sharp peak at |p ? p'| = q₀. It is shown that, in the case of attraction and q₀ = 2p_F the first instability manifesting itself with the growth of the interaction strength is the Pomeranchuk instability. This instability appearing in the L = 2 channel gives rise to a second order phase transition to a nematic phase. The Monte Carlo calculations demonstrate that this transition is followed by a sequence of the first and second order phase transitions corresponding to the changes in the symmetry and topology of the Fermi surface. In the case of repulsion and small values of q₀, the first transition is a topological transition to a state with the spontaneously broken rotational symmetry, namely, corresponding to the nucleation of L ? π(p_F/q₀ ? 1) small hole pockets at the distance p_F ? q₀ from the center and the deformation of the outer Fermi surface with the characteristic multipole number equal to L. At q₀ → 0, when the model under study transforms to the two-dimensional Nozières model, the multipole number characterizing the spontaneous deformation is L → ∞, whereas the infinitely folded Fermi curve acquires the Hausdorff dimension D = 2 which corresponds to the state with the fermion condensate.     

Some exact solutions of the local induction equation for the motion of a vortex in a Bose–Einstein condensate with a Gaussian density profile

The dynamics of a vortex filament in a Bose–Einstein condensate whose equilibrium density in the reference frame rotating at the angular velocity Ω is Gaussian with the quadratic form r·D?r has been considered. It has been shown that the equation of motion of the filament in the local-induction approximation permits a class of exact solutions in the form R(β, t) = βM(t) + N(t) of a straight vortex, where β is the longitudinal parameter and is the time. The vortex slips over the surface of an ellipsoid, which follows from the conservation laws N · D?N=C ₁ and M · D?N=C ₀=0. The equation of the evolution of the tangential vector M(t) appears to be closed and has integrals of motion M ·D?M=C ₂ and (|M| ? M· G?Ω) = C, with the matrix G? = 2(I?TrD? ? D?)^?1. Crossing of the respective isosurfaces specifies trajectories in the phase space.     

Hall coefficient in heavy fermion metals

Experimental studies of the antiferromagnetic (AF) heavy fermion metal YbRh₂Si₂ in a magnetic field B indicate the presence of a jump in the Hall coefficient at a magnetic-field tuned quantum state in the zero temperature limit. This quantum state occurs at B ≥ B_c0 and induces the jump even though the change of the magnetic field at B = B_c0 is infinitesimal. We investigated this by using the model of heavy electron liquid with the fermion condensate. Within this model, the jump takes place when the magnetic field reaches the critical value B_c0 at which the ordering temperature T_N(B = B_c0) of the AF transition vanishes. We show that at B → B_c0, this second order AF phase transition becomes the first order one, making the corresponding quantum and thermal critical fluctuations vanish at the jump. At T → 0 and B = B_c0 the Grüneisen ratio as a function of the temperature T diverges. We demonstrate that both the divergence and the jump are determined by the specific low temperature behavior of the entropy \(S(T) \propto S_0 + a\sqrt T + bT\) with S₀; a and b are temperature independent constants.     

Twin-unified <Emphasis Type="Italic">SU</Emphasis>(5) × <Emphasis Type="Italic">SU</Emphasis>(5)′ GUT and phenomenology

In this article, after a short introduction, grand unified SU(5)×SU(5)^′ model augmented by D₂ parity has been discussed. The latter turns out to be important for phenomenology. Specific pattern of the GUT symmetry breaking causes new strong dynamics at low energies. Consequently, the Standard Model leptons, along with right-handed /sterile neutrinos, come out as composite states. Issues of the gauge coupling unification, generation of the charged fermion and neutrino masses will be presented. Also, various phenomenological implications and constraints will be discussed.     

