The dimensionality of a system can fundamentally impact the behavior of interacting quantum particles. Classic examples range from the fractional quantum Hall effect to high-temperature superconductivity. As a general rule, one expects confinement to favor the binding of particles. However, attractively interacting bosons apparently defy this expectation: While three identical bosons in three dimensions can support an infinite tower of Efimov trimers, only two universal trimers exist in the two-dimensional case. Here, we reveal how these two limits are connected by investigating the problem of three identical bosons confined by a harmonic potential along one direction. We show that the confinement breaks the discrete Efimov scaling symmetry and successively destroys the weakest bound trimers. However, the deepest bound trimers persist even under strong confinement. In particular, the ground-state Efimov trimer hybridizes with the two-dimensional trimers, yielding a superposition of trimer configurations that effectively involves tunneling through a short-range repulsive barrier. Our results suggest a way to use strong confinement to engineer more stable Efimov-like trimers, which have so far proved elusive.

This work is concerned with thermal quantum states of Hamiltonians on spin- and fermionic-lattice systems with short-range interactions. We provide results leading to a local definition of temperature, thereby extending the notion of “intensivity of temperature” to interacting quantum models. More precisely, we derive a perturbation formula for thermal states. The influence of the perturbation is exactly given in terms of a generalized covariance. For this covariance, we prove exponential clustering of correlations above a universal critical temperature that upper bounds physical critical temperatures such as the Curie temperature. As a corollary, we obtain that above the critical temperature, thermal states are stable against distant Hamiltonian perturbations. Moreover, our results imply that above the critical temperature, local expectation values can be approximated efficiently in the error and the system size.

The normal-state in-plane resistivity below the zero-field superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ and the upper critical field ${\mu }_0{H}_{c2}(T)$ was measured by suppressing superconductivity in pulsed magnetic fields for ${\mathrm{K}}_{0.70}{\mathrm{Fe}}_{1.46}{\mathrm{Se}}_{1.85}{\mathrm{Te}}_{0.15}$. The normal-state resistivity ${\rho }_{ab}$ is found to increase logarithmically with decreasing temperature as $(T/T_c)\to 0$. Similar to granular metals, our results suggest that a superconductor–insulator transition below zero-field $T_c$ may be induced in high magnetic fields. This is related to the intrinsic real-space phase-separated states common to all inhomogeneous superconductors.

The enigmatic pseudogap phase in underdoped cuprate high-$T_c$ superconductors has long been recognized as a central puzzle of the $T_c$ problem. Recent data show that the pseudogap is likely a distinct phase, characterized by a medium range and quasistatic charge ordering. However, the origin of the ordering wave vector and the mechanism of the charge order is unknown. At the same time, earlier data show that precursive superconducting fluctuations are also associated with this phase. We propose that the pseudogap phase is a novel pairing state where electrons on the same side of the Fermi surface are paired, in strong contrast with conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory which pairs electrons on opposite sides of the Fermi surface. In this state the Cooper pair carries a net momentum and belongs to a general class called pair density wave. The microscopic pairing mechanism comes from a gauge theory formulation of the resonating valence bond (RVB) picture, where spinons traveling in the same direction feel an attractive force in analogy with Ampere’s effects in electromagnetism. We call this Amperean pairing. Charge order automatically appears as a subsidiary order parameter even when long-range pair order is destroyed by phase fluctuations. Our theory gives a prediction of the ordering wave vector which is in good agreement with experiment. Furthermore, the quasiparticle spectrum from our model explains many of the unusual features reported in photoemission experiments. The Fermi arc, the unusual way the tip of the arc terminates, and the relation of the spanning vector of the arc tips to the charge ordering wave vector also come out naturally. Finally, we propose an experiment that can directly test the notion of Amperean pairing.

