Electronic in-plane symmetry breaking at field-tuned quantum criticality in CeRhIn5

Abstract

Electronic nematics are exotic states of matter where electronic interactions break a rotational symmetry of the underlying lattice, in analogy to the directional alignment without translational order in nematic liquid crystals. Intriguingly such phases appear in the copper- and iron-based superconductors, and their role in establishing high-temperature superconductivity remains an open question. Nematicity may take an active part, cooperating or competing with superconductivity, or may appear accidentally in such systems. Here we present experimental evidence for a phase of nematic character in the heavy fermion superconductor CeRhIn5. We observe a field-induced breaking of the electronic tetragonal symmetry of in the vicinity of an antiferromagnetic (AFM) quantum phase transition at Hc~50T. This phase appears in out-of-plane fields of H*~28T and is characterized by substantial in-plane resistivity anisotropy. The anisotropy can be aligned by a small in-plane field component, with no apparent connection to the underlying crystal structure. Furthermore no anomalies are observed in the magnetic torque, suggesting the absence of metamagnetic transitions in this field range. These observations are indicative of an electronic nematic character of the high field state in CeRhIn5. The appearance of nematic behavior in a phenotypical heavy fermion superconductor highlights the interrelation of nematicity and unconventional superconductivity, suggesting nematicity to be a commonality in such materials.

References in corpus (13)

• Evidence for an electron nematic phase transition in underdoped iron pnictide superconductors
• Hidden Magnetism and Quantum Criticality in the Heavy Fermion Superconductor CeRhIn5
• Nematic and meta-nematic transitions in the iron pnictides
• Formation of a Nematic Fluid at High Fields in Sr3Ru2O7
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• Fermi surface reconstruction and multiple quantum phase transitions in the antiferromagnet CeRhIn${}_5$
• High resolution magnetostriction measurements in pulsed magnetic fields using Fibre Bragg Gratings
• Low temperature broken symmetry phases of spiral antiferromagnets
• Field induced density wave in the heavy fermion compound CeRhIn5
• The magnitude of the magnetic exchange interaction in the heavy fermion antiferromagnet CeRhIn${}_5$
• Probing the nodal gap in the pressure-induced heavy fermion superconductor CeRhIn5

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