Coexistence of superconducting and spiral spin orders: Models of ruthenate

The effect of a spiral spin structure on superconducting (SC) pairing in a three-band Hubbard model related to Sr₂RuO₄ is analyzed in the mean-field approximation. Such a structure with incommensurate vector Q=2π (1/3, 1/3) is the simplest one that removes the nesting instability of α and β bands. It is assumed that there is an intralayer pairing interaction between two types of neighbor sites, those with attraction in a singlet channel and with attraction in both two-singlet and triplet channels. In both cases, a mixed singlet-triplet SC order is observed in the γ band: a d-wave singlet order is accompanied by the formation of p-wave triplet pairs (k,-k-Q)? and (k,?k+Q)? with large total momenta ?Q and the spin projections ±1 onto an axis perpendicular to the spin rotation plane of the spiral spin structure. Both the SC and normal states are states with broken time-reversal symmetry. In contradiction to the experiment, the models give different scales of T _c for the γ band and for α and β bands. This fact shows that the models with intralayer interactions or with the spin structure assumed are insufficient.     

Calculation of the diffusion coefficient in acoustic turbulence

The first (Born) approximation commonly used to calculate the diffusion coefficient D_T of a passive scalar in acoustic turbulence is shown to be insufficient. Even for a small main parameter—the Mach number, M?1—the next approximation gives a larger contribution to D_T than does the first approximation, but negative in sign. We present a procedure for correctly calculating D_T based on the solution of a nonlinear DIA (direct interaction approximation) equation for the mean Green’s function of the problem. We include an additional term in the general formula for D_T that directly describes the compressibility of acoustic turbulence. This term has not been known previously and has been disregarded even in the Born approximation. A positive value was obtained for D_T=CM³u₀/p₀. The spectrum E(x) was assumed to be smooth at distances Δ x～M²?1.     

On the theory of superconductivity in the extended Hubbard model

A microscopic theory of superconductivity in the extended Hubbard model which takes into account the intersite Coulomb repulsion and electron-phonon interaction is developed in the limit of strong correlations. The Dyson equation for normal and pair Green functions expressed in terms of the Hubbard operators is derived. The self-energy is obtained in the noncrossing approximation. In the normal state, antiferromagnetic short-range correlations result in the electronic spectrum with a narrow bandwidth. We calculate superconducting T _c by taking into account the pairing mediated by charge and spin fluctuations and phonons. We found the d-wave pairing with high-T _c mediated by spin fluctuations induced by the strong kinematic interaction for the Hubbard operators. Contributions to the d-wave pairing coming from the intersite Coulomb repulsion and phonons turned out to be small.     

From the Bose-Einstein to fermion condensation

The appearance of the fermion condensation, which can be compared to the Bose-Einstein condensation, in different Fermi liquids is considered; its properties are discussed; and a large amount of experimental evidence in favor of the existence of the fermion condensate (FC) is presented. We show that the appearance of FC is a signature of the fermion condensation quantum phase transition (FCQPT), which separates the regions of normal and strongly correlated liquids. Beyond the FCQPT point, the quasiparticle system is divided into two subsystems, one containing normal quasiparticles and the other, FC, localized at the Fermi level. In the superconducting state, the quasiparticle dispersion in systems with FC can be represented by two straight lines, characterized by effective masses M _FC ^* and M _L ^* and intersecting near the binding energy E₀, which is of the order of the superconducting gap. The same quasiparticle picture and the energy scale E₀ persist in the normal state. We demonstrate that fermion systems with FC have features of a “quantum protectorate” and show that strongly correlated systems with FC, which exhibit large deviations from the Landau Fermi liquid behavior, can be driven into the Landau Fermi liquid by applying a small magnetic field B at low temperatures. Thus, the essence of strongly correlated electron liquids can be controlled by weak magnetic fields. A reentrance into the strongly correlated regime is observed if the magnetic field B decreases to zero, while the effective mass M* diverges as \(M^ * \propto {1 \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {\sqrt B }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\sqrt B }}\). The regime is restored at some temperature \(T^ * \propto \sqrt B \). The behavior of Fermi systems that approach FCQPT from the disordered phase is considered. This behavior can be viewed as a highly correlated one, because the effective mass is large and strongly depends on the density. We expect that FCQPT takes place in trapped Fermi gases and in low-density neutron matter, leading to stabilization of the matter by lowering its ground-state energy. When the system recedes from FCQPT, the effective mass becomes density independent and the system is suited perfectly to be conventional Landau Fermi liquid.     