Graphene on metal substrates often shows different electronic properties from isolated graphene because of graphene-substrate interactions. One needs to remove the metals with acids and then to transfer graphene to weakly interacting substrates to recover electrical properties inherent in graphene. This process is not easy and besides causes undesirable tears, defects, and impurities in graphene. Here, we report a method to recover the electronic structure of graphene from a strongly interacting Ni substrate by spontaneous Na intercalation. In order to characterize the intercalation process, the density-functional-theory calculations and angle-resolved photoemission-spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning-tunneling-microscopy (STM) measurements are carried out. From the density-functional-theory calculations, Na atoms energetically prefer interface intercalation to surface adsorption for the graphene/Ni(111) surface. Unlike most intercalants, Na atoms intercalate spontaneously at room temperature due to a tiny diffusion barrier, which is consistent with our temperature-dependent ARPES and core-level photoemission spectroscopy, and with our submonolayer ARPES and STM results at room temperature. As a result of the spontaneous intercalation, the electronic structure of graphene is almost recovered, as confirmed by the Dirac cone with a negligible band gap in ARPES and the sixfold symmetry in STM.

By considering the low-frequency vibrational modes of amorphous solids, Manning and Liu [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 108302 (2011)] showed that a population of “soft spots” can be identified that are intimately related to plasticity at zero temperature under quasistatic shear. In this work, we track individual soft spots with time in a two-dimensional sheared thermal Lennard Jones glass at temperatures ranging from deep in the glassy regime to above the glass transition temperature. We show that the lifetimes of individual soft spots are correlated with the time scale for structural relaxation. We additionally calculate the number of rearrangements required to destroy soft spots and show that most soft spots can survive many rearrangements. Finally, we show that soft spots are robust predictors of rearrangements at temperatures well into the supercooled regime. Altogether, these results pave the way for mesoscopic theories of plasticity of amorphous solids based on dynamical behavior of individual soft spots.

Topological insulators are materials characterized by dissipationless, spin-polarized surface states resulting from nontrivial band topologies. Recent theoretical models and experiments suggest that ${\mathrm{SmB}}_6$ is the first topological Kondo insulator, in which the topologically nontrivial band structure results from electron-electron interactions via Kondo hybridization. Here, we report that the surface conductivity of ${\mathrm{SmB}}_6$ increases systematically with bulk carbon content. Further, addition of carbon is linked to an increase in $n$-type carriers, larger low-temperature electronic contributions to the specific heat with a characteristic temperature scale of $T^{*}=17\mathrm{K}$, and a broadening of the crossover to the insulating state. Additionally, x-ray absorption spectroscopy shows a change in Sm valence at the surface. Our results highlight the importance of phonon dynamics in producing a Kondo insulating state and demonstrate a correlation between the bulk thermodynamic state and the low-temperature resistance of ${\mathrm{SmB}}_6$.

Landau theory (LT) is an indispensable cornerstone in the thermodynamic description of phase transitions. As with structural transitions, most applications require one to consistently take into account the role of strain. If temperature drives the transition, the relevant strains are, as a rule, small enough to be treated as infinitesimal, and therefore one can get away with linearized elasticity theory. However, for transitions driven by high pressure, strains may become so large that it is absolutely mandatory to treat them as finite and deal with the nonlinear nature of the accompanying elastic energy. In this paper, we explain how to set up and apply what is, in fact, the only possible consistent Landau theory of high-pressure phase transitions that systematically allows us to take these geometrical and physical nonlinearities into account. We also show how to incorporate available information on the pressure dependence of elastic constants taken from experiment or simulation. We apply our new theory to the example of the high-pressure cubic-tetragonal phase transition in strontium titanate, a model perovskite that has played a central role in the development of the theory of structural phase transitions. Armed with pressure-dependent elastic constants calculated by density-functional theory, we give an accurate description of recent high-precision experimental data and predict a number of elastic transition anomalies accessible to experiments.

