Spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking for spinless fermions on a triangular lattice

Abstract

As a minimal fermionic model with kinetic frustration, we study a system of spinless fermions in the lowest band of a triangular lattice with long-range repulsion. We find that the combination of interactions and kinetic frustration leads to spontaneous symmetry breaking in various ways. Time-reversal symmetry can be broken by two types of loop current patterns, a chiral one and one that breaks the translational lattice symmetry. Moreover, the translational symmetry can also be broken by a density wave forming a kagome pattern or by a Peierls-type trimerization characterized by enhanced correlations among the sites of certain triangular plaquettes (giving a plaquette-centered density wave). We map out the phase diagram as it results from leading order Ginzburg-Landau mean-field theory. Several experimental realizations of the type of system under study are possible with ultracold atoms in optical lattices.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures; v2: added some references & clarifications; accepted for publication in PRL

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Complex charge density waves at Van Hove singularity on hexagonal lattices: Haldane-model phase diagram and potential realization in kagome metals ${\text{AV}}_3{\text{Sb}}_5$
• Site-resolved imaging of ultracold fermions in a triangular-lattice quantum gas microscope
• Classical Antiferromagnetism in Kinetically Frustrated Electronic Models
• Symmetry analysis of translational symmetry broken density waves: application to hexagonal lattices in two dimensions
• Mean-field description of odd-frequency superconductivity with staggered ordering vector
• Ground State Degeneracy of Interacting Spinless Fermions
• Topological States with Broken Translational and Time-Reversal Symmetries in a Honeycomb-Triangular Lattice
• Symmetry breaking and fermionic fractional Chern insulator in topologically trivial bands
• Orbital-driven melting of a bosonic Mott insulator in a shaken optical lattice
• Particle-hole condensates of higher angular momentum in hexagonal systems
• Chiral f-wave Topological Superuid in Triangular Optical Lattices
• Interacting spinless fermions on the square lattice: Charge order, phase separation, and superconductivity
• Temperature-induced spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking on the honeycomb lattice
• Extension of the Ginzburg - Landau approach for ultracold Fermi gases below a critical temperature