ABSTRACT
We theoretically study the effects of electron-electron interaction in twisted bilayer graphene in a transverse dc electric field. When the twist angle is not very small, the electronic spectrum of the bilayer consists of four Dirac cones inherited from each graphene layer. An applied bias voltage leads to the appearance of two holelike and two electronlike Fermi surface sheets with perfect nesting among electron and hole components. Such a band structure is unstable with respect to the exciton band-gap opening due to the screened Coulomb interaction. The exciton order parameter is accompanied by spin-density-wave order. The gap depends on the twist angle and can be varied by a bias voltage. This result correlates well with recent transport measurements [J.-B. Liu et al., Sci. Rep. 5, 15285 (2015)SRCEC32045-232210.1038/srep15285]. Our proposal allows the coexistence of (i) an externally controlled semiconducting gap and (ii) a nontrivial multicomponent magnetic order. This is interesting for both fundamental research and applications.
ABSTRACT
Half-metallicity (full spin polarization of the Fermi surface) usually occurs in strongly correlated electron systems. We demonstrate that doping a spin-density wave insulator in the weak-coupling regime may also stabilize half-metallic states. In the absence of doping, the spin-density wave is formed by four nested bands [i.e., each band is characterized by charge (electron or hole) and spin (up or down) labels]. Of these four bands, only two accumulate the charge carriers introduced by doping, forming a half-metallic two-valley Fermi surface. Depending on the parameters, the spin polarizations of the electronlike and holelike valleys may be either (i) parallel or (ii) antiparallel. The Fermi surface of (i) is fully spin polarized (similar to usual half-metals). Case (ii), referred to as "a spin-valley half-metal," corresponds to complete polarization with respect to the spin-valley operator. The properties of these states are discussed.
ABSTRACT
Tight-binding calculations predict that the AA-stacked bilayer graphene has one electron and one hole conducting band, and that the Fermi surfaces of these bands coincide. We demonstrate that as a result of this degeneracy, the bilayer becomes unstable with respect to a set of spontaneous symmetry violations. Which of the symmetries is broken depends on the microscopic details of the system. For strong on-site Coulomb interaction we find that antiferromagnetism is the most stable order parameter. For an on-site repulsion energy typical for graphene systems, the antiferromagnetic gap can exist up to room temperature.
ABSTRACT
The Hubbard-I approximation is generalized to allow for direct evaluation of the equal-time anomalous two-electron propagator for the Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice. This propagator is compared against the quantum Monte Carlo data obtained by Aimi and Imada (2007 J. Phys. Soc. Japan 76 113708) in the limit of strong electron-electron interaction. The Hubbard-I predictions are in good qualitative agreement with the Monte Carlo results. In particular, d-wave correlations decay as cr( - 3) ('free-electron' behaviour) if the separation r exceeds 2-3 lattice constants. However, the Hubbard-I approximation underestimates the coefficient c by a factor of about 3. We conclude that the Hubbard-I approximation, despite its simplicity and artefacts, captures the qualitative behaviour of the two-particle propagator for the Hubbard model, at least for moderate values of r.
ABSTRACT
Optical characteristics of manganites with nanoscale electronic phase separation are simulated using an exact renormalization group transformation in Kirchhoff's equations. The local electric field is found to be highly inhomogeneous, exceeding the incident-wave field by orders of magnitude when the permittivities of the phases have opposite signs and plasmons are excited. The spatial scale of the field fluctuations suggests the collective character of the plasmon modes. The results of the simulation explain the optical anomalies of La(0.7)Ca(0.3)MnO(3) single crystals and films in the infrared frequency range in a natural way.
ABSTRACT
We study the escape rate of flux quanta in a long Josephson junction having an asymmetric spatial inhomogeneous critical current density. Such a junction can behave as a ratchet when driven by an ac current in the presence of a magnetic field. This rectification gives rise to a dc voltage V(dc) across the junction. The usual approach of particlelike tunneling cannot describe this rectification, and a quantum field theory description is required. We also show that, under specific conditions, the rectification direction, and consequently V(dc), can change its sign when varying the temperature T near the crossover temperature T* between the quantum and classical regimes.
ABSTRACT
We predict a new branch of surface Josephson plasma waves (SJPWs) in layered superconductors for frequencies higher than the Josephson plasma frequency. In this frequency range, the permittivity tensor components along and transverse to the layers have different signs, which is usually associated with negative refraction. However, for these frequencies, the bulk Josephson plasma waves cannot be matched with the incident and reflected waves in the vacuum, and, instead of the negative-refractive properties, abnormal surface modes appear within the frequency band expected for bulk modes. We also discuss the excitation of high-frequency SJPWs by means of the attenuated-total-reflection method.
