We derive an intrinsic contribution to the nonadiabatic spin torque for nonuniform magnetic textures. It differs from previously considered contributions in several ways and can be the dominant contribution in some models. It does not depend on the change in occupation of the electron states due to the current flow but rather is due to the perturbation of the electronic states when an electric field is applied. Therefore it should be viewed as electric-field-induced rather than current-induced. Unlike previously reported nonadiabatic spin torques, it does not originate from extrinsic relaxation mechanisms or spin-orbit coupling. This intrinsic nonadiabatic spin torque is related by a chiral connection to the intrinsic spin-orbit torque that has been calculated from the Berry phase for Rashba systems.

Superconducting qubit designs vary in complexity from single- and few-junction systems, such as the transmon and flux qubits, to the many-junction fluxonium. Here, we consider the question of whether the many degrees of freedom in the fluxonium circuit can limit the qubit coherence time. Such a limitation is in principle possible, due to the interactions between the low-energy, highly anharmonic qubit mode and the higher-energy, weakly anharmonic collective modes. We show that so long as the coupling of the collective modes with the external electromagnetic environment is sufficiently weaker than the qubit-environment coupling, the qubit dephasing induced by the collective modes does not significantly contribute to decoherence. Therefore, the increased complexity of the fluxonium qubit does not constitute by itself a major obstacle for its use in quantum computation architectures.

We find the angular Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) states (or the twisted kink crystals) in which a phase and an amplitude of a pair potential modulate simultaneously in a quasi-one-dimensional superconducting ring with a static Zeeman magnetic field applied on the ring and static Aharonov-Bohm magnetic flux penetrating the ring. The superconducting ring with magnetic flux produces a persistent current, whereas the Zeeman split of Fermi energy results in the spatial modulation of the pair potential. We show that these two magnetic fields stabilize the FFLO phase in a large parameter region of the magnetic fields. We further draw the phase diagram with the two kinds of first-order phase transitions; one corresponds to phase slips separating the Aharonov-Bohm magnetic flux, and the other separates the number of peaks of the pair amplitude for the Zeeman magnetic field.

We have investigated the contribution of Ce $4f$ states to the electronic structure of the intermetallic ferromagnet ${\mathrm{CePdIn}}_2$ by means of x-ray absorption spectroscopy and resonant and nonresonant photoemission spectroscopy. The line shape of the Ce $M_{5,4}$ absorption edge reveals the localized nature of the $4f$ states, and is consistent with a predominantly 3+ ionic state for Ce ions. Fitting of the Ce $3d$ core level gives a Ce $4f$ occupation number at room temperature of 0.92, which is in good agreement with the Ce effective magnetic moment of $2.20{\mu }_B$ (corresponding to $\sim 87\%$ of the free-electron moment) as calculated from the inverse magnetic susceptibility. Moreover, the hybridization strength between $4f$ and conduction electrons is found to be $\sim 180$ meV, revealing that ${\mathrm{CePdIn}}_2$ is a strongly hybridized system. This is consistent with the results from the analysis of the resonant valence band photoemission measurements at both the $N_{5,4}$ and the $M_5$ edges, showing that the Ce $4f$ states are composed of the features predicted by the single-impurity Anderson model, i.e., a broad $4f^0$ peak centered at 1.9 eV and two $4f^1$ spin-orbit states much closer to the Fermi level. The same spectra also show that the Ce $4f$ resonant spectral weight extends over a wide binding energy range, overlapping with that presumably occupied by the Pd $4d$ ligand states. This energy overlap is interpreted as a signature of the strong hybridization governing the system, which could possibly favor the emergence of long-range ferromagnetism through the indirect exchange between localized $4f$ states mediated by highly dispersive $d$ electrons.

Numerically solving the semiconductor Bloch equations within a phenomenological relaxation time approximation, we extract both the linear and nonlinear optical conductivities of doped graphene and gapped graphene under excitation by a laser pulse. We discuss in detail the dependence of second harmonic generation, third harmonic generation, and the Kerr effects on the doping level, the gap, and the electric field amplitude. The numerical results for weak electric fields agree with those calculated from available analytic perturbation formulas. For strong electric fields when saturation effects are important, all the effective third order nonlinear response coefficients show a strong field dependence.