The transverse field Ising chain model is ideally suited for testing the fundamental ideas of quantum phase transitions because its well-known $T=0$ ground state can be extrapolated to finite temperatures. Nonetheless, the lack of appropriate model materials hindered the past effort to test the theoretical predictions. Here, we map the evolution of quantum fluctuations in the transverse field Ising chain based on nuclear magnetic resonance measurements of ${\mathrm{CoNb}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_6$, and we demonstrate the finite-temperature effects on quantum criticality for the first time. From the temperature dependence of the ${}^{93}\mathrm{Nb}$ longitudinal relaxation rate $1/T_1$, we identify the renormalized classical, quantum critical, and quantum disordered scaling regimes in the temperature ($T$) vs transverse magnetic field ($h_{\perp }$) phase diagram. Precisely at the critical field $h_{\perp }^c=5.25\pm 0.15\mathrm{T}$, we observe a power-law behavior, $1/T_1\sim T^{-3/4}$, as predicted by quantum critical scaling. Our parameter-free comparison between the data and theory reveals that quantum fluctuations persist up to as high as $T\sim 0.4J$, where the intrachain exchange interaction $J$ is the only energy scale of the problem.

We report the observation by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of an impurity state located inside the superconducting gap of ${\mathrm{Ba}}_{0.6}{\mathrm{K}}_{0.4}{\mathrm{Fe}}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$ and vanishing above the superconducting critical temperature, for which the spectral weight is confined in momentum space near the Fermi wave-vector positions. We demonstrate, supported by theoretical simulations, that this in-gap state originates from weak scattering between bands with opposite sign of the superconducting-gap phase. This weak scattering, likely due to off-plane nonmagnetic (Ba, K) disorder, occurs mostly among neighboring Fermi surfaces, suggesting that the superconducting-gap phase changes sign within holelike (and electronlike) bands. Our results impose severe restrictions on the models promoted to explain high-temperature superconductivity in these materials.

By ab initio many-body quantum chemistry calculations, we determine the strength of the symmetric anisotropy in the $5d^5$ $j\approx 1/2$ layered material ${\mathrm{Ba}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_4$. While the calculated anisotropic couplings come out in the range of a few meV, orders of magnitude stronger than in analogous $3d$ transition-metal compounds, the Heisenberg superexchange still defines the largest energy scale. The ab initio results reveal that individual layers of ${\mathrm{Ba}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_4$ provide a close realization of the quantum spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg-compass model on the square lattice. We show that the experimentally observed basal-plane antiferromagnetism can be accounted for by including additional interlayer interactions and the associated order-by-disorder quantum-mechanical effects, in analogy to undoped layered cuprates.

By using random matrix models, we uncover a connection between the low-energy sector of four-dimensional QCD at finite volume and the Heisenberg XX model in a 1D spin chain. This connection allows us to relate crucial properties of QCD with physically meaningful properties of the spin chain, establishing a dictionary between both worlds. For the spin chain, we predict a third-order phase transition and a Tracy-Widom law in the transition region. We also comment on possible numerical implications of the connection as well as on possible experimental implementations.

A quantum memory at microwave frequencies, able to store the state of multiple superconducting qubits for long times, is a key element for quantum information processing. Electronic and nuclear spins are natural candidates for the storage medium as their coherence time can be well above 1 s. Benefiting from these long coherence times requires one to apply the refocusing techniques used in magnetic resonance, a major challenge in the context of hybrid quantum circuits. Here, we report the first implementation of such a scheme, using ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond coupled to a superconducting resonator, in a setup compatible with superconducting qubit technology. We implement the active reset of the nitrogen-vacancy spins into their ground state by optical pumping and their refocusing by Hahn-echo sequences. This enables the storage of multiple microwave pulses at the picowatt level and their retrieval after up to $35\mu \mathrm{s}$, a 3 orders of magnitude improvement compared to previous experiments.

