Quantum Spin Liquid Intertwining Nematic and Superconducting Order in Fese.

Despite its seemingly simple composition and structure, the pairing mechanism of FeSe remains an open problem due to several striking phenomena. Among them are nematic order without magnetic order, nodeless gap and unusual inelastic neutron spectra with a broad continuum, and gap anisotropy consistent with orbital selection of unknown origin. Here we propose a microscopic description of a nematic quantum spin liquid that reproduces key features of neutron spectra. We then study how the spin fluctuations of the local moments lead to pairing within a spin-fermion model. We find the resulting superconducting order parameter to be nodeless s±d wave within each domain. Further we show that orbital dependent Kondo-like coupling can readily capture observed gap anisotropy. Our prediction calls for inelastic neutron scattering in a detwinned sample.

RKKY interaction and intrinsic frustration in non-Fermi-liquid metals.

We study the RKKY interaction in non-Fermi-liquid metals. We find that the RKKY interaction mediated by some non-Fermi-liquid metals can be of much longer range than for a Fermi liquid. The oscillatory nature of the RKKY interaction thus becomes more important in such non-Fermi liquids, and gives rise to enhanced frustration when the spins form a lattice. Frustration suppresses the magnetic ordering temperature of the lattice spin system. Furthermore, we find that the spin system with a longer range RKKY interaction can be described by the Brazovskii model, where the ordering wave vector lies on a higher dimensional manifold. Strong fluctuations in such a model lead to a first-order phase transition and/or glassy phase. This may explain some recent experiments where glassy behavior was observed in stoichiometric heavy fermion material close to a ferromagnetic quantum critical point.

Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy for topological insulators.

Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy is a powerful spectroscopy that allows one to investigate the nature of local excitations and energy transfer in the system of interest. We study inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy for topological insulators and investigate the role of inelastic scattering on the Dirac node states on the surface of topological insulators. Local inelastic scattering is shown to significantly modify the Dirac node spectrum. In the weak coupling limit, peaks and steps are induced in second derivative d2I/dV2. In the strong coupling limit, the local negative-U centers are formed at impurity sites, and the Dirac cone structure is fully destroyed locally. At intermediate coupling, resonance peaks emerge. We map out the evolution of the resonance peaks from weak to strong coupling, which interpolate nicely between the two limits. There is a sudden qualitative change of behavior at intermediate coupling, indicating the possible existence of a local quantum phase transition. We also find that, even for a simple local phonon mode, the inherent coupling of spin and orbital degrees in topological insulators leads to the spin-polarized texture in inelastic Friedel oscillations induced by the local mode.

Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition to the superconducting state of heavy-fermion superlattices.

We propose an explanation of the superconducting transitions discovered in the heavy-fermion superlattices by Mizukami et al. [Nature Phys. 7, 849 (2011)] in terms of Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition. We observe that the effective mass mismatch between the heavy-fermion superconductor and the normal metal regions provides an effective barrier that enables quasi-2D superconductivity in such systems. We show that the resistivity data, both with and without magnetic field, are consistent with BKT transition. Furthermore, we study the influence of a nearby magnetic quantum critical point on the vortex system and find that the vortex core energy can be significantly reduced due to magnetic fluctuations. Further reduction of the gap with decreasing number of layers is understood as a result of pair breaking effect of Yb ions at the interface.

Noncontact friction and relaxational dynamics of surface defects.

The motion of a cantilever near sample surfaces exhibits additional friction even before two bodies come into mechanical contact. Called noncontact friction (NCF), this friction is of great practical importance to the ultrasensitive force detection measurements. The observed large NCF of a micron-scale cantilever found an anomalously large damping that exceeds theoretical predictions by 8-11 orders of magnitude. This finding points to a contribution beyond fluctuating electromagnetic fields within the van der Waals approach. Recent experiments reported by Saitoh et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 236103 (2010)] also found a nontrivial distance dependence of NCF. Motivated by these observations, we propose a mechanism based on the coupling of a cantilever to the relaxation dynamics of surface defects. We assume that the surface defects couple to the cantilever tip via spin-spin coupling and their spin relaxation dynamics gives rise to the backaction terms and modifies both the friction coefficient and the spring constant. We explain the magnitude, as well as the distance dependence of the friction due to these backaction terms. Reasonable agreement is found with the experiments.