Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Fermionic condensates”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 127 records · Page 7

Natural top quark condensation (a redux)

The Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model involves a pointlike 4-fermion interaction. While it gives a useful description of chiral dynamics (mainly in QCD), it nonetheless omits the crucially important internal wave-function of a two-body bound state, $\phi(r)$. This becomes significant near critical coupling where $\phi(r)$ extends to large distance, leading to dilution and suppression of induced couplings $\propto \phi(0)$, such as the Yukawa and quartic couplings, as well as reduced fine-tuning of a hierarchy. In top quark condensation, where the BEH boson is a $\bar{t}t$ bound state and we have a UV completion such as topcolor, we must go beyond the NJL model and include effects of $\phi(r)$. We provide a formulation of this for the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson, and find that it leads to an extended $\phi(r)$, a significantly reduced and natural composite scale of $M_0 \sim 6$ TeV, a successful prediction for the quartic coupling, $\lambda$, and fine tuning that is reduced to a few percent, providing a compelling candidate solution to the naturalness problem of the BEH boson. The theory is testable and new physics should begin to emerge on the multi-TeV mass scales and possibly accessible to the LHC.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Two-Electron and Two-Hole Cooper Pairs in Superconductivity

We revisit the generalized Bose-Einstein condensation (GBEC) theory which addresses a ternary boson-fermion gas including two-hole Cooper pairs (2hCPs) as an essential component in superconductivity. Here, we extend the BCS-Bose crossover theory, itself subsumed in BEC, by explicitly including 2hCPs. Shown here are phase diagrams of T{sub c}/T{sub F}, where T{sub c} is the critical temperature and T{sub F} the Fermi temperature and Δ(0)/E{sub F}vsn/n{sub f}, where Δ(0) is the energy gap at zero temperature and E{sub F} is the Fermi energy of an ideal Fermi gas, with n the total electron number density and n{sub f} is that of unbound electrons at zero temperature. These phase diagrams are obtained for two pure phases, one with two-electron Cooper pairs (2eCPs) and the other with 2hCPs, plus a mixed phase with arbitrary proportions of 2e/2hCPs. We find that the extended BCS-Bose crossover predicts T{sub c}/T{sub F} as well Δ(0)/E{sub F} values for the elemental superconductors (SCs) Al, In, Sn, Pb, Hg, and Nb which compare reasonably well with experimental data.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Discovery of Lorentz-violating type II Weyl fermions in LaAlGe

In quantum field theory, Weyl fermions are relativistic particles that travel at the speed of light and strictly obey the celebrated Lorentz symmetry. Their low-energy condensed matter analogs are Weyl semimetals, which are conductors whose electronic excitations mimic the Weyl fermion equation of motion. Although the traditional (type I) emergent Weyl fermions observed in TaAs still approximately respect Lorentz symmetry, recently, the so-called type II Weyl semimetal has been proposed, where the emergent Weyl quasiparticles break the Lorentz symmetry so strongly that they cannot be smoothly connected to Lorentz symmetric Weyl particles. Despite some evidence of nontrivial surface states, the direct observation of the type II bulk Weyl fermions remains elusive. We present the direct observation of the type II Weyl fermions in crystalline solid lanthanum aluminum germanide (LaAlGe) based on our photoemission data alone, without reliance on band structure calculations. Furthermore, our systematic data agree with the theoretical calculations, providing further support on our experimental results.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Next-level composite fermions

A rich pattern of fractional quantum Hall states in graphene double layers can be naturally explained in terms of two-component composite fermions carrying both intra- and inter-layer vortices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Quantum oscillations and criticality in a fermionic and bosonic dimer model for the cuprates

We study quantum oscillations for a system of fermionic and bosonic dimers and compare the results to those experimentally observed in the cuprate superconductors in their underdoped regime. We argue that the charge carriers obey the Onsager quantization condition and quantum oscillations take on a Lifshitz-Kosevich form. We obtain the effective mass and find good qualitative agreement with experiments if we tune the model to the point where the observed mass divergence at optimum doping is associated to a van Hove singularity at which four free-dimer Fermi pockets touch pairwise in the interior of the Brillouin zone. The same van Hove singularity leads to a maximum in the d -wave superconducting pairing amplitude when antiferromagnetic interactions are included. Furthermore, our combined results therefore suggest that a quantum critical point separating the underdoped and overdoped regimes is marked by the location of the van Hove saddle point in the fermionic dimer dispersion.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Vortical effects in chiral band structures