A novel magnetic ground state is reported for the Hubbard Hamiltonian in strained graphene. When the chemical potential lies close to the Dirac point, the ground state exhibits locally both the Néel and ferromagnetic orders, even for weak Hubbard interaction. Whereas the Néel order parameter remains of the same sign in the entire system, the magnetization at the boundary takes the opposite sign from the bulk. The total magnetization vanishes this way, and the magnetic ground state is globally only an antiferromagnet. This peculiar ordering stems from the nature of the strain-induced single-particle zero-energy states, which have support on one sublattice of the honeycomb lattice in the bulk, and on the other sublattice near the boundary of a finite system. We support our claim with the self-consistent numerical calculation of the order parameters, as well as by the Monte Carlo simulations of the Hubbard model in both uniformly and nonuniformly strained honeycomb lattice. The present result is contrasted with the magnetic ground state of the same Hubbard model in the presence of a true magnetic field (and for vanishing Zeeman coupling), which is exclusively Néel ordered, with zero local magnetization everywhere in the system.

Undoped-graphene (Gr) sheets at low temperatures are known, via random-phase-approximation (RPA) calculations, to exhibit unusual van der Waals (vdW) forces. Here, we show that graphene is the first known system where effects beyond the RPA within each interacting subsystem make qualitative changes to the vdW force, observable via its local exponent $d\log (F)/d\log (D)$. For large separations $D\gtrsim 10\mathrm{nm}$, where only the ${\pi }_z$ vdW forces remain, we find that the Gr-Gr vdW interaction is substantially reduced from the RPA prediction. Its $D$ dependence is very sensitive to the form of the long-wavelength, in-plane many-body enhancement of the velocity of the massless Dirac fermions and may provide independent confirmation of the latter via direct force measurements. The simple connection that we expose is a strong motivation for further refinement of recent successful direct vdW force measurements.

Topological insulators, in contrast to ordinary semiconductors, accompany protected metallic surfaces described by Dirac-type fermions. Here, we theoretically show that another emergent two-dimensional metal embedded in the bulk insulator is realized at a magnetic domain wall. The domain wall has long been studied as an ingredient of both old-fashioned and leading-edge spintronics. The domain wall here, as an interface of seemingly trivial antiferromagnetic insulators, emergently realizes a functional interface preserved by zero modes with robust two-dimensional Fermi surfaces, where pyrochlore iridium oxides proposed to host the condensed-matter realization of Weyl fermions offer such examples at low temperatures. The existence of in-gap states that are pinned at domain walls, theoretically resembling spin or charge solitons in polyacetylene, and protected as the edges of hidden one-dimensional weak Chern insulators characterized by a zero-dimensional class-A topological invariant, solves experimental puzzles observed in $R_2{\mathrm{Ir}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$ with rare-earth elements $R$. The domain wall realizes a novel quantum confinement of electrons and embosses a net uniform magnetization that enables magnetic control of electronic interface transports beyond the semiconductor paradigm.

Silicon is arguably the best electronic material, but it is not a good optoelectronic material. By employing first-principles calculations and the cluster-expansion approach, we discover that hydrogenated bilayer silicene (BS) shows promising potential as a new kind of optoelectronic material. Most significantly, hydrogenation converts the intrinsic BS, a strongly indirect semiconductor, into a direct-gap semiconductor with a widely tunable band gap. At low hydrogen concentrations, four ground states of single- and double-sided hydrogenated BS are characterized by dipole-allowed direct (or quasidirect) band gaps in the desirable range from 1 to 1.5 eV, suitable for solar applications. At high hydrogen concentrations, three well-ordered double-sided hydrogenated BS structures exhibit direct (or quasidirect) band gaps in the color range of red, green, and blue, affording white light-emitting diodes. Our findings open opportunities to search for new silicon-based light-absorption and light-emitting materials for earth-abundant, high-efficiency, optoelectronic applications.

The new challenges posed by the need of finding strong rare-earth-free magnets demand methods that can predict magnetization and magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE). We argue that correlated electron effects, which are normally underestimated in band-structure calculations, play a crucial role in the development of the orbital component of the magnetic moments. Because magnetic anisotropy arises from this orbital component, the ability to include correlation effects has profound consequences on our predictive power of the MAE of strong magnets. Here, we show that incorporating the local effects of electronic correlations with dynamical mean-field theory provides reliable estimates of the orbital moment, the mass enhancement, and the MAE of ${\mathrm{YCo}}_5$.