We present a structural analysis of the substituted system $({\mathrm{Ba}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Sr}}_x){\mathrm{CuSi}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_6$, which reveals a stable tetragonal crystal structure down to 1.5 K. We explore the structural details with low-temperature neutron and synchrotron powder diffraction, room-temperature, and cryogenic high-resolution NMR, as well as magnetic- and specific-heat measurements and verify that a structural phase transition into the orthorhombic structure which occurs in the parent compound ${\mathrm{BaCuSi}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_6$, is absent for the $x=0.1$ sample. Furthermore, synchrotron powder-diffraction patterns show a reduction of the unit cell for $x=0.1$ and magnetic measurements prove that the Cu dimers are preserved, yet with a slightly reduced intradimer coupling $J_{\mathrm{intra}}$. Pulse-field magnetization measurements reveal the emergence of a field-induced ordered state, tantamount to Bose-Einstein-condensation (BEC) of triplons, within the tetragonal crystal structure of $I{4}_1/acd$. This material offers the opportunity to study the critical properties of triplon condensation in a simple crystal structure.

In this paper, we report on the investigation of (i) the transport properties of multicarriers in semimetal Bi and (ii) the spin conversion physics in this semimetal system on a ferrimagnetic insulator, yttrium-iron-garnet. Hall measurements reveal that electrons and holes coexist in the Bi, with electrons being the dominant carrier. The results of a spin conversion experiment corroborate the results of the Hall measurement; in addition, the inverse spin Hall effect governs the spin conversion in the semimetal/insulator system. This study provides further insights into spin conversion physics in semimetal systems.

We investigate theoretically the magnetization dynamics in a skyrmion magnonic crystal. Collective excitations are studied in a chain of touching ferromagnetic nanodots in a skyrmion magnetic configuration. The determined dispersion relation of coupled skyrmions shows a periodic dependence on the wave vector, a characteristic feature of the band structure in magnonic crystals. By spatial analysis of the magnetization amplitude in the magnonic bands we identify the excited modes as breathing and clockwise gyrotropic dynamic skyrmions. Propagating with a negative and positive group velocity, respectively, these high- and low-frequency excitations can be further explored theoretically and experimentally for fundamental properties and technological applications in spintronics and magnonics.

We study the phase diagram of the Hubbard model in the weak-coupling limit for coexisting spin-density-wave order and spin-fluctuation-mediated superconductivity. Both longitudinal and transverse spin fluctuations contribute significantly to the effective interaction potential, which creates Cooper pairs of the quasiparticles of the antiferromagnetic metallic state. We find a dominant $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave solution in both electron- and hole-doped cases. In the quasi-spin-triplet channel, the longitudinal fluctuations give rise to an effective attraction supporting a $p$-wave gap, but are overcome by repulsive contributions from the transverse fluctuations which disfavor $p$-wave pairing compared to $d_{x^2-y^2}$. The subleading pair instability is found to be in the $g$-wave channel, but complex admixtures of $d$ and $g$ are not energetically favored since their nodal structures coincide. Inclusion of interband pairing, in which each fermion in the Cooper pair belongs to a different spin-density-wave band, is considered for a range of electron dopings in the regime of well-developed magnetic order. We demonstrate that these interband pairing gaps, which are nonzero in the magnetic state, must have the same parity under inversion as the normal intraband gaps. The self-consistent solution to the full system of five coupled gap equations gives intraband and interband pairing gaps of $d_{x^2-y^2}$ structure and similar gap magnitude. In conclusion, the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ gap dominates for both hole and electron doping inside the spin-density-wave phase.

The ground state of a two-dimensional (2D) system of Bose particles of spin zero, interacting via a repulsive Gaussian-core potential, has been investigated by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The quantum phase diagram is qualitatively identical to that of 2D Yukawa bosons. While the system is a fluid at all densities for weak coupling, in the strong-coupling regime it transitions upon compression from a low-density superfluid to a crystal, and then into a reentrant superfluid phase. No evidence of a (supersolid) cluster crystal phase is seen.

