Kerr effect as evidence of gyrotropic order in the cuprates - revisited

Abstract

Recent analysis has confirmed earlier general arguments that the Kerr response vanishes in any time-reversal invariant system which satisfies the Onsager relations. Thus, the widely cited relation between natural optical activity (gyrotropy) and the Kerr response, employed in Hosur \textit{et al}, Phys. Rev. B \textbf{87}, 115116 (2013), is incorrect. However, there is increasingly clear experimental evidence that, as argued in our paper, the onset of an observable Kerr-signal in the cuprates reflects point-group symmetry rather than time-reversal symmetry breaking.

Derivation of the absence of the Kerr effect in gyrotropic media added; some textual changes for better clarity

References in corpus (2)

• X-ray diffraction observation of charge density wave order at zero magnetic field in ortho-II YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{6.54}$
• Relationship of Time Reversal Symmetry Breaking with Optical Kerr Rotation

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Theory of Intertwined Orders in High Temperature Superconductors
• Parity-breaking phases of spin-orbit-coupled metals with gyrotropic, ferroelectric and multipolar orders
• Optical detection and manipulation of spontaneous gyrotropic electronic order in a transition-metal dichalcogenide semimetal
• Notes on Constraints for the Observation of Polar Kerr Effect in Complex Materials
• Dynamic chiral magnetic effect and Faraday rotation in macroscopically disordered helical metals
• Polar Kerr effect from a time-reversal symmetry breaking unidirectional charge density wave