Anwesha Chattopadhyay, H. R. Krishnamurthy, Arti Garg
SciPost Phys. Core 4, 009 (2021) ·
published 28 April 2021
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We present a novel route for attaining unconventional superconductivity in a strongly correlated system without doping. In a simple model of a correlated band insulator at half-filling we demonstrate, based on a generalization of the projected wavefunctions method, that superconductivity emerges for a broad range of model parameters when e-e interactions and the bare band-gap are both much larger than the kinetic energy, provided the system has sufficient frustration against the magnetic order. As the interactions are tuned, the superconducting phase appears sandwiched between the correlated band insulator followed by a paramagnetic metal on one side, and a ferrimagnetic metal, antiferromagnetic half-metal, and Mott insulator phases on the other side
Corrado Rainone, Pierfrancesco Urbani, Francesco Zamponi, Edan Lerner, and Eran Bouchbinder
SciPost Phys. Core 4, 008 (2021) ·
published 16 April 2021
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Structural glasses feature quasilocalized excitations whose frequencies $\omega$ follow a universal density of states ${\cal D}(\omega)\!\sim\!\omega^4$. Yet, the underlying physics behind this universality is not yet fully understood. Here we study a mean-field model of quasilocalized excitations in glasses, viewed as groups of particles embedded inside an elastic medium and described collectively as anharmonic oscillators. The oscillators, whose harmonic stiffness is taken from a rather featureless probability distribution (of upper cutoff $\kappa_0$) in the absence of interactions, interact among themselves through random couplings (characterized by strength $J$) and with the surrounding elastic medium (an interaction characterized by a constant force $h$). We first show that the model gives rise to a gapless density of states ${\cal D}(\omega)\!=\!A_{\rm g}\,\omega^4$ for a broad range of model parameters, expressed in terms of the strength of stabilizing anharmonicity, which plays a decisive role in the model. Then --- using scaling theory and numerical simulations --- we provide a complete understanding of the non-universal prefactor $A_{\rm g}(h,J,\kappa_0)$, of the oscillators' interaction-induced mean square displacement and of an emerging characteristic frequency, all in terms of properly identified dimensionless quantities. In particular, we show that $A_{\rm g}(h,J,\kappa_0)$ is a non-monotonic function of $J$ for a fixed $h$, varying predominantly exponentially with $-(\kappa_0 h^{2/3}\!/J^2)$ in the weak interactions (small $J$) regime --- reminiscent of recent observations in computer glasses --- and predominantly decays as a power-law for larger $J$, in a regime where $h$ plays no role. We discuss the physical interpretation of the model and its possible relations to available observations in structural glasses, along with delineating some future research directions.
SciPost Phys. Core 4, 007 (2021) ·
published 15 April 2021
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We show that scattering from the boundary of static, higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) can be used to simulate the behavior of (time-periodic) Floquet topological insulators. We consider D-dimensional HOTIs with gapless corner states which are weakly probed by external waves in a scattering setup. We find that the unitary reflection matrix describing back-scattering from the boundary of the HOTI is topologically equivalent to a (D-1)-dimensional nontrivial Floquet operator. To characterize the topology of the reflection matrix, we introduce the concept of `nested' scattering matrices. Our results provide a route to engineer topological Floquet systems in the lab without the need for external driving. As benefit, the topological system does not to suffer from decoherence and heating.
