Skyrme Insulators: Insulators at the Brink of Superconductivity

Onur Erten, Po-Yao Chang, Piers Coleman, and Alexei M. Tsvelik
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 057603 – Published 4 August 2017
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Abstract

Current theories of superfluidity are based on the idea of a coherent quantum state with topologically protected quantized circulation. When this topological protection is absent, as in the case of He3A, the coherent quantum state no longer supports persistent superflow. Here, we argue that the loss of topological protection in a superconductor gives rise to an insulating ground state. We specifically introduce the concept of a Skyrme insulator to describe the coherent dielectric state that results from the topological failure of superflow carried by a complex-vector order parameter. We apply this idea to the case of SmB6, arguing that the observation of a diamagnetic Fermi surface within an insulating bulk can be understood as a realization of this state. Our theory enables us to understand the linear specific heat of SmB6 in terms of a neutral Majorana Fermi sea and leads us to predict that in low fields of order a Gauss, SmB6 will develop a Meissner effect.

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  • Received 8 February 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.057603

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Onur Erten1,2, Po-Yao Chang1, Piers Coleman1,3, and Alexei M. Tsvelik4

  • 1Center for Materials Theory, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA
  • 2Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, D-01187 Dresden, Germany
  • 3Department of Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
  • 4Division of Condensed Matter Physics and Material Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA

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Issue

Vol. 119, Iss. 5 — 4 August 2017

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