We investigate the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction arising from the hyperfine coupling between localized nuclear spins and conduction electrons in interacting ${}^{13}\text{C}$ carbon nanotubes. Using the Luttinger liquid formalism, we show that the RKKY interaction is sublattice dependent, consistent with the spin susceptibility calculation in noninteracting carbon nanotubes, and it leads to an antiferromagnetic nuclear spin helix in finite-size systems. The transition temperature reaches up to tens of mK, due to a strong boost by a positive feedback through the Overhauser field from ordered nuclear spins. Similar to GaAs nanowires, the formation of the helical nuclear spin order gaps out half of the conduction electrons, and is therefore observable as a reduction of conductance by a factor of 2 in a transport experiment. The nuclear spin helix leads to a density wave combining spin and charge degrees of freedom in the electron subsystem, resulting in synthetic spin-orbit interaction, which induces nontrivial topological phases. As a result, topological superconductivity with Majorana fermion bound states can be realized in the system in the presence of proximity-induced superconductivity without the need of fine tuning the chemical potential. We present the phase diagram as a function of system parameters, including the pairing gaps, the gap due to the nuclear spin helix, and the Zeeman field perpendicular to the helical plane.

We present improvements of a recently introduced numerical method [E. Arrigoni et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 086403 (2013)] to compute steady-state properties of strongly correlated electronic systems out of equilibrium. The method can be considered as a nonequilibrium generalization of exact diagonalization based dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). The key modification for the nonequilibrium situation consists in addressing the DMFT impurity problem within an auxiliary system consisting of the correlated impurity, $N_b$ uncorrelated bath sites, and two Markovian environments (sink and reservoir). Algorithmic improvements in the impurity solver allow to treat efficiently larger values of $N_b$ than previously in DMFT. This increases the accuracy of the results and is crucial for a correct description of the physical behavior of the system in the relevant parameter range including a semiquantitative description of the Kondo regime. To illustrate the approach, we consider a monoatomic layer of correlated orbitals, described by the single-band Hubbard model, attached to two metallic leads. The nonequilibrium situation is driven by a bias voltage applied to the leads. For this system, we investigate the spectral function and the steady-state current-voltage characteristics in the weakly as well as in the strongly interacting limit. In particular, we investigate the nonequilibrium behavior of quasiparticle excitations within the Mott gap of the correlated layer. We find for low-bias voltage Kondo-type behavior in the vicinity of the insulating phase. In particular, we observe a splitting of the Kondo resonance as a function of the bias voltage.

Developing an accurate simulation method for the electrochemical stability of solids, as well as understanding the physics related with its accuracy, is critically important for improving the performance of compounds and predicting the stability of new materials in aqueous environments. Herein we propose a workflow for the accurate calculation of first-principles electrochemical phase (Pourbaix) diagrams. With this scheme, we study the electrochemical stabilities of Ti and Ti oxides using density-functional theory. First, we find the accuracy of an exchange-correlation functional in predicting formation energies and electrochemical stabilities is closely related with the electronic exchange interaction therein. Second, the metaGGA and hybrid functionals with a more precise description of the electronic exchange interaction lead to a systematic improvement in the accuracy of the Pourbaix diagrams. Furthermore, we show that accurate Ti Pourbaix diagrams also require that thermal effects are included through vibrational contributions to the free energy. We then use these diagrams to explain various experimental electrochemical phenomena for the Ti–O system, and show that if experimental formation energies for Ti oxides, which contain contributions from defects owing to their generation at high (combustion) temperatures, are directly used to predict room temperature Pourbaix diagrams then significant inaccuracies result. In contrast, the formation energies from accurate first-principles calculations, e.g., using metaGGA and hybrid functionals, are found to be more reliable. Finally, to facilitate the future application of our accurate electrochemical phase equilibria diagrams, the variation of the Ti Pourbaix diagrams with aqueous ion concentration is also provided.