The lifetime of cavitation bubbles produced by an acoustic wave focused in liquid helium-4 is investigated. This lifetime is found to be different by orders of magnitude depending on whether the liquid is superfluid or not. We show that if the liquid is in the superfluid state, the bubble lifetime is well explained by a purely mechanical model, corresponding to the so-called Rayleigh regime. In the normal state, the Rayleigh-Plesset regime applies, in which heat diffusion plays a crucial role and dramatically increases the bubble lifetime.

Neutron spin resonance, a collective magnetic excitation coupled to superconductivity, is one of the most prominent features shared by a broad family of unconventional superconductors including copper oxides, iron pnictides, and heavy fermions. In this paper, we study the doping evolution of the resonances in ${\mathrm{NaFe}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Co}}_x\mathrm{As}$ covering the entire superconducting dome. For the underdoped compositions, two resonance modes coexist. As doping increases, the low-energy resonance gradually loses its spectral weight to the high-energy one but remains at the same energy. By contrast, in the overdoped regime we only find one single resonance, which acquires a broader width in both energy and momentum but retains approximately the same peak position even when $T_c$ drops by nearly a half compared to optimal doping. These results suggest that the energy of the resonance in electron overdoped ${\mathrm{NaFe}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Co}}_x\mathrm{As}$ is neither simply proportional to $T_c$ nor the superconducting gap but is controlled by the multiorbital character of the system and doped impurity scattering effect.

We present numerical studies of dipolar spin ice in the presence of a magnetic field slightly tilted away from the [111] axis. We find a first-order transition from a kagome ice to a $\mathbf{q}=X$ state when the external field is tilted toward the $\left[11\overline{2}\right]$ direction. This is consistent with the anomalous critical scattering previously observed in the neutron scattering experiment on the spin ice material ${\mathrm{Ho}}_2{\mathrm{Ti}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$ in a tilted field [T. Fennell et al., Nat. Phys. 3, 566 (2007)]. We show that this ordering originates from the antiferromagnetic alignment of spin chains on the kagome planes. The residual entropy of the kagome ice is fully recovered. Our result captures the features observed in the experiments and points to the importance of the dipolar interaction in determining ordered states in the spin ice materials. We place our results in the context of recent susceptibility measurements on ${\mathrm{Dy}}_2{\mathrm{Ti}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$, showing two features for a [111] field.

We consider the random transverse-field Ising model in $d=3$ dimensions with long-range ferromagnetic interactions which decay as a power $\alpha >d$ with the distance. Using a variant of the strong-disorder renormalization group method we study numerically the phase-transition point from the paramagnetic side. We find that the fixed point controlling the transition is of the strong-disorder type, and based on experience with other similar systems, we expect the results to be qualitatively correct, but probably not asymptotically exact. The distribution of the (sample dependent) pseudocritical points is found to scale with $1/lnL, L$ being the linear size of the sample. Similarly, the critical magnetization scales with ${(lnL)}^{\chi }/L^d$ and the excitation energy behaves as $L^{-\alpha }$. Using extreme-value statistics we argue that extrapolating from the ferromagnetic side the magnetization approaches a finite limiting value and thus the transition is of mixed order.

Topological phases with large Chern numbers have important implications. They were previously predicted to exist by considering fabricated long-range interactions or multilayered materials. Stimulated by recent wide interests in Floquet topological phases, here we propose a scheme to engineer large-Chern-number phases with ease by periodic quenching. Using a two-band system as an example, we theoretically show how a variety of topological phases with widely tunable Chern numbers can be generated by periodic quenching between two simple Hamiltonians that otherwise give low Chern numbers. The obtained large Chern numbers are explained through the emergence of multiple Dirac cones in the Floquet spectra. The transition lines between different topological phases in the two-band model are also explicitly found, thus establishing a class of easily solvable but very rich systems useful for further understandings and applications of topological phases in periodically driven systems.