ABSTRACT
The effect of electron-lattice interaction is studied for a strongly correlated electron system described by the two-band Hubbard model. A two-fold effect of electron-lattice interaction is taken into account: in non-diagonal terms, it changes the effective bandwidth, whereas in diagonal terms, it shifts the positions of the bands and the chemical potential. It is shown that this interaction significantly affects the doping range corresponding to the electronic phase separation and can even lead to a jump-like transition between states with different values of strains.
ABSTRACT
We describe the decomposition of Abrikosov vortices into decoupled pancake vortices in superconductors having both electron and hole charge carriers. We estimate the critical current of such a decomposition, at which a superconducting-normal state transition occurs, and find that it is very sensitive to the magnetic field and temperature. The effect can be observed in recently synthesized self-doped high-Tc layered superconductors with electrons and holes coexisting in different Cu-O planes and in artificial p-n superconductor heterostructures. The sensitivity of the critical current to a magnetic field may be used for sensors and detectors of a magnetic field, which can be built up from the superconductor heterostructures.
ABSTRACT
The formation of droplets (or breathers) of vortex matter in Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8) crystals pumped by the low-frequency ac magnetic field is observed by magneto-optic imaging. The droplets nucleate at the points of crossing the planar defects. The magnetic flux in the droplet and the droplet size increase with time. When the flux in the droplet exceeds a critical value, the droplet shifts along the defect to the sample bulk and a new droplet with the opposite flux direction starts to nucleate at the same point. As a result, a beadlike structure of the droplets arises along the defect. A possible explanation of the phenomenon is proposed.
ABSTRACT
We derive a quantum field theory of Josephson plasma waves (JPWs) in layered superconductors, which describes two types of interacting JPW bosonic quanta (one heavy and one lighter). We propose a mechanism of enhancement of macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) in stacks of intrinsic Josephson junctions. Because of the long-range interaction between junctions in layered superconductors, the calculated MQT escape rate Gamma has a nonlinear dependence on the number of junctions in the stack. We show that the crossover temperature between quantum and thermal escape increases when increasing the number of junctions. This allows us to quantitatively describe striking recent experiments in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta stacks.
ABSTRACT
We consider the superposition of a weak and a strong force acting on an overdamped particle moving on either an asymmetric-periodic or a double-well potential. The velocity of the particle has only harmonics of the strong force, when the particle either oscillates near a minimum or runs away from it. Near a threshold drive (bistable point) separating these two dynamical regimes, the weak force drastically changes the velocity spectrum, greatly amplifying the mixing harmonics. This effect can be used either to amplify or to shift the frequency of a weak signal and can be observed in a wide variety of systems, including domain walls in a ferromagnet, SQUIDs, and tiny particles in a ratchet potential.
ABSTRACT
The Josephson vortex (JV) lattice is a periodic array that scatters electromagnetic waves in the THz-frequency range. We show that JV lattices can produce a photonic band-gap structure (THz photonic crystal) with easily tunable forbidden zones controlled by the in-plane magnetic field. The scattering of electromagnetic waves by JVs results in a strong magnetic-field dependence of the reflection and transparency. Fully transparent or fully reflected frequency windows can be conveniently tuned by the in-plane magnetic field. These proposals are potentially useful for controllable THz filters.
ABSTRACT
The phase diagram for doped manganites and related compounds is analyzed in terms of the Kondo-lattice model taking into account an interplay between electrons localized due to lattice distortions and those in the band states. It is shown that the number of itinerant charge carriers can be significantly lower than that implied by the doping level. The competition between the homogeneous (ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic) and phase-separated states is discussed and a strong tendency to the phase separation was revealed for a wide doping range.
ABSTRACT
The physical nature of the macroturbulence in vortex matter in YBCO superconductors is investigated by means of a magneto-optic study of the instability in a single crystal prepared especially for this purpose. The instability develops near those sample edges where the oppositely directed flow of vortices and antivortices, guided by twin boundaries, is characterized by the discontinuity of the tangential component of the hydrodynamic velocity. This fact indicates that the macroturbulence is analogous to the instability of fluid flow at a surface of a tangential velocity discontinuity in classical hydrodynamics and is related to the anisotropic flux motion in the superconductor.
ABSTRACT
A possible mechanism of the macroturbulence instability observed in fluxline systems during remagnetization of superconductors is proposed. It is shown that when a region with flux is invaded by antiflux the interface can become unstable if there is a relative tangential flux motion. This condition occurs at the interface owing to the anisotropy of the viscous motion of vortices. The phenomenon is similar to the instability of the tangential discontinuity in classical hydrodynamics. The obtained results are supported by magneto-optical observations of flux distribution on the surface of a YBCO single crystal with twins.
