An Anomalously Elastic, Intermediate Phase in Randomly Layered Superfluids, Superconductors, and Planar Magnets

Abstract

We show that layered quenched randomness in planar magnets leads to an unusual intermediate phase between the conventional ferromagnetic low-temperature and paramagnetic high-temperature phases. In this intermediate phase, which is part of the Griffiths region, the spin-wave stiffness perpendicular to the random layers displays anomalous scaling behavior, with a continuously variable anomalous exponent, while the magnetization and the stiffness parallel to the layers both remain finite. Analogous results hold for superfluids and superconductors. We study the two phase transitions into the anomalous elastic phase, and we discuss the universality of these results, and implications of finite sample size as well as possible experiments.

4 pages, 1 eps figure included, final version as published

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Disorder in quantum many-body systems
• Pascal conductance series in ballistic one-dimensional LaAlO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ channels
• Finding the elusive sliding phase in superfluid-normal phase transition smeared by c-axis disorder
• Some Consequences of the Thermodynamic Cost of System Identification
• Sliding phase in randomly stacked 2D superfluids/superconductors
• Parallel and Perpendicular Susceptibility Above $T_c$ in La${}_{2-x}$Sr${}_x$CuO${}_4$ Single Crystals
• Anomalous elasticity in a disordered layered XY model
• Griffiths Physics in an Ultracold Bose Gas
• Monte Carlo simulations of a disordered superconductor-metal quantum phase transition
• The two critical temperatures conundrum in La${}_{1.83}$Sr${}_{0.17}$CuO${}_4$