SLAC-PUB-16727 Elastoconductivity as a probe of broken mirror symmetries
Patrik Hlobil,1 Akash V. Maharaj,2, 3 Pavan Hosur,2 M.C. Shapiro,3, 4 I.R. Fisher,3, 4 and S. Raghu2, 3 1Karlsruher Institut f¨urTechnologie, Institut f¨urTheorie der Kondensierten Materie, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany 2Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA 3Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA 4Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA (Dated: July 30, 2015) We propose the possible detection of broken mirror symmetries in correlated two-dimensional materials by elastotransport measurements. Using linear response theory we calculate the“shear conductivity” Γxx,xy, defined as the linear change of the longitudinal conductivity σxx due to a shear strain xy. This quantity can only be non-vanishing when in-plane mirror symmetries are broken and we discuss how candidate states in the cuprate pseudogap regime (e.g. various loop current or charge orders) may exhibit a finite shear conductivity. We also provide a realistic experimental protocol for detecting such a response.
I. INTRODUCTION current-loop phases1,2, d-density wave phases3,4, various forms of charge order5–14, electron nematic phases12,15, and pair density wave states16–18 to name just a few. Phases of matter in solids are often empirically distin- Here, we have focussed on two phases that break guished by their transport properties. Electrical trans- among other symmetries, point group and mirror sym- port measurements probe long wavelength properties of metry. These are the variants of phases with loop current the system, and in metallic phases, they are sensitive order as well as those with charge order. Our key result to electronic excitations near the Fermi level. In addi- is that there is a finite and measurable shear conductivity tion, these measurements often exhibit singular features in both states. Furthermore, we predict a parametrically at phase transitions, thus indicating the onset of broken higher shear conductivity response in the orbital current symmetries. However, aside from a few instances such loop phase near its onset temperature, when compared to as the anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnets, the exact the response of charge ordered states. Our analysis was form of the broken symmetry is not usually evident from inspired by an elegant set of experiments19–22 that have a transport measurement. Experiments that aid in di- utilized transport measurements in the presence of strain rectly identifying subtle forms of broken symmetry are as a probe of nematicity. Our goal is to generalize these therefore invaluable in the study of strongly correlated experimental protocols to help uncover more subtle pat- electron materials. terns of symmetry breaking. We also note that while our Motivated by such considerations, we study the linear focus here is on electrical transport coefficients, the sym- change of electrical transport coefficients in the presence metry considerations discussed below apply equally to of applied strain which we refer to as a “shear conductiv- other measurements, such as ultrasound attenuation23, ity”. If such a linear response is present, it is necessarily which also involves the determination of a fourth rank encoded in a fourth-rank tensor. As we discuss below, the tensor. shear conductivity is a binary indicator of point group This paper is organized as follows: we first review the and mirror symmetry breaking and retains its character simple symmetry considerations which lead to a non- as a transport coefficient in probing the dynamics of the vanishing shear conductivity in Sec. II. We then discuss quasiparticles (or lack thereof) near the Fermi level. By how this quantity is actually evaluated in the framework contrast, ordinary transport coefficients, which are sec- of the Kubo formula, before performing explicit calcula- ond rank tensors, are at best indirect markers of such tions for model charge ordered systems and loop current transitions. phases in Sec. III. Next, in Sec. IV we discuss how the Specifically, we discuss how a linear change in longi- response is trained in macroscopic crystals, before clos- ing by discussing realistic experimental protocols for the arXiv:1504.05972v2 [cond-mat.str-el] 28 Jul 2015 tudinal conductivity σxx due to applied strain xy can only occur if certain vertical mirror plane symmetries measurement of the shear conductivity in Sec. V. are broken. When such symmetries are absent a re- sponse of this sort is no longer forbidden, and is there- fore generically finite. While our considerations here are II. SYMMETRY CONSIDERATIONS based solely on symmetry and are therefore quite gen- eral, we are primarily motivated by the cuprate super- We define the shear conductivity as the elastoconduc- conductors, where a variety of broken symmetry phases tivity tensor component Γxx,xy ∂σxx/∂xy, which de- are likely present in the pseudogap regime of hole-doped scribes the change of the longitudinal≡ DC conductivity in- materials. Several candidate order parameter theories duced by a shear strain of the crystal. The tensor Γxx,xy have been proposed for the pseudogap regime including can be non-vanishing only when each of the symmetries