Differential force measurements between spheres coated with either nickel or gold and rotating disks with periodic distributions of nickel and gold are reported. The rotating samples are covered by a thin layer of titanium and a layer of gold. While titanium is used for fabrication purposes, the gold layer (nominal thicknesses of 21, 37, 47, and 87 nm) provides an isoelectronic environment, and is used to nullify the electrostatic contribution but allow the passage of long wavelength Casimir photons. A direct comparison between the experimental results and predictions from Drude and plasma models for the electrical permittivity is carried out. In the models, the magnetic permeability of nickel is allowed to change to investigate its effects. Possible sources of errors, both in the experimental and theoretical sides, are taken into account. It is found that a Drude response with magnetic properties of nickel taken into account is unequivocally ruled out. The full analysis of the data indicates that a dielectric plasma response with the magnetic properties of Ni included shows good agreement with the data. Neither a Drude nor a plasma dielectric response provide a satisfactory description if the magnetic properties of nickel are disregarded.

Magnetic torque measurements using a microcantilever have been performed to investigate the superconducting phase of ${\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{RuO}}_4$ down to 40 mK. For high-quality single crystals with the transition temperature $\left(T_{\mathrm{c}}\right)$ of 1.48–1.49 K, an abrupt jump of the torque signal is found near 1.5 T in field parallel to the conducting ${\mathrm{RuO}}_2$ planes below $\sim 0.8\mathrm{K}$. The jump corresponds to the first order transition recently revealed by magnetocaloric and magnetization measurements [Yonezawa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 077003 (2013); Kittaka et al., Phys. Rev. B 90, 220502(R) (2014)]. Furthermore, weak diamagnetic and irreversible signals are found to persist above the first order transition up to 1.85 T. The result indicates the presence of a subphase boundary separating low- and high-field phases in the superconducting phase. The high-field subphase disappears when the field is tilted from the conducting planes only by a few degrees. Quantum oscillation measurements are also reported to clarify the strong sample-quality dependence of the high-field subphase.

To capture various experimental results in the pseudogap regime of the underdoped cuprate superconductors for temperature $T<T^{*}$, we propose a four-component pair density wave (PDW) state, in which all components compete with each other. Without random field disorders (RFD), only one of the PDW components survives. If the RFD is included, this state could become phase separated and consist of short range PDW stripes, in which two PDW components coexist but differ in magnitudes, resulting in charge density waves (CDW) and a time-reversal symmetry breaking order, in the form of loop current, as secondary composite orders. We call this phase-separated pair nematic (PSPN) state, which could be responsible for the pseudogap. Using a phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau approach and Monte Carlo simulations, we found that in this state, RFD induces short range static CDW with phase-separated patterns in the directional components, and the static CDW is destroyed by thermal phase fluctuations at a crossover temperature $T_{CO}<T^{*}$, above which the CDW becomes dynamically fluctuating. The experimentally found CDW with predominantly $d$-wave form factor constrains the PDW components to have $s^{\prime }\pm id$-wave pairing symmetries. We also construct a lattice model and compute the spectral functions for the PSPN state and find good agreement with ARPES results.

We study the renormalization group flow of the Luttinger-Ward functional and of its two-particle-irreducible vertex functions, given a cutoff in the two-particle interaction. We derive a conserving approximation to the flow and relate it to the fluctuation exchange approximation as well as to nonconserving approximations introduced in an earlier publication [J. F. Rentrop, S. G. Jakobs, and V. Meden, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 48, 145002 (2015)]. We apply the different approximate flow equations to the single-impurity Anderson model in thermal equilibrium at vanishing temperature. Numerical results for the effective mass, the spin susceptibility, the charge susceptibility, and the linear conductance reflect the similarity of the methods to the fluctuation exchange approximation. We find the majority of the approximations to deviate stronger from the exact results than one-particle-irreducible functional renormalization group schemes. However, we identify a simple static two-particle-irreducible flow scheme which performs remarkably well and produces an exponential Kondo-like scale in the renormalized level position.