Experimental investigation of wake evolution behind a couple of flat discs in a hydrochannel

The decay of a far wake and its turbulent fluctuations behind two thin discs of the same diameter D, oriented normal to the incident flow, have been studied using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The experimental study was carried out in a water flume (Re ≈ 2·10⁵) with varying distances between the discs (L _х = 4–8D) and their axes shift relative to each other (0, 0.5D and 1D). It is found that the velocity deficit behind two discs depends weakly on L _x , and at L _х > 40D, it becomes indistinguishable from the level of turbulent fluctuations of the incident flow. It is found that the decay of the average velocity deficit and its turbulent fluctuations in a wake of a tandem of discs can be described by the same analytical dependence with exponent–2/3 as for the wake decay of a single disc. However, at the same distance downstream, the value of deficit behind two discs is substantially higher than the corresponding value behind a single disc. Velocity fluctuations in a far wake behind a pair of discs depend weakly on longitudinal dimension L _x , but at the same time, in contrast to the velocity deficit, their level does not differ significantly from the level of fluctuations behind a single disc.     

Mechanism of decrease in the strength of submicron-sized specimens of FCC metals with a nanocrystalline structure

The effect of decrease in the strength of submicron-sized specimens of face-centered cubic (fcc) metals with a nanocrystalline structure and a cross-sectional size D < 5d, as compared to the strength of the specimens with D ? 5d (where d is the grain size), has been considered theoretically on the basis of the dislocation–kinetic equations and relationships. Previously, it has been found that this decrease is caused by the escape of a part of the dislocations through the surface of the specimen under the action of single-pole dislocation sources in grains adjacent to the surface. In this study, it has been shown that the absorption of lattice dislocations by grain boundaries and its accompanying grain boundary sliding lead to a further decrease in the flow stress of specimens, which is equally related to both thin (D < 5d) and thick (D ? 5d) specimens.     

Path integral approach for spaces of nonconstant curvature in three dimensions

In this contribution, I show that it is possible to construct three-dimensional spaces of nonconstant curvature, i.e., three-dimensional Darboux spaces. Two-dimensional Darboux spaces have been introduced by Kalnins et al., with a path integral approach by the present author. In comparison to two dimensions, in three dimensions it is necessary to add a curvature term in the Lagrangian in order that the quantum motion can be properly defined. Once this is done, it turns out that, in the two three-dimensional Darboux spaces which are discussed in this paper, the quantum motion is similar to the two-dimensional case. In D _3d-I, we find seven coordinate systems which separate the Schrödinger equation. For the second space, D _3d-II, all coordinate systems of flat three-dimensional Euclidean space which separate the Schrödinger equation also separate the Schrödinger equation in D _3d-II. I solve the path integral on D _3d-I in the (u, v, w) system and on D _3d-II in the (u, v, w) system and in spherical coordinates.     

Manifestation of Nonuniversality of Lepton Interactions in Spontaneously Violated Mirror Symmetry

Data from the LHCb experiments are indicative of a substantial distinction between the B → K (or K*) + e⁺e^? and B → K (or K*) + μ⁺μ^? branching ratios (April 2017). The branching ratio for the e+e? channel is substantially greater than that for the μ⁺μ^? channel, whereas Standard Model (SM) calculations require that they be equal to each other. The above distinction may suggest the existence of a new interaction changing generations and discriminating between leptons that has couplings that are much greater than and are inverse in strength to the SM fermion couplings to the Higgs boson. Under conditions of spontaneously violated mirror symmetry, the coupling of SM particles to the second Higgs scalar that is inevitably present there and which is in principle heavy possesses precisely these properties. An inverse character of this coupling and its strength are not an additional hypothesis but a necessary condition for qualitatively reproducing, in addition, the observed charged-lepton mass hierarchy and the structure of weak lepton mixing—the Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata (PMNS) matrix. Within the mirror model being considered, all properties of the new interaction, including its inverse character, are due to the hierarchical character of the quark and charged-lepton mass spectrum.