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515. 2 is broken: (i) reflection about the xz-plane, which has a they depend on the distance between the atoms in gen- normal vector along y:σ ˆy (ii) reflection about the yz- eral, and (ii) the momenta are modified according to plane,σ ˆx and (iii) the combinationσ ˆ(x=y) C4. Here, k (1 + ˆ)k. As a consequence, the Hamiltonian is ∗ → s σˆ(x=y) denotes reflection about the vertical (x = y)z modified as Hˆk Hˆ where the superscript s in- − → (1+ˆ)k plane and C4, a fourfold rotation about the principal z- dicates the modified tight binding parameters, and the axis. This follows from the fact that under each of these Brillouin zone is also altered accordingly. symmetry operations, σxx is even while xy is odd. More After introducing strain in (2), a coordinate transfor- generally, in the presence of any of the 3 symmetries men- mation p = (1 + ˆ)k effectively undoes (ii) while in- tioned above, Γ vanishes if the indices contain an odd ij,kl troducing a Jacobian into the expression for σxx. As a number of x or y. An example is Γxy,xx, which represents result, the DC conductivity in the strained crystal can the change in the Hall conductivity due to a longitudinal be written as strain. On the other hand, inversion symmetry imposes ∞ no restrictions Γij,kl. Moreover, Onsager’s reciprocity πe2 Z d2p Z ∂f(E) theorem dictates that Γ (M) = Γ ( M), where M σs = dE ij,kl ji,kl − xx − det(1 + ˆ) (2π)2 ∂E is odd under time-reversal (the final pair of indices is B.Z. −∞ unaffected since strain is a symmetric time-reversal in- ∂Hˆ s ∂Hˆ s 2 variant tensor). Lastly, we remark that reciprocity does ˆs p p tr Ap (E) (1 + xx) + xy (3) not relate Γij,kl and Γil,kj. Further details on symmetry ∂px ∂py properties of Γxx,xy and the full elastotransport tensor in a tetragonal system are provided in Appendix A. where the momentum integration spans the unstrained 1st Brillouin zone of the lattice. The shear conductiv- ity Γxx,xy, can be computed from (3) by setting xx = III. ELASTOCONDUCTIVITY IN MODEL yy = 0, expanding and extracting the linear coefficient s 2 SYSTEMS via σxx = σxx + Γxx,xyxy + (xy). We now apply the formalismO outlined above to study A. Calculation of elastoconductivity two candidate phases relevant to the pseudogap regime of the hole doped cuprates: (i) a particular form of charge order that breaks mirror symmetries, and (ii) two- Having disposed of generalities, we now compute the dimensional loop current phases proposed first by Varma. elastoconductivity tensor from an explicit microscopic model, using the Kubo formula, and taking into ac- count the effects of strain. We consider a non-interacting B. Shear conductivity as a probe of charge order Hamiltonian, which captures the appropriate broken symmetry, and takes the form Despite the remarkable recent experimental progress X † X † = Hk c c = Ψˆ Hˆk Ψˆ , (1) in identifying (generally short range correlated) charge H ,αβ k,α k,β k k k,αβ k order as a ubiquitous member of the cuprate phase diagram,27–32 many fundamental questions of symme- where α, β can be spin, band or other quantum num- try remain. Candidate states such as predominantly d- † † † wave charge order10,33,34 and criss-crossed stripes14 do bers, Ψk = (ck,1, ck,2,...) denote the fermionic creation operators, and k is the crystal momentum. Anticipat- break the mirror symmetries required to produce a finite ing the physical systems that we will apply our results to shear conductivity, while conventional s-wave checker- 5 in the next section, we restrict ourselves to 2D; however, board charge density waves, or unidirectional stripes the formalism generalizes in a straightforward way to 3D. would produce no such response. A possible detection of Without strain, the Kubo formula gives24 broken mirror symmetries is significant as it reveals the presence of robust, thermodynamic, long range ordered ∞ 2 phase in the pseudogap regime. Z d k Z ∂f(E) ∂Hˆ 2 2 ˆ k A model calculation can be done by considering the σxx = πe 2 dE tr Ak (E) − (2π) ∂E ∂kx B.Z. −∞ most general Hamiltonian which includes charge and (2) bond density waves (CDWs and BDWs) in both x- and y- directions. This captures the essential mirror-symmetry i breaking physics, and more complicated candidate states where Aˆk (E) = Gˆk (E + i/2τsc) Gˆk (E i/2τsc) 2π − − (e.g. d-wave charge order) can be constructed from this is the spectral function25 and f(E) is the Fermi distri- model. At mean field level, the density wave Hamiltonian bution function. As explained in the Appendix B, the we consider is given by application of a strain ˆ leads to a change of the Bra- vais lattice vectors a i 1 + ˆ a i , which can easily { } → { } X † X α † be implemented in a tight-binding approach. This has δ DW = φRi cRi cRi + ∆Ri cRi+a α cRi + H.c. 26 H two main effects on a tight-binding Hamiltonian : (i) Ri α=x,y the tight-binding hopping parameters may change since (4) 3