The chiral vortical effect is a chiral anomaly-induced transport phenomenon characterized by an axial current in a uniformly rotating chiral fluid. It is well understood for Weyl fermions in high energy physics, but its realization in condensed matter band structures, including those of Weyl semimetals, has been controversial. In this work, we develop the Kubo response theory for electrons in a general band structure subject to space- and time-dependent rotation or vorticity relative to the background lattice. For continuum Hamiltonians, we recover the chiral vortical effect in the static limit and the transport or uniform limit when the fluid, strictly, is not a Fermi liquid. In the transport limit of a Fermi liquid, we describe an effect that we dub the gyrotropic vortical effect. The latter is governed by Berry curvature of the occupied bands while the former contains an additional contribution from the magnetic moment of electrons on the Fermi surface. The two vortical effects can be understood as kinematic analogs of the well-known chiral and gyrotropic magnetic effects in chiral band structures. As a result, we address recent controversies in the field and conclude by describing device geometries that exploit Ohmic or Seebeck transport to drive the vortical effects.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Experiments with Ultracold Quantum-degenerate Fermionic Lithium Atoms

Experimental methods of laser and evaporative cooling, used in the production of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates have recently been extended to realize quantum degeneracy in trapped Fermi gases. Fermi gases are a new rich system to explore the implications of Pauli exclusion on scattering properties of the system, and ultimately fermionic superfluidity. We have produced a new macroscopic quantum system, in which a degenerate Li-6 Fermi gas coexists with a large and stable Na-23 BEC. This was accomplished using inter-species sympathetic cooling of fermionic 6Li in a thermal bath of bosonic Na-23. We have achieved high numbers of both fermions (less than 10(exp 5) and bosons (less than 10(exp 6), and Li-6 quantum degeneracy corresponding to one half of the Fermi temperature. This is the first time that a Fermi sea was produced with a condensate as a "refrigerator".

Ketterle, Wolfgang↗

Solvable 3D Kondo Lattice Exhibiting Pair Density Wave, Odd-Frequency Pairing, and Order Fractionalization

The Kondo lattice model plays a key role in our understanding of quantum materials, but a lack of small parameters has posed a long-standing problem. We present a 3 dimensional S= 1 2 Kondo lattice model describing a spin liquid within an electron sea. Strong correlations in the spin liquid are treated exactly, enabling a controlled analytical approach. Like a Peierls or BCS phase, a logarithmically divergent susceptibility leads to an instability into a new phase at arbitrarily small Kondo coupling. Our solution captures a plethora of emergent phenomena, including odd-frequency pairing, pair density wave formation and order fractionalization. The ground-state state is a pair density wave with a fractionalized charge e, S = 1/2 order parameter, formed between electrons and Majorana fermions.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Mechanism for particle fractionalization and universal edge physics in quantum Hall fluids

Abstract Advancing a microscopic framework that rigorously unveils the underlying topological hallmarks of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) fluids is a prerequisite for making progress in the classification of strongly-coupled topological matter. We present a second-quantization framework that reveals an exact fusion mechanism for particle fractionalization in FQH fluids, and uncovers the fundamental structure behind the condensation of non-local operators characterizing topological order in the lowest-Landau-level. We show the first exact analytic computation of the quasielectron Berry connections leading to its fractional charge and exchange statistics, and perform Monte Carlo simulations that numerically confirm the fusion mechanism for quasiparticles. We express the sequence of (bosonic and fermionic) Laughlin second-quantized states, highlighting the lack of local condensation, and present a rigorous constructive subspace bosonization dictionary for the bulk fluid. Finally, we establish universal long-distance behavior of edge excitations by formulating a conjecture based on the DNA, or root state, of the FQH fluid.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Superfluid Boson–Fermion Mixture: Structure Formation and Collective Periodic Motion

Multiple periodic domain formation due to a modulation instability in a boson–fermion mixture superfluid in the unitary regime has been studied. The periodicity of the structure evolves with time. At the early stage of evolution, bosonic domains show the periodic nature, whereas the periodicity in the fermionic (Cooper pair) domains appears at the late stage of evolution. The nature of interatomic interspecies interactions affects the domain formation. In a harmonic trap, the mixture executes an undamped oscillation. The frequency of the oscillation depends on the relative coupling strength between boson–fermion and fermion–fermion. The repulsive boson–fermion interaction reduces the oscillation frequency, whereas the attractive interaction enhances the frequency significantly.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Tetrads in Solids: from Elasticity Theory to Topological Quantum Hall Systems and Weyl Fermions

Theory of elasticity in topological insulators has many common features with relativistic quantum fields interacting with gravitational fields in the tetrad form. Here we discuss several issues in the effective topological (pseudo)electromagnetic response in three-dimensional weak crystalline topological insulators with no time-reversal symmetry that feature elasticity tetrads, including a mixed “axial-gravitational” anomaly. This response has some resemblance to “quasitopological” terms proposed for massless Weyl quasiparticles with separate, emergent fermion tetrads. As an example, we discuss the chiral/axial anomaly in superfluid {sup 3}He-A. We demonstrate the principal difference between the elasticity tetrads and the Weyl fermion tetrads in the construction of the topological terms in the action. In particular, the topological action expressed in terms of the elasticity tetrads cannot be expressed in terms of the Weyl fermion tetrads since in this case the gauge invariance is lost.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Three-dimensional Majorana fermions in chiral superconductors

