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Emergent phases often appear when the electronic kinetic energy is comparable to the Coulomb interactions. One approach to seek material systems as hosts of such emergent phases is to realize localization of electronic wavefunctions due to the geometric frustration inherent in the crystal structure, resulting in flat electronic bands. Recently, such efforts have found a wide range of exotic phases in the two-dimensional kagome lattice, including magnetic order, time-reversal symmetry breaking charge order, nematicity, and superconductivity. However, the interlayer coupling of the kagome layers disrupts the destructive interference needed to completely quench the kinetic energy. Here we demonstrate that an interwoven kagome network—a pyrochlore lattice—can host a three dimensional (3D) localization of electron wavefunctions. Meanwhile, the nonsymmorphic symmetry of the pyrochlore lattice guarantees all band crossings at the Brillouin zone X point to be 3D gapless Dirac points, which was predicted theoretically but never yet observed experimentally. Through a combination of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, fundamental lattice model and density functional theory calculations, we investigate the novel electronic structure of a Laves phase superconductor with a pyrochlore sublattice, CeRu2. We observe evidence of flat bands originating from the Ce 4f orbitals as well as flat bands from the 3D destructive interference of the Ru 4d orbitals. We further observe the nonsymmorphic symmetry-protected 3D gapless Dirac cone at the X point. Our work establishes the pyrochlore structure as a promising lattice platform to realize and tune novel emergent phases intertwining topology and many-body interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-volatile phase-change memory devices utilize local heating to toggle between crystalline and amorphous states with distinct electrical properties. Expanding on this kind of switching to two topologically distinct phases requires controlled non-volatile switching between two crystalline phases with distinct symmetries. Here, we report the observation of reversible and non-volatile switching between two stable and closely related crystal structures, with remarkably distinct electronic structures, in the near-room-temperature van der Waals ferromagnet Fe5−δGeTe2. We show that the switching is enabled by the ordering and disordering of Fe site vacancies that results in distinct crystalline symmetries of the two phases, which can be controlled by a thermal annealing and quenching method. The two phases are distinguished by the presence of topological nodal lines due to the preserved global inversion symmetry in the site-disordered phase, flat bands resulting from quantum destructive interference on a bipartite lattice, and broken inversion symmetry in the site-ordered phase. The controlled manipulation of the topological phases of electronic materials is a central goal of modern condensed matter research. Here, the authors demonstrate controllable switching between two distinct topological phases in a layered ferromagnet via thermal cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In weakly coupled BCS superconductors, only electrons within a tiny energy window around the Fermi energy, EF, form Cooper pairs. This may not be the case in strong coupling superconductors such as cuprates, FeSe, SrTiO3 or cold atom condensates where the pairing scale, EB, becomes comparable or even larger than EF. In cuprates, for example, a plausible candidate for the pseudogap state at low doping is a fluctuating pair density wave, but no microscopic model has yet been found which supports such a state. In this work, we write an analytically solvable model to examine pairing phases in the strongly coupled regime and in the presence of anisotropic interactions. Already for moderate coupling we find an unusual finite temperature phase, below an instability temperature Ti, where local pair correlations have non-zero center-of-mass momentum but lack long-range order. At low temperature, this fluctuating pair density wave can condense either to a uniform d-wave superconductor or the widely postulated pair-density wave phase depending on the interaction strength. Our minimal model offers a unified framework to understand the emergence of both fluctuating and long range pair density waves in realistic systems. Pair density wave is a superconducting state with a periodically modulated order parameter which could exist in high-temperature superconductors. Setty et al. develop a unified theoretical framework that accounts for both long-range-ordered and fluctuating pair density waves in the strong-coupling limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bogoliubov Fermi surfaces are contours of zero-energy excitations that are protected in the superconducting state. Here we show that multiband superconductors with dominant spin singlet, intraband pairing of spin-1/2 electrons can undergo a transition to a state with Bogoliubov Fermi surfaces if spin-orbit coupling, interband pairing and time reversal symmetry breaking are also present. These latter effects may be small, but drive the transition to the topological state for appropriate nodal structure of the intra-band pair. Such a state should display nonzero zero-bias density of states and corresponding residual Sommerfeld coefficient as for a disordered nodal superconductor, but occurring even in the pure case. We present a model appropriate for iron-based superconductors where the topological transition associated with creation of a Bogoliubov Fermi surface can be studied. The model gives results that strongly resemble experiments on FeSe1−xSx across the nematic transition, where this ultranodal behavior may already have been observed. Experiments indicate an abrupt change in the pairing gap near the nematic transition in the FeSe1−xSx iron-based superconductor. Here, Setty et al. propose to explain them via a novel spin-1/2 paired state with topologically protected zero-energy excitations over a finite area nodal surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study an anisotropic holographic bottom-up model displaying a quantum phase transition (QPT) between a topologically trivial insulator and a non-trivial Weyl semimetal phase. We analyze the properties of quantum chaos in the quantum critical region. We do not find any universal property of the Butterfly velocity across the QPT. In particular it turns out to be either maximized or minimized at the quantum critical point depending on the direction of propagation. We observe that instead of the butterfly velocity, it is the dimensionless information screening length that is always maximized at a quantum critical point. We argue that the null-energy condition (NEC) is the underlying reason for the upper bound, which now is just a simple combination of the number of spatial dimensions and the anisotropic scaling parameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic and magnetic structures of iron selenide compounds CeOFeSe (2212*) and BaFeSe (123*) are studied by the first-principles calculations. We find that while all these compounds are composed of one-dimensional (1D) Fe chain (or ladder) structures, their electronic structures are not close to be quasi-1D. The magnetic exchange couplings between two nearest-neighbor (NN) chains in 2212* and between two NN two-leg-ladders in 123* are both antiferromagnetic (AFM), which is consistent with the presence of significant third NN AFM coupling, a common feature shared in other iron-chalcogenides, FeTe (11*) and KFeSe (122*). In magnetic ground states, each Fe chain of 2212* is ferromagnetic and each two-leg ladder of 123* form a block-AFM structure. We suggest that all magnetic structures in iron-selenide compounds can be unified into an extended J- J- J model. Spin-wave excitations of the model are calculated and can be tested by future experiments on these two systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]