We study the effects of strong electron-electron interactions on the surface of cubic topological Kondo insulators (such as samarium hexaboride, ${\mathrm{SmB}}_6$). Cubic topological Kondo insulators generally support three copies of massless Dirac nodes on the surface, but only two of them are energetically degenerate and exhibit an energy offset relative to the third one. With a tunable chemical potential, when the surface states host electron and hole pockets of comparable size, strong interactions may drive this system into rotational symmetry breaking nematic and translational symmetric breaking excitonic spin- or charge-density-wave phases, depending on the relative chirality of the Dirac cones. Taking a realistic surface band structure into account we analyze the associated Ginzburg-Landau theory and compute the mean-field phase diagram for interacting surface states. Beyond mean-field theory, this system can be described by a two-component isotropic Ashkin-Teller model at finite temperature, and we outline the phase diagram of this model. Our theory provides a possible explanation of recent measurements which detect a twofold symmetric magnetoresistance and an upturn in surface resistivity with tunable gate voltage in ${\mathrm{SmB}}_6$. Our discussion can also be germane to other cubic topological insulators, such as ytterbium hexaboride $\left({\mathrm{YbB}}_6\right)$ and plutonium hexaboride $\left({\mathrm{PuB}}_6\right)$.

We study one-dimensional $p$-wave superconductors capacitively coupled to a microwave stripline cavity. By probing the light exiting from the cavity, one can reveal the electronic susceptibility of the $p$-wave superconductor. We analyze two superconducting systems: the prototypical Kitaev chain and a topological semiconducting wire. For both systems, we show that the photonic measurements, via the electronic susceptibility, allow us to determine the topological phase-transition point, the emergence of the Majorana fermions, and the parity of their ground state. We show that all of these effects, which are absent in effective theories that take into account the coupling of light to Majorana fermions only, are due to the interplay between the Majorana fermions and the bulk states of the superconductors.

The theory of the dynamical Coulomb blockade is extended to tunneling elements driven by a time-dependent voltage. It is shown that, for standard setups where an external voltage is applied to a tunnel junction via an impedance, time-dependent driving entails an excitation of the modes of the electromagnetic environment by the applied voltage. Previous approaches for ac driven circuits need to be extended to account for the driven bath modes. A unitary transformation involving also the variables of the electromagnetic environment is introduced which allows us to split off the time dependence from the Hamiltonian in the absence of tunneling. This greatly simplifies perturbation-theoretical calculations based on treating the tunneling Hamiltonian as a perturbation. In particular, the average current flowing in the leads of the tunnel junction is studied. Explicit results are given for the case of an applied voltage with a constant dc part and a sinusoidal ac part. The connection with standard dynamical Coulomb blockade theory for constant applied voltage is established. It is shown that an alternating voltage source reveals significant additional effects caused by the electromagnetic environment. The hallmark of the dynamical Coulomb blockade in ac driven devices is a suppression of higher harmonics of the current by the electromagnetic environment. The theory presented basically applies to all tunneling devices driven by alternating voltages.

The quantum scattering of magnon bound states in the anisotropic Heisenberg spin chain is shown to display features similar to the scattering of solitons in classical exactly solvable models. Localized colliding Gaussian wave packets of bound magnons are constructed from string solutions of the Bethe equations and subsequently evolved in time, relying on an algebraic Bethe ansatz based framework for the computation of local expectation values in real space-time. The local magnetization profile shows the trajectories of colliding wave packets of bound magnons, which obtain a spatial displacement upon scattering. Analytic predictions on the displacements for various values of anisotropy and string lengths are derived from scattering theory and Bethe ansatz phase shifts, matching time-evolution fits on the displacements. The time-evolved block decimation algorithm allows for the study of scattering displacements from spin-block states, showing similar scattering displacement features.

Barlowite ${\mathrm{Cu}}_4{\left(\mathrm{OH}\right)}_6\mathrm{FBr}$ is a newly found mineral containing ${\mathrm{Cu}}^{2+}$ kagome planes. Despite similarities in many aspects to herbertsmithite ${\mathrm{Cu}}_3\mathrm{Zn}{\left(\mathrm{OH}\right)}_6{\mathrm{Cl}}_2$, the well-known quantum spin liquid (QSL) candidate, intrinsic barlowite turns out not to be a QSL, possibly due to the presence of ${\mathrm{Cu}}^{2+}$ ions in between kagome planes that induce interkagome magnetic interaction [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 227203 (2014)]. Using first-principles calculation, we systematically study the feasibility of selective substitution of the interkagome Cu ions with isovalent nonmagnetic ions as a function of ion concentration up to the stoichiometric limit. Unlike previous speculation of using larger dopants, such as ${\mathrm{Cd}}^{2+}$ and ${\mathrm{Ca}}^{2+}$, we identify the most ideal stoichiometric doping elements to be Mg and Zn in forming ${\mathrm{Cu}}_3\mathrm{Mg}{\left(\mathrm{OH}\right)}_6\mathrm{FBr}$ and ${\mathrm{Cu}}_3\mathrm{Zn}{\left(\mathrm{OH}\right)}_6\mathrm{FBr}$ with the highest site selectivity and smallest lattice distortion. The equilibirium antisite disorder in Mg/Zn-doped barlowite is estimated to be one order of magnitude lower than that in herbertsmithite. The single-electron band structure and orbital component analysis show that the proposed selective doping effectively mitigates the difference between barlowite and herbertsmithite.