Using a systematic symmetry and topology analysis, we establish that three-dimensional chiral superconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling and odd-parity pairing generically host low-energy nodal quasiparticles that are spin-nondegenerate and realize Majorana fermions in three dimensions. By examining all types of chiral Cooper pairs with total angular momentum J formed by Bloch electrons with angular momentum j in crystals, we obtain a comprehensive classification of gapless Majorana quasiparticles in terms of energy-momentum relation and location on the Fermi surface. We show that the existence of bulk Majorana fermions in the vicinity of spin-selective point nodes is rooted in the nonunitary nature of chiral pairing in spin-orbit–coupled superconductors. We address experimental signatures of Majorana fermions and find that the nuclear magnetic resonance spin relaxation rate is significantly suppressed for nuclear spins polarized along the nodal direction as a consequence of the spin-selective Majorana nature of nodal quasiparticles. Furthermore, Majorana nodes in the bulk have nontrivial topology and imply the presence of Majorana bound states on the surface, which form arcs in momentum space. We conclude by proposing the heavy fermion superconductor PrOs 4 Sb 12 and related materials as promising candidates for nonunitary chiral superconductors hosting three-dimensional Majorana fermions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Quench dynamics of two-component dipolar fermions subject to a quasiperiodic potential

Motivated by recent experiments in fermionic polar gases, we study the nonequilibrium dynamics of two-component dipolar fermions subject to a quasiperiodic potential. We investigate the localization of charge and spin degrees of freedom time evolving with a long-range spin-SU(2) symmetric fermionic Hamiltonian by calculating experimentally accessible dynamical observables. To study the nonequilibrium dynamics, we start the time evolution with two initial states at half-filling: (i) product state with doublons |↑↓0↑↓0↑↓0↑↓0↑↓$\rangle$ and (ii) product state with singlons |↑↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑↓$\rangle$. We carried out the real-time evolution via the fermionic Hamiltonian using exact diagonalization (ED) and the time-dependent variational principle (TDVP) for finite matrix product states (MPS), within experimentally relevant timescales. For the product state with doublons, we observe a delocalized to localized phase transition varying disorder strengths by monitoring the decay of charge imbalance with time. For the long-range interacting Hamiltonian of our focus, and in the presence of strong enough disorder, starting the time evolution with singlons we find a strong reduction in the spin delocalization, contrary to results of previous studies using the disordered short-range (on-site) Hubbard model with SU(2) symmetry. In addition to the quench dynamics, we also demonstrate the localization of charge and spin in the full energy spectrum of the long-range spin-SU(2) symmetric Hamiltonian by monitoring spin and charge autocorrelation functions. Finally, our predictions for localization of both charge and spin should be observable in ultracold experiments with fermionic dipolar atoms subject to a quasiperiodic potential.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Dirac Fermion Hierarchy of Composite Fermi Liquids

Composite Fermi liquids (CFLs) are compressible states that can occur for 2D interacting fermions confined in the lowest Landau level at certain Landau level fillings. They have been understood as Fermi seas formed by composite fermions which are bound states of electromagnetic fluxes and electrons as reported by Halperin, Lee, and Read [Phys. Rev. B 47, 7312 (1993)]. At half filling, an explicitly particle-hole symmetric theory based on Dirac fermions was proposed by Son [Phys. Rev. X 5, 031027 (2015)] as an alternative low energy description. In this work, we investigate the Berry curvature of CFL model wave functions at a filling fraction of one-quarter, and observe that it is uniformly distributed over the Fermi sea except at the center where an additional π phase was found. Motivated by this, we propose an effective theory which generalizes Son’s half filling theory, by internal gauge flux attachment, to all filling fractions in which fermionic CFLs can occur. As a result, the numerical results support the idea of internal gauge flux attachment.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Crystalline solutions of the Kohn-Sham equations in the fractional quantum Hall regime

A Kohn-Sham density functional approach has recently been developed for the fractional quantum Hall effect, which maps the strongly interacting electrons into a system of weakly interacting composite fermions subject to an exchange correlation potential as well as a density dependent gauge field that mimics the "flux quanta" bound to composite fermions. To get a feel for the role of various terms, we study the behavior of the self-consistent solution as a function of the strength of the exchange correlation potential, which is varied through an ad hoc multiplicative factor. Here, we find that a crystal phase is stabilized when the exchange correlation interaction is sufficiently strong relative to the composite-fermion cyclotron energy. Various properties of this crystal are examined.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Spin dynamics of large-spin fermions in a harmonic trap

Understanding the collective dynamics in a many-body system has been a central task in condensed matter physics. To achieve this task, we develop a Hartree–Fock theory to study the collective oscillations of spinor Fermi system, motivated by recent experiment on spin-9/2 fermions. We observe an oscillation period shoulder for small rotation angles. Different from previous studies, where the shoulder is found connected to the resonance from periodic to running phase, here the system is always in a running phase in the two-body phase space. This shoulder survives even in the many-body oscillations, which could be tested in the experiments. We also show how these collective oscillations evolve from two- to many-body. Our theory provides an alternative way to understand the collective dynamics in large-spin Fermi systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