Superconductivity near a nematoelastic quantum critical point

Abstract

We study the pairing instability of a two-dimensional metallic system induced by Ising-nematic quantum fluctuations in the presence of an unavoidable relevant coupling of the nematic order parameter to the elastic modes (acoustic phonons) of the lattice. We find that this nematoelastic coupling ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{latt}}$ leads to a decrease of both the superconducting (SC) critical temperature $T_c$ and the gap function $\Delta$, regardless of the gap symmetry. Interestingly, we show that ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{latt}}$ provides a knob that allows us to investigate the emergence of the SC phase at low temperatures, as an instability from either a non-Fermi liquid or a Fermi liquid normal state. The phase transitions between the SC and these normal states are characterized by different critical exponents, which may also vary for each gap symmetry. Finally, we argue that these results might explain the dependence of $T_c$ in the vicinity of the nematic quantum critical point exhibited by the compound FeSe${}_{1-x}$S${}_x$.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Evidence for an electron nematic phase transition in underdoped iron pnictide superconductors
• Electronic liquid crystal state in the high-temperature superconductor YBCO(6.45)
• Nematic and meta-nematic transitions in the iron pnictides
• Quantum phase transitions of metals in two spatial dimensions: II. Spin density wave order
• Low energy effective theory of Fermi surface coupled with U(1) gauge field in 2+1 dimensions
• Enhancement of superconductivity near a nematic quantum critical point
• Are non-Fermi-liquids stable to Cooper pairing?
• Thermodynamic evidence for nematic phase transition at the onset of pseudogap in YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_y$
• Electronic in-plane symmetry breaking at field-tuned quantum criticality in CeRhIn5
• A controlled expansion for certain non-Fermi liquid metals
• Scattering mechanisms and electrical transport near an Ising nematic quantum critical point
• The Effect of Repulsion on Superconductivity at Low Density

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Microscopic origin of the nemato-elastic coupling and dynamics of hybridized collective nematic-phonon excitations
• Superconductivity near an Ising nematic quantum critical point in two dimensions