We present a full experimental characterization of isotropic artificial optical magnetism at visible frequencies produced by “raspberrylike” plasmonic nanoclusters synthesized by a bottom-up approach. Experimental measurements of extinction and light scattering associated with numerical simulations enable one to extract absolute values of the magnetic scattering cross section across the whole visible spectral range. The strength of the resonant magnetic response of a single magnetic nanocluster is illustrated as the effective magnetic permeability of a homogeneous sphere of identical volume.

We present a study of the lattice dynamical properties of superconducting ${\mathrm{SrPt}}_3\mathrm{P}$ ($T_c=8.4$ K) via high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) and ab initio calculations. Density functional perturbation theory including spin-orbit coupling results in enhanced electron-phonon coupling (EPC) for the optic phonon modes originating from the Pt(I) atoms, with energies $\sim 5$ meV, resulting in a large EPC constant $\lambda \sim 2$. An overall softening of the IXS powder spectra occurs from room to low temperatures, consistent with the predicted strong EPC and with recent specific-heat experiments ($2{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0/k_{\mathrm{B}}{T}_c\sim 5$). The low-lying phonon modes observed in the experiments are approximately 1.5 meV harder than the corresponding calculated phonon branch. Moreover, we do not find any changes in the spectra upon entering the superconducting phase. We conclude that current theoretical calculations underestimate the energy of the lowest band of phonon modes indicating that the coupling of these modes to the electronic subsystem is overestimated.

Nonlinearity of the current-phase relationship of a Josephson junction is the key resource for a Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) as well as for a Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier, the only devices in which the quantum limit for added noise has so far been approached at microwave frequencies. A standard approach to describe JPA takes into account only the lowest order (cubic) nonlinearity resulting in a Duffing-like oscillator equation of motion or in a Kerr-type nonlinearity term in the Hamiltonian. In this paper we derive the quantum expression for the gain of JPA including all orders of the Josephson junction nonlinearity in the linear response regime. We then analyze gain saturation effect for stronger signals within a semiclassical approach. Our results reveal nonlinear effects of higher orders and their implications for operation of a JPA.

Transverse magnetothermoelectric effects are studied in permalloy thin films grown on MgO substrates. We find that small parasitic magnetic fields below 1 Oe can produce artifacts of the order of $1\%$ of the amplitude of the anisotropic magnetothermopower which is also detected in the experiments. The measured artifacts reveal a new source of uncertainties for the detection of the transverse spin Seebeck effect in conductive ferromagnets. Taking these results into account we conclude that the contribution of the transverse spin Seebeck effect in our permalloy-Pt devices to the detected voltages is below the noise level of 20 nV.

Magnetoelectric multiferroic materials, particularly with the perovskite structure, are receiving a lot of attention because of their inherent coupling between electrical polarization and magnetic ordering. However, very few types of direct coupling between polarization and magnetization are known, and it is unclear whether they can be useful to the design of spintronic devices exploiting the control of magnetization by electric fields. For instance, the typical biquadratic coupling only allows changing the magnitude of the magnetization by an electric field, but it does not permit an electric-field-induced switching of the magnetization. Similarly, the so-called Lifshitz invariants allow an electric-field control of complicated magnetic orderings, but not of the magnetization. Here, we report on original direct couplings between polarization and magnetization in epitaxial perovskite films, via the use of first-principles methods and the development of an original Landau-type phenomenological theory. Our results feature pentalinear interactions involving the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic vectors as well as the polar distortions and oxygen octahedral tilting, and permit a number of striking effects. Examples include a continuous electric-field control of the magnetization magnitude and sign, and the discrete switching of the magnetization magnitude. Thus, the high-order, pentalinear couplings demonstrated in this work may open paths towards specific magnetoelectric effects, as well as spintronic and magnonic devices.