It has been recently pointed out that the use of a superconducting (SC) lead instead of a normal metal lead can suppress the thermal broadening effects in tunneling conductance from Majorana fermions, helping reveal the quantized conductance of $2e^2/h$. In this paper we discuss the specific case of tunneling conductance with SC leads of spin-orbit coupled semiconductor-superconductor (SM-SC) heterostructures in the presence of a Zeeman field, a system which has been extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally using a metallic lead. We examine the $dI/dV$ spectra using a SC lead for different sets of physical parameters including temperature, tunneling strength, wire length, magnetic field, and induced SC pairing potential in the SM nanowire. We conclude that in a finite wire the Majorana splitting energy $\mathrm{\Delta }E$, which has nontrivial dependence on these physical parameters, remains responsible for the $dI/dV$ peak broadening, even when the temperature broadening is suppressed by the SC gap in the lead. In a finite wire the signatures of Majorana fermions with a SC lead are oscillations of quasi-Majorana peaks about bias $V=\pm {\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{lead}}$, in contrast to the case of metallic leads where such oscillations are about zero bias. Our results will be useful for analysis of future experiments on SM-SC heterostructures using SC leads.

Density fitting is used throughout quantum chemistry to simplify the electron-electron interaction energy (EE). A fundamental property of quantum chemistry, and DFT in particular, is that a variational principle connects the EE to a potential. Density fitting generally does not preserve this connection. Herein we describe the construction of a robust EE that is variationally connected to fitted potentials in all electronic structure methods. For DFT, this results in fitting equations that are satisfied at an energy saddle point in multidimensional fitting space.

The aim of this series of two papers is to discuss topological invariants for interacting topological insulators (TIs). In the first paper (I), we provide a paradigm of efficient numerical evaluation scheme for topological invariants, in which we demystify the procedures and techniques employed in calculating $Z_2$ invariant and spin Chern number via zero-frequency single-particle Green's function in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations. Here we introduce an interpolation process to overcome the ubiquitous finite-size effect, so that the calculated spin Chern number shows ideally quantized values. We also show that making use of symmetry properties of the underlying systems can greatly reduce the computational effort. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our numerical evaluation scheme, especially the interpolation process, for calculating topological invariants, we apply it on two independent two-dimensional models of interacting topological insulators. In the subsequent paper (II), we apply the scheme developed here to wider classes of models of interacting topological insulators, for which certain limitation of constructing topological invariant via single-particle Green's functions will be presented.

Topological phase transitions in free fermion systems can be characterized by the closing of single-particle gap and the change in topological invariants. However, in the presence of electronic interactions, topological phase transitions can be more complicated. In paper I of this series [Phys. Rev. B 93, 195163 (2016)], we have proposed an efficient scheme to evaluate the topological invariants based on the single-particle Green's function formalism. Here, in paper II, we demonstrate several interaction-driven topological phase transitions (TPTs) in two-dimensional (2D) interacting topological insulators (TIs) via large-scale quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations, based on the scheme of evaluating topological invariants presented in paper I. Across these transitions, the defining symmetries of the TIs have been neither explicitly nor spontaneously broken. In the first two models, the topological invariants calculated from the Green's function formalism succeed in characterizing the topologically distinct phases and identifying interaction-driven TPTs. However, in the other two models, we find that the single-particle gap does not close and the topological invariants constructed from the single-particle Green's function acquire no change across the TPTs. Unexpected breakdown of the Green's function formalism in constructing the topological invariants is thus discovered. We thence classify the topological phase transitions in interacting TIs into two categories in practical computation: Those that have noninteracting correspondence can be characterized successfully by the topological invariants constructed from the Green's functions, while for the others that do not have noninteracting correspondence, the Green's function formalism experiences a breakdown, but more interesting and exciting phenomena, such as emergent collective critical modes at the transition, arise. Discussion on the success and breakdown of topological invariants constructed from the Green's function formalism in the context of symmetry protected topological (SPT) states is presented.

In quantum mechanics, a particle is best described by the wave packet instead of the plane wave. Here, we study the wave-packet scattering problem in Weyl semimetals with the low-energy Weyl fermions of different chiralities. Our results show that the wave packet acquires a chirality-protected shift in the single-impurity scattering process. More importantly, the chirality-protected shift can lead to an anomalous scattering probability, and thus affects the transport properties in Weyl semimetals. We find that the ratio between the transport lifetime and the quantum lifetime increases sharply when the Fermi energy approaches the Weyl nodes, providing an explanation of the experimentally observed ultrahigh mobility in topological (Weyl or Dirac